Themes in Purple Hibiscus

In our world, there are certain things that people need in order to be free, and until you have those things, your identity cannot be fully achieved. In every human, whether it is apparent or not, there are basic human needs such as food and shelter, that are considered to be number one on the pyramid of human needs. After food and shelter there are safety and relationships, and after that comes different individualistic ideas. In Purple Hibiscus, Kambili is an embodiment of this idea, for she lacks safety and personal relationships in her own home such as that of her father. This makes it impossible for her to have her own voice. In Purple Hibiscus, Adichie shows that in order to find freedom and a voice within yourself, you must leave behind what binds you. She portrays this idea with Kambili being unable to express her identity until she excavates her authenticity once she found herself and a relationship in Aunty Ifeoma.
At the beginning of Purple Hibiscus, Adichie demonstrates that patriarchal fear can squander self-actualization and she does so by using Kambili’s silence in her own home and community as a symbol of what fear can take away. On the outside, Kambili is viewed as shy and wealthy, but once someone knows her within her own home, it is seen that her home life strongly affects her. Originally, Kambili is just quiet, but in times of distress she does not say what she intends to say. That is no longer considered ‘shyness’ it is called fear. Within the first chapter, while comforting her mother, after her father broke Beatrice’s figurines, she wanted to say that she was “sorry Papa broke [Mama’s] figurines, but the words that came out were “‘I am sorry your figurines broke, Mama” (Adichie 10). Here, there is the clear issue of intent versus action, because even though her original instinct is to let out the truth, the fear inside of her results in her unable to speak badly about her father. Adichie is saying that Kambili is bound by the fear and