Purple Hibiscus Essay

My Essay
In What Way Does The Author Portray The Character Of Kambili
By Emely Yafai 9X
In the novel, Purple Hibiscus, Adichie clearly portrays the conflicting unjust treatment of Kambili’s household where her father is head of the family. Where she is ordered to follow a strict schedule. When visiting Aunty Ifeoma and her family Kambili senses independence she has never experienced before, she see’s thing she didn’t used to see, she is exposed to the different way of life, to freedom something which she is not used to!
We also witness the transformation of Kambili Achike from a quiet, overpowered and wary girl into a more confident, mature and happy young woman. This change is brought upon by significant characters in the story, who
help show Kambili how thrilling the world can be and how she also has a place within this joyous world. Through this Kambili finds a way to release herself from her father’s hold over her and come into her own.
The author purposely pointed out the Catholic upbringing of papa in the novel and her brother, Jaja, as a complete difference to their Auntie’s strong Igbo traditional customs.
Adichie shows there is a clash when it comes to restriction to freedom with the Auntie’s reaction to ‘Papa’s schedule’ when Jaja ‘shifted on his chair before pulling his schedule out of his pocket’. In response to this, the aunty ‘started to laugh so hard that she staggered’, which states a sense of shock, humour and unfamiliarity when coming across their firm and overbearing childhood.
Not only does Adichie use Aunty Ifeoma’s character to show the clear unfair treatment with freedom, but it is also portrayed through Kambili’s cousins, Amaka and Obiora.
When Jaja informs them on the schedule they follow every day, Amisaka scornfully remarks: ‘Interesting. So now rich people can’t decide what to do day by day, they need a schedule to tell them.’
This is expressed in a mocking tone to suggest the cousin’s scorn and detachment to Kambili and Jaja, indicating she can’t relate to their ‘rich’ lifestyle whilst also implying she wouldn’t want to comply to it either.

We can tell from reading Purple Hibiscus that Kambili obviously looks up to her father and is very obedient towards him! She wants to make him happy, pleased and proud and the author shows us this through this quote
‘I wanted to make Papa proud, to do as well as he had done’
From this quote we can tell she loves her father, because she wants to make him feel pleasure from her achievements, to make him proud and I would think from this quotation that she looks up to him and uses his achievements as an example!
I think this because it says ‘to do as well as he had done’, when we say the word proud we mean feeling pride and giving cause for delight!
She wants to give Papa a reason to be proud to show him she can do as well as him. ‘I wanted’ meaning she had the desire to make him proud and happy. I think maybe she might need him to be proud of her so she feels relief, happiness, and accomplishment!
She wants and needs him to be content, so she knows she isn’t a disappointment to him and that she is just as intelligent as him. She wanted to show Papa she can be clever, obedient and brilliant just like him!
Her making him proud is showing and proving to him she can do it and she can make him feel pleased and satisfied.
She is desperate for her father’s approval. Her father’s view matters more than the teacher’s view of her and her work. She wants to have her peak to show her father that she is capable of achieving great things!

After failing her father because she came second in her class not first, Kambili feels heartbroken and can’t help but think of all the things she would have wanted him to do but more needed him to do. Adichie is trying to show us this by using this quote because she has put the specific words

‘I needed him to smile at me…’

So she is telling us Kambili needed something (his smile) because it was essential to her. She needed something that she knew she couldn’t have. Not having it made her want it even more! She needed him to smile, to turn up the corners of his mouth to show pleasure! His smile is clearly valuable to her.
She needs him to show her that he is happy that she has done what he wants. By smiling he is showing her an act of happiness, but because he hasn’t she knows that how he isn’t feeling joyful and pleased but the opposite which is sad and disappointed! She wants what she can’t have and knows she won’t get!
By coming 2nd in her class, papa is disappointed and shows her this by telling her she is choosing to fail so he is basically telling her she didn’t put enough effort in and she didn’t want to come 1st that much! By smiling at her he is giving her confidence and reassurance, he is showing her an act of praise but when he doesn’t smile she feels worthless, empty and insecure.
This quotation shows she is very sensitive and his actions and words affect her, more than he knows!!!
Papa is a very important part of Kambili’s life but Jaja her brother is also one of the most precious people to her. She loves her brother and when he is in trouble it pains her and she tries to avoid it.
The author is using this quote to show Kambili is caring, has a good heart and cares about her brother! She doesn’t want him to get hurt and is desperate to avoid tricky situations ‘I was looking at him, my shocked eyes begged him to seal his mouth’
The quote demonstrates she was using her eyes to communicate with him, so when they needed to say something to one another and they needed to say it just between the two of them they would use this type of communication! He was causing her to feel shocked and upset.
She was stunned by his behaviour and was quite taken aback. She was staring at him, trying to get his attention, trying to stop him from making a big mistake! She was so desperate to do this so she begged him not to with her eyes. She was asking earnestly to spare himself from Papa’s punishment and pain that would surely
come.
She obviously loves her brother and is trying to protect him the only way she knows how! She wanted ‘him to seal his mouth’ so to prevent him from doing and saying something crazy/stupid! I think that what is happening is very uncomfortable, shocking, tense and upsetting for her and she wants it to end and her brother safe from papa and his anger that she know will come if he says something!
She is undeniably scared of what her father is capable of and is very concerned for her brother. She is without doubt finding the whole thing very distressful and is trying her best to defuse the situation!

Throughout the book the author shows that Kambili has grown as a person and her life has changed drastically. For example her life was planned out like her schedules but then her father passes away and her life falls to pieces because she loved him and then Jaja goes to prison for supposedly putting poison in his tea when it was her mother, so she also loses her brother!
After the grief and sadness that came from everything especially Jaja going to prison this quote shows there may be a sign of hope for Kambili and her family
‘I am laughing, I reach out and place my arm around Mama’s shoulder and she leans towards me and smiles’
This quote shows that there is light at the end of the tunnel. That there is hope for her and her family. She has been through a lot of heartache and pain. With her father who has died suddenly and her brother in prison, it has been hard for her in different ways!
Her mother is smiling and becoming happy again now she knows her son will be out of prison soon.
When her mother is happy, I think kambili feels happy to. So things have change for Kambili because her father’s actions and words used to affect her but now he is gone the mother has more of an effect on her but in a totally different way! Kambili does not fear her mother and is free to be herself around her.
It says she is laughing so she is happy and humouress sometimes. This shows that there is hope for Kambili and she can be happy and relaxed. During most of the book Kambili would never dare laugh at home or in school and especially never in front of her father.
But in this last chapter she is confident and she doesn’t care who’s watching because she is the happiest she has been in a long time. She reaches out to her mother, showing that they will get through it together, they will be happy together. By reaching out she is caring for her mother and she shows her mother this.
She wants to be close to her mother to feel togetherness and she knows that one day they will be a family again. And I believe at long last that Kambili finally has hope for a brighter future, and that one day they will be not just a family again, but a happy one
too!

Kambili is a character in the book who proves to be more than an insecure timid and afraid girl who has low self-esteem issues. She shows us she is more than that and turns out be mature, confident and independent.
I think a lot of people can relate to Kambili as a person, because she wants to please everyone, to be an overachiever. But when she fails something or someone it hurts her and it makes her feel like she isn’t good enough. Kambili’s life was expected to be boring with the same routines but turns out to be more tragic and in depth then I thought.
I think Kambili is a caring girl who deserves to be happy and although she has faced many hardships she has finally come out of it a stronger better person!!