Purple Hibiscus Essay

In the Purple Hibiscus, “the role of silence and violence voice,” in the novel centers on Igbo family living in the Southeastern part of Nigeria. Through the narrator eyes of a fifteen-year-old Kambili, the family is wealthy and privileged in Nigerian's classification. Eugene is a loving and generous father to his two children and husband. He is a successful businessman and devoted Catholic convert. However, Eugene abusive violence has taken the voices of the entire family. Thus, the mother (Beatrice Achike), Kambili and Jaja have all suffered at the hands of their father and husband. The novel opens with Jaja being rebelling against his devoted Catholic father by skipping communion on Palm Sunday. His sister Kambili is fifteen years old and super painfully shy. The family lives under strict rules of their father’s expectations. His violence streaks and often files into a fit of moral

Mama (Beatrice Achier) is a quiet and religious mother. She consistently obeys the rules of her husband. Moreover, the abuse of her husband has gotten out of control. The mother has lost a baby because of her husband’s physical abuse. She does not speak out against her husband Eugene’s violence. His abuse has gotten worse, and yet he causes another miscarriage again. In her quote “you know that small table where we keep the family bible, nne? Your father broke it on my belly" (p. 248). That reveals his intense violence toward his wife. After the second miscarriage, she realizes she must protect herself and her two children from his malicious behavior. As a result, to stop the violence she had to fight back using the only solutions available to her was to poison him. “I started putting the poison in his tea before I come to Nuka,” said Mama (Beatrice Achike) (p. 290). Mama (Beatrice Achike) poisoned her husband to protect everyone in her family. Their father died in the hands of his family instability to sustain his