HOME IS NOWHERE: NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN COLONIZED WORLDS

by
JULIA A. TIGNER
(Under the Direction of Barbara McCaskill)
ABSTRACT
The Bildungsroman, a term that derived from German literary criticism, is a genre of
literature that highlights popular conceptions of manhood and depicts the growth of the male
protagonist. Many female authors use the Bildungsroman as a form of cultural expression not
only to transform patriarchal views, but also to redefine femininity, articulate cultural conflict,
and describe what it means to be a woman in a colonized culture. I will revisit this topic in
Michelle Cliffs Abeng (1984) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies Purple Hibiscus (2003), and
examine family dynamics in order to show how each female protagonist negotiates the
complexities of a hybrid identity and attempts to harmonize two opposite cultures.

INDEX WORDS:

Bildungsroman, hybridity, home, island, European, African

HOME IS NOWHERE: NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN COLONIZED WORLDS

by

JULIA A. TIGNER
B.A., Tuskegee University, 2005

A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree

MASTER OF ARTS

ATHENS, GEORGIA
2007

 2007
Julia A. Tigner
All Rights Reserved

HOME IS NOWHERE: NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN COLONIZED WORLDS

by

JULIA A. TIGNER

Electronic Version Approved:

Maureen Grasso
Dean of the Graduate School
The University of Georgia
August 2007

Major Professor:

Dr. Barbara McCaskill

Committee:

Dr. Valerie Babb

Dr. Doris Kadish

DEDICATION
To my family with gratitude and love.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I would like to give honor to God for helping me see this project to completion. I
would like to thank my mentor and major professor, Dr. Barbara McCaskill, for her invaluable
assistance and dedication in assisting me not only with my thesis writing, but my course work as
well. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Valerie Babb and Dr. Doris Kadish,
not only for their assistance and support in writing this thesis but also for stimulating my interest
in the complexities of identity. Many thanks to several of my professors who have expanded my
love for literature and broadened my interest in scholarly topics: Dr. Kristen Boudreau, Dr. Chris
Cuomo, Dr. Lesley Feracho, Dr. Karim Traore, and Dr. Lisa Van Zwoll. Other expressions of my
gratitude go out to my Tuskegee family which consists of professors and fellow comrades who
help foster my growth as a literary scholar. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my
parents, sister, brother, a host of aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends for their continuous
support.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................v
CHAPTERS
1

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................1

BETWEEN AFRICANNESS AND EUROPEANNESS: FORGING IDENTITIES

IN MICHELLE CLIFFS ABENG ..........................................................................7

TRADITION OR MODERNITY IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIES

PURPLE HIBISCUS..............................................................................................27

CONCLUSION............................................................................................................45

BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................................................................................49

vi

CHAPTER ONE:
INTRODUCTION
Traditionally, reaching manhood differs significantly from reaching womanhood because
of the way in which society socializes boys and girls. Expectations associated with becoming a
lady are to assume the roles of nurturer and/or caretaker. On the other hand, expectations
associated with becoming a man are to become independent and to assume the role of provider.
The traditional male Bildungsroman, a term that derived from German literary criticism, is a
genre of literature that highlights popular conceptions of manhood and depicts the growth of the
male protagonist. Often, an outside force and/or catalyst coerces the protagonist to leave home to
reach maturity. Usually at the end of the traditional male Bildungsroman, the hero has
accomplished something great and becomes a man through his efforts. (The quotations are
mine for emphasis). Similar definitions of the male Bildungsroman are given by Pin-chia Feng in
her book The Female Bildungsroman by Toni Morrison and Maxine Hong Kingston: A
Postmodern Reading (1997) and Christi Rishoi in her book From Girl to Woman: American
Womens Coming-of-Age Narratives (2003).
Female authors, however, subvert masculine structures such as the Bildungsroman and
attempt to transform the ideology behind womanhood. When the traditional Bildungsroman is
subverted, several elements distinctive to the male tradition change for females in their comingof-age stories. The female Bildungsroman focuses on the development of the female protagonist
and her epiphany as she reaches adolescence (Feng 11-12). In addition, the female genre often
includes heroines that reject traditional female roles and engage in activities that are outside the

conventional female domain. In the protagonists emergence from girlhood to womanhood, she
often contends with social expectations associated with becoming a lady, typically learned from
her parents, and she must decide whether she will conform to these expectations or resist them.1
Like many female authors, Michelle Cliff and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie use the
Bildungsroman as a form of cultural expression not only to challenge patriarchal views, but also
to redefine femininity, articulate cultural conflict, and describe what it means to be a woman in a
colonized culture. In their coming-of-age stories, these authors recognize that all aspects that
form identity are interwoven or interlocking entities that affect how each protagonist perceives
herself and are inseparable, suggesting that one factor is not more important than the other. I will
revisit this topic in Michelle Cliffs Abeng (1984) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies Purple
Hibiscus (2003) in order to examine the ways in which these writers negotiate the complexities
of hybrid identities in their female protagonists. I will also examine the ways in which each
author strategically uses her female protagonist to articulate the necessity for balance.
Furthermore, I will convey how each female protagonist questions societal notions and attempts
to reconcile a hybrid identity through equilibrium.
The concept of hybridity is a useful theory in understanding marginalized writers
experiences and their struggle to obtain a full identity. It provides new definitions of formulating
an identity and takes many forms, which include cultural, political, and linguistic aspects.
Hybridity seeks to add some nuance to ways in which individuals form an identity and combines
two diverse cultures and/or traditions all at the same time. By emphasizing the notion that
identity is fluid and not fixed, hybridity expresses the multiplicity of identities and points to the
resistance and refusal of choosing a single identity (Anthias 625). Non-hierarchal and

The depth of this tradition remains prevalent amongst works such as Jamaica Kincaids Girl (1978), Toni
Morrisons The Bluest Eye (1970), and in other literary works.

multifarious, hybridity addresses the concept of transculturation and allows individuals to

dialogue with cultural components and embrace multiple identities (Morejn 229). It
encompasses a variety of cultural components that pertain to self identity and asserts that most
individuals contend with negotiating multiple identities in different spaces whether it is through
religion, race, ethnicity, and other factors. For this reason, forging identities can be a form of
resistance to dominant homogeneous cultural forms (Anthias 626).
Through vivid descriptions of family relationships, the coming-of-age novels Abeng and
Purple Hibiscus articulate the complexities of hybrid identities. Cliffs Abeng explores the life of
Clare Savage, a light-skinned Jamaican girl growing up in the 1950s, who is torn between a
father who embraces European culture and a mother who embraces her African heritage.
Likewise, Adichies Purple Hibiscus describes a Nigerian girl named Kambili Achike who is
divided between the rigid doctrine of Catholicism on the one hand and Igbo culture and its
religious practices on the other. In each novel, these hybrid characters go beyond societys
limited definitions of identity by creating a new identity that includes aspects of both their father
and mother. Each female protagonist eventually tries to find ways of merging two opposite
cultures without creating more hierarchies and privileging one identity over the other.
The relationship between the female protagonist and her parents is emblematic of a
triangle, which includes the child and two authority figures, the mother and father. While the
middle generation, which represents the father, rejects tradition and embraces values of the
dominant culture, the maternal figure is closer to traditional customs of the first generation.2 In
each novel, the maternal figure becomes a mediator and anchors the third generation in
traditional cultures. The father is dominant over the mother and symbolizes the impact of

The first generation that I refer to in Purple Hibiscus is the grandfather. In Abeng, the first generation is Clares
ancestors that the omniscient narrator speaks of such as her great-great grandfather and her grandmother.

colonization. Conversely, the mother links her daughter to a forgotten, overlooked, African
and/or indigenous heritage. In each novel, however, the female protagonist struggles to form an
individual self separate from the two identities imposed on her. For this reason, she is torn
between two cultures which bring to the forefront the following questions: How are our identities
constructed? Do we have agency when it comes to forming our identities? In what ways are we
forced to conform to a fixed cultural identity?
The years of puberty and adolescence, addressed in each novel through the female
protagonist, are characterized by fundamental changes and challenges, and these are the years
when each protagonist deals with questions of identity and develops her own unique ideals aside
from her parents values. As they change from child to adolescent, the protagonists relationship
with their parents changes. Each novel addresses this change and demonstrates how in some
ways our identities are constructed and in other ways we do have agency in choosing our
identities. In the home culture, each female is exposed to a fixed identity, but when she moves
outside her home life, she is able to develop her own values aside from the worldviews of her
parents. For this reason, the female protagonists rebellion and/or rejection of home culture
suggests that Clare and Kambili eventually have agency in constructing their identities.
What is distinctive to these coming-of-age stories as it pertains to the complexities of a
hybrid identity is their emphasis on place. Abeng, set on the island of Jamaica, describes Clare as
she transitions from her home in the urban section of Kingston, to the countryside, where her
grandmother lives, to the childhood home of Mrs. Phillips and Miss Winifred. Purple Hibiscus is
set in Nigeria, where Kambili journeys from her urban home in Enugu, to Abba, the hometown
of her parents, to her aunts rural home in Nsukka. In the home lives of the female protagonists,
the home becomes the colonized place where views of the colonizer/father permeate everyday

conversations and relationships. The homes where the female protagonists reside can be defined
as not only sites of oppression, but also as metaphors for the Eurocentric culture that pressures
them to assimilate. In each Bildungsroman, the home becomes a site of entrapment because it
keeps the protagonist from embracing a fulfilling identity (Davies 21). Clares home life consists
of her fathers ideologies that suggest Europeans are Gods Chosen People, and are superior to
people of color. Likewise, the home culture of Kambili is defined by silence and the notions that
Catholicism is the right way of life as opposed to Igbo religious customs. Thus, home, in each
Bildungsroman, becomes a symbol for the family structure and its restraints.
While the home culture is reminiscent of the colonizers values, the island and island-like
places depicted in each novel expose each protagonist to her neglected heritage.3 I am examining
islands in the geographical and metaphorical sense and expanding the island metaphor to any
location that becomes a crucible for subversion and rebellion against colonial practices that deem
the Eurocentric way as superior to indigenous and/or African culture(s). For Clare in Abeng, the
bush and the childhood home allow her to assert an identity that challenges the racial constructs
that her father and mother impose. In Purple Hibiscus, Nsukka allows Kambili to discover a life
beyond the constraints of her father and the rigid home culture. For this reason, the island culture
becomes a safe haven where each female protagonist can resist colonial practices imposed on her
in the home culture. Though an island often becomes a metaphor for alienation, remoteness, and
strangeness in relation to the dominant culture, the land also is an articulation of femininity and
the desire to revert back to the natural state. These writers interest in islands and island-like
places not only represents the feminine but also express the experience of being colonized

Though the home and island culture(s) can be perceived as hybrid, these authors intentionally evoke the home
culture as more Eurocentric and the fathers domain and the island culture as linking the characters to a more
indigenous and or African tradition.

Navigating between realms that have different values creates confusion for Clare and
Kambili respectively. Thus, the issue of equilibrium plays a significant role in the ways in which
these two characters negotiate the complexities of identity and address issues of hybridity in the
family relationships depicted in each coming-of-age novel. Each novel addresses two cultures:
the modern and the traditional. Male or female parents in the novels represent each of these
cultures. The fathers value Eurocentric cultures, while the mothers insist on maintaining a
connection to the past. The child occupies the margin of both worlds, but fits neither. Each
female protagonist attempts to navigate both worlds and seeks to find a space for herself within
both realms. In seeking a space, each protagonist questions these fixed binaries that her mother
or fathers identities represent and either seems ambivalent about a hybrid identity or seeks to
embrace both the modern and traditional segments of her parents background.
In trying to strike a balance between each parent, the child recognizes the significant
differences between her father and mother and questions where she actually fits as their progeny.
The notion of accepting a hybrid identity suggests that one acknowledges all affiliated worlds
and realms and constructs her own identity based on these intersectional and/or oppositional
realms. Each female protagonist comes to terms with the two opposite cultures that form
dichotomies and either succeeds in fully embracing both or privileges one identity over the other.
In rejecting the home life, each female protagonist seeks out an individual self, particularly of the
island culture. Her quest for identity, however, is marked by great difficulty. In the next two
chapters, I will closely examine the family dynamics of each protagonist and show how Clare
and Kambili at first conform to the cultural values of the home culture and later rebel against
these notions. In the end, they either embrace the values of their parents or attempt to create a
new identity separate from their mother and father.

CHAPTER TWO:
BETWEEN AFRICANNESS AND EUROPEANNESS:
FORGING IDENTITIES IN MICHELLES CLIFFS ABENG
In the Caribbean, issues of nation, race, and identity are interwoven entities that cannot
be separated. Michelle Cliffs Abeng (1984) reveals that Jamaican identity is composed of
different strands based on aspects such as race and class. Cliff demonstrates that there are three
ethnic streams present in the islandIndian, African, European. The first lines of the novel
allude to multiple identities present in Jamaica. In describing the different ethnic strands on the
island, the narrator notes:
The island rose and sank. Twice. During periods in which history was recorded by
indentations on rock and shell. This is a book about the time which followed on
that time. As the island became a place where people lived. Indians. Africans.
Europeans. (Cliff 3)
In recognizing these three ethnic groups, Cliff conveys the idea that because of British
colonization, the European identity is the national identity some Jamaicans often valorize.
Known as the superior race, whiteness is generally glorified and symbolizes power, goodness,
and beauty. At the same time, African and indigenous ethnic groups different from Europeans
are devalued and exoticized (Williams 1-2). By emphasizing class-color hierarchies between the
European race and other ethnic groups, ethnicity in the Caribbean focuses more on social aspects
than biological factors. Thus, light skin is an indicator of social privilege, whereas dark skin
connotes a lower class (6-7). Cliff, however, shows how attitudes towards ethnicity in Jamaica

construct her characters identity in society, and she deconstructs the myth of what is valuable in
Jamaican culture. Through her female protagonist, Clare, she reassigns value to Africanness.
In addition, Cliffs Abeng brings to the forefront the idea of Jamaican identity and its
complexities through her vivid description of place and family relationships. Cliffs
representation of Clares family intersects with the theme of a hybrid identity and captures the
complexities of the relationship between father and daughter and mother and daughter. Cliff
portrays a mixed-race protagonist who refuses to give in to racial constructs that favor the
dominant culture of Europeans over her African heritage. As Clare moves from the Savages
house in Kingston, to her grandmothers countryside house, to Mrs. Phillipss house, and to the
childhood home of Mrs. Phillips and Miss Winifred, she attempts to negotiate the conflicting
elements of her cultural and familial background (Lionnet 25). By highlighting her African
heritage, Clare Savage seeks out an identity once hidden from her by her bigoted father and
passive mother, who suggest she embrace an all-white identity, and ultimately claims both
identities of her parents.
Clares relationship with her father is one that is reminiscent of a father-son relationship.
Her father, better known as Boy, embodies the post-European lifestyle and claims a pure white
lineage, even though he is closely descended from Africans, making his own ethnic identity
mixed. Clares paternal family attempts to remove the Africanness found in their lineage from
their personal identities. For this reason, the Savages4 embrace European culture only and
believe that their color, class, and religion distinguish them from other people. Cliffs narrator
notes:

Although the name Savage is fitting for Boy because of his racist ideologies, Cliff deconstructs the idea that
blackness is associated with savagery and associates the label with whiteness. This strategy is also prevalent in
Moby Dick (1851). In this book, Herman Melville examines the white/black binary and subverts it by transforming
the representation of evil to whiteness in the white whale instead of blackness.

The definition of what a Savage was like was fixed by color, class, and religion,
and over the years a carefully contrived mythology was constructed, which they
used to protect their identities. When they were poor, and not all of them white,
the mythology persisted. They swore by it. It added a depth to their conversation,
and kept them interested in each other. If the conversation turned to the knotty
hair of a first cousin, it would be switched to the Savage ancestor who had been
the first person to publically praise Paradise Lost. If the too-dark skin of a
newborn baby was in question, it would be countered with the life of the Savage
who had done his duty onboard the H.M.S. Victory with Nelson at Trafalgar.
(Cliff 29)
The Savages fabricated stories of a pure white lineage were passed down from generation to
generation, and Clares father passes these stories down to Clare, his oldest daughter, reassuring
her that [s]he was a true Savage (Cliff 45). In suggesting that Clares fate was sealed, Boy
treats her as an heir of the supposed pure lineage and expects Clare to assimilate into European
culture by eventually marrying someone of a lighter hue than herself (45).
Conversely, Clares mother shows no affection toward her daughters, family, and friends,
and only shows a connection with her husband. Unlike Boy, Kitty embraces her ex-slave heritage
and finds subtle ways to share these values with Clare. Kitty instills Clares early life with a
sense of Jamaica that [Boy] would never have (Cliff 52). The Freemans,5 Clares maternal
family, are described as being complicit with the postcolonial structure that favors whites over
non-whites, but prideful of their mixed-race heritage while highlighting their blackness.6 The
narrator states:
5

The name Freeman points to Kittys Maroon heritage and embodies a symbol of resistance to colonial rule.
Cliffs capitalization of the b in black in the following quotation affirms that blackness is a significant aspect in
constructing Kittys identity.
6

Kittys mother was both Black and white, and her fathers origins were
unknownbut both had brown skin and a wave to their hair. Her people were
called red and they knew that this was what they were. No one had suggested to
them that they try to hide itwere they able to. [T]he Freemans did not question
this structure, or the fact that the white people brought money and seemed able to
buy themselves any place on the island that suited them. The Freemans fit
themselves into the structure and said that yes they were red people and that was
nothing to be ashamed of. At the same time preserving their redness. (Cliff 54)
The Freemans assert their identity as red people who are of mixed-race ancestry; however,
though Kitty cherishes blackness, she does not pass this idea down to her daughter. Instead, like
Boy, she insists that Clare assume an all-white identity as well.
Her mixed-race heritage on both sides creates confusion for Clare because she is
uncertain about where her loyalty should lie (Gourdine 48). Throughout the novel, Clare is never
considered her mothers daughter by Miss Mattie, Clares maternal grandmother, but her fathers
daughter. For example, after Clare takes Miss Matties gun to kill a wild pig, Miss Mattie thinks
Boy should punish Clare because the girl was his child after all (Cliff 145). As a child of a
Freeman and a Savage, she must constantly negotiate the identities of both her mother and father:
Her father told her she was white. But she knew that her mother was not. Who
would she choose were she given the choice. [S]he was of both dark and light.
Pale and deeply colored. To whom would she turn if she needed assistance? From
who would she expect it? Her mother or her fatherit came down to that
sometimes. Would her alliances shift at any given time. The Black or the white?
(Cliff 36-37)

10

Knowing that a choice would be expected of her, Clare resents feeling torn between the
oppositional dichotomies her parents represent: the home life/urban culture of Kingston vs. the
rural culture of Clares mother; the refined Presbyterian church of John Knox Memorial vs. the
vernacular country church of Tabernacle of Almighty7; her fathers bigotry vs. her mothers
humanitarianism (Cliff 37). Clare feels at odds with and torn between both parents, especially
during their violent arguments about her fathers alcoholic tirades and affairs. She thinks if he
killed Kitty, then she would have to take responsibility, would have to call the policebecome
her mother and her father, the one dead, the other crumpled over his wifes body (Cliff 51).
Imagining this tragic possibility reveals that even in a distressed state, Clare would feel divided
between her mother and father. She expresses the anxiety attached to the dilemma of occupying
the margin of two worlds, her mothers and fathers, and the pressures of choosing a side.
Within Abeng, Cliff employs a third person perspective instead of using Clare as the
narrator. The third person narrative aids in describing the double binds of Clares life and the
difficulties of making a choice. The omniscient narration is valuable for discussing identity
tensions because the audience is able to attain not only Clares perspectives on asserting an
identity, but also the contrasting perspectives of Boy and Kitty. In revealing these perspectives
and showing the great distinctions between her mother and father, the narrator suggests that
identity formation is not simple, but complex for all the characters. For this reason, the narrator
portrays Boy and Kitty, though flawed, as both victims of colonization because they both adhere
to the preconceived notions that Europeanness is superior.
In addition, the omniscient narrator discloses past histories unknown to Clare concerning
the choice of negotiating identities. The narrator indicates that the dilemma of rejecting or
7

The fathers church sang militaristic hymns and consisted of mostly white families, while the mothers church
focused on redemption and the necessity for deliverance in their hymns and consisted of mostly black women (Cliff
11-12).

11

merging into a society that values European culture is timeless and originated with Nanny and
Sekesu (Krus 45). The narrator declares: In the beginning there had been two sistersNanny
and Sekesu. Nanny fled slavery. Sekesu remained a slave. Some said this was the difference
between the sisters. It was believed that all island children were descended from one or the other.
All island people were first cousins (Cliff 18). In this passage, Cliff asserts that resistance and
assimilation are not new to the complexities of identity in Jamaicans. This idea that suggests that
everyone is somehow related in the Jamaican context threatens the postcolonial structure that
deems people of European descent superior to people of African and/or native Indian descent.
This implication that everyone on the island is related rejects the Savages fabricated stories of
pure European lineage and aligns with the idea that racial constructs are fluid and arbitrary. In
addition, this construct gives island children the freedom to reject racial boundaries and codes
that separate individuals based on ethnicity, race, class, and other societal factors (Cliff 18).
The idea of home points to the dilemma of finding a place for ones self and how one will
define herself in that space. Home and the subsequent analysis of location elucidate the
ambiguous nature of Jamaican identity and the difficulties Clare faces in creating her own
identity. The literary critic Carol Boyce Davies states that home becomes a critical link in the
articulation of identity (115). The home culture in this text becomes dominated by the fathers
ideologies, keeping Clare from exploring other aspects of her identity freely. In the house, Boy
Savages superior portrayal of whiteness as powerful and beautiful and his suggestion that he and
Clare both adhere to the historic notion that Europeans are the Elect compel Clare to resist an
all-white identity (Cliff 44). For Boy, the home becomes a place where he can be a patriarch and
align his views with that of the colonizer. For this reason, the home serves as a site of oppression

12

for the females (i.e. Kitty, Clare, and Jennie) where Boy feels the most comfortable sharing his
racist ideologies.
It is through literature such as The Diary of Anne Frank (1947) and Ivanhoe (1819) that
Clare resists Boys racist ideologies at home. The Diary of Anne Frank provides a first-hand
account of Annes life as a Jew during the Holocaust and the repression she experiences on a
daily basis while in hiding from the Nazis. In examining the life of Anne Frank during the
Holocaust, Clare searches without knowing it, for an explanation of her own life (Cliff 72).
Her interest in the life and death of Anne Frank intersects with histories of her paternal greatgreat-grandfather and maternal grandmother; she is unaware that her great-great-grandfather
burned a hundred slaves to deny their upcoming freedom and her grandmother once cut cane
(71-72). Her teachers, however, avoid the questions Clare asks concerning the Jews persecution
and fail to address the issues surrounding the Holocaust, particularly the question as to who is
responsible for the death of six million Jews (Cliff 70-71). Jamaica, like most of the world, here
in the text remains silenced about issues that trivialize the doctrines of Christianity.
Likewise, Ivanhoe, an adventure novel by Sir Walter Scott, recounts a series of events in
which Ivanhoe is torn between his love for Rowena, a Saxon, and Rebecca, a Jew. In the end,
Ivanhoe marries Rowena, and Rebecca, who is falsely accused of being an alleged sorceress, is
banished from the country. When Clare questions her father about inter-religious love in
Ivanhoe, she asks him what would happen if she married a Jew (Dagbovie 96). His reply that she
would be an outcast, even if her lover were half-Jewish, further shows his bigotry (Cliff 73).
Clare asks:
Then how come you say Im white?

13

What the hell has that got to do with anything? Youre white because youre a
Savage.
But Mother is colored. Isnt she?
Yes.
If she is colored and you are white, doesnt that make me colored?
No. You are my daughter. Youre white. (Cliff 73)
This conversation reveals Clares desire to reject the ideas and values imposed on her by her
father and seek an individual identity separate from the one her father demands and expects.
The Diary of Anne Frank and Ivanhoe both examine how Jews are persecuted on the
basis of their religion. Thus, these two texts force Clare to look at racial tensions in a different
light, separate from her fathers ideologies (Dagbovie 96). These literary examples of racial and
religious injustice aid in helping her draw a parallel between Jews and blacks and the
mistreatment and hatred shown towards both groups. In scrutinizing her fathers philosophy
about Jews, Clare rejects her fathers idea that she is white. As a result, Clare questions her place
amongst the colored and white and concludes that claming an all-white identity does not make
sense with a colored mother, brown legs, and ashy knees (Cliff 73). She wants to acknowledge
her multiple identities without pitting one against the other as her father suggests.
For Clare to question her fathers reasoning, she must both recognize a part of her racial
makeup as black and confront her privilege as a light-skinned individual. The narrator
acknowledges that Clares physical appearance8 is prized by people on the island, and for this
reason, she is elevated over other darker-skinned Jamaicans:

The name Clare suggests that her complexion is clear, pale, and light-colored. In fact, the name Clare is often
used in literary works to describe mulatto figures such as Claire Neville in Julia Collinss The Curse of Caste (1856)
and Clare Kendry in Nella Larsens Passing (1929).

14

But she was a lucky girleveryone said soshe was light-skinned. And she was
alive. She lived in a world where the worst thing to beespecially if you were a
girlwas to be dark. The only thing worse than that was to be dead. She knew the
composition of her school and the constraints of color within. An unease seemed
to live in a tiny space in her soulfor want of a better wordand she was struck
by what she told herself was unfairness and cruelty while at the same time she
was glad of the way she looked and she profited by her hair and skin. (Cliff 77)
She is conflicted by the preferential treatment she receives. Although she likes it, she questions
the social constructs that regard her as beautiful. This dilemma points to an internal struggle
against racial confines, even though occasionally she yields to them. Because conventions of
beauty set by Europeans concerning lighter skin are overvalued in the colonial context and
since Clare embodies this physical ideal of beauty, she is initially isolated from her darker sister
and mother, which alienates her from the African part of her identity that they represent (Lionnet
29-30). Since Clare does not fit the standards that characterize an individual as a black Jamaican,
she is pressured into fully embracing whiteness.
The alienation that Clare experiences parallels bell hookss profound statement: at times
home is nowhere. At times one only knows extreme estrangement and alienation. Then home is
not just one place. It is locations (hooks 155). hooks suggests that location is crucial not only to
obtaining knowledge, but also to fulfilling self-knowledge. For hooks, home consists of
locations and places where one must learn to feel comfortable with his or her position in the
margin and become open to new perspectives (155). The home culture that consists of Boys
beliefs for Clare is fixed and closed to difference. Conversely, Kittys idea of home consists of
African heritage and culture, which greatly contrasts everything Boy values. In asserting her

15

identity, Clare cannot conform to the ideas of what her father regards as home. For this reason,
Clare expands her idea of home to include the values of both parents. In finding a space for
herself within the margin that hooks alludes to, Clare manages to reconcile her two identities
(156). Nonconformity provides Clare with the access to use the margin as a site of resistance to
the Eurocentric sphere (hooks 156).
Clare has the ability to assume the identity of her mother and/or father; yet both parents
pressure her into fulfilling an all-white identity. Her light skin compels people to perceive her as
white and of a higher class; and as a result, in everyday instances, her blackness is ignored. In
one incident, a poor-dark-skinned woman asks two of her classmates, darker than Clare, the
time (Cliff 77). The girls, not wanting to be associated with her, ignore the lady. Because of her
racial and class privileges, Clare cannot understand why her classmates reject the old lady:
Clare did not understand enough about her world and her place in it to question why the old
lady had approached the other girls and not herself (Cliff 77). Societal conventions that connote
light as superior and dark as inferior remove Clare from any associations with people that do not
share her complexion. She wants to be recognized by her mothers people, but her societal
privileges will not allow her to connect fully with this heritage. Her gesture of giving the woman
the time and money points to her desire to align herself with a history that she shares with the
woman.
Similarly, Kitty refuses to see Clares blackness, and as a result Kitty contradicts her own
worldviews of blackness and its centrality in forming her identity (Dagbovie 97). While Kitty
embraces her African heritage and has a deep love and affection toward her people, she is
married to a man who only acknowledges his European traits and has no respect for anyone
outside of that domain. In Kittys discussion with her mother as to why she marries Boy her

16

responseWhat choice did I havealludes to two possible reasons she is forced to marry
Boy: to avoid a pregnancy out of wedlock and to engage in the concept of whitening and
lightening the race (Cliff 147). For this reason, Kitty becomes the vehicle of patriarchal rule that
occurs in the home because she is complicit in her relationship with Boy. In spite of her
complicity, however, Kitty shares values with Clare. Clares name itself is ambiguous: her father
thinks she is named for a prestigious university, but her mother, Kitty, names her after a
childhood friend, Clary, who helps nurse her back to health. In this act, Kitty resists patriarchy
and Eurocentrism in naming. The narrator points out:
Kitty told Boy he could name their eldest daughter after the college his
grandfather attended at Cambridge Universitywhen in fact she was naming her
first-born after Clary, the simple minded dark girl who fought for her and refused
to leave her side. [B]ut Kitty never told this to Clarethat her namesake was a
living woman, a part of her mothers life, rather than a group of buildings erected
sometime during the Middle Ages for the education of white gentlemen. Clare
never knew whom she was called afterwhom she honored. (Cliff 141)
In providing a maternal connection to Clares name, Cliff gives voice to the mother and reveals
Kittys subtle affection for her daughter. In addition, in naming Clare after a childhood friend,
Kitty ingeniously links her to a despised heritage and reassigns positive values to African
heroines.
Kitty is not attached to either one of her daughters, but the narrator suggests that If Kitty
could have shared her love-which-proceeded-from-darkness with anyone, it would have been
with Jennie, her younger, darker child (Cliff 128). For this reason Clare, who could pass for
white in Jamaica, would never gain admissionshe had been handed over to Boy the day she

17

was born (128). Clare is viewed in her mothers eyes as an unwanted inheritance to be passed
over to her father (Dangovie 97). The narrator notes: Perhaps [Kitty] assumed that a lightskinned child was by common law, or traditional practice, the child of the whitest parent. This
parent would pass this light-skinned daughter on to a white husband, so she would have lighter
and lighter babies (Cliff 129). Kitty lacks a relationship with her daughter because she wants
Clare to have the best in life. She points to Clares privilege as a light-skinned individual and
suggests that preserving whiteness and obliterating darkness is best for Clares situation. For this
reason, she negates her responsibility as a mother and adheres to the social custom that
encourages the concept of whitening and/or racial passing.
Still, Clare yearns for a relationship with her mother and a connection to her black
identity. The island suggests the possibility of connection between Clare and Kitty and serves as
a place where Clare has the fondest memories of her mother: Those mornings and afternoons
with her mother in the bush sometimes made Clare thinkwishthat they were on a desert
island togetheraway from her father and his theories and whiteness (Cliff 80). It is here in the
countryside that Kitty teaches Clare about the bush and its purposes. When the setting changes
from the home culture to the bush9, Clare finds solace in her black identity. This rural location
equalizes the power relations that deem Europeanness superior to Africanness and diminishes the
pressures on her to conform to the culture of the European colonizer and deny African and/or
indigenous aspects of her heritage. Thus, while the home represents Boys Eurocentrism and
masculinity, the bush of Kitty is African and feminine. The narrator says: For her, God and
Jesus were but representatives of Nature, which it only made sense was female, and the ruler of
all (Cliff 52-53). The island is not only an articulation of the feminine, it also represents
9

In the African context, the bush is often viewed in oral literature as an isolated sphere and an escape from the
responsibility of marriage, which violates societal conventions that purport a girl must be assigned a husband when
she reaches puberty.

18

lawlessness, and provides Clare with the freedom of exploring her black Jamaican heritage. The
lawlessness present on the island allows Clare to go beyond the social constructs attached to
Eurocentrism. As a result, the island unsettles social order and conventions concerning the
friendship between Zoe and Clare that attempts to transcend issues of race, class, and sexuality.
Just as Clary becomes a surrogate mother for Kitty, Zoe assumes this role for Clare in the
bush. Zoe shares the intimate conversation with Clare that Kitty avoids. Zoe educates Clare
about her sexuality by explaining menstruation, sex, and pregnancy. For these reasons, she
embodies a maternal presence in Clares life. Clare uses Zoe subconsciously to please her mother
and have a sense of the Jamaican identity her mother values. In her love for Zoe, Clare knew
that there was something of her need for her mother. But it felt intangible and impossible to
grasp hold of (Cliff 131). By befriending Zoe, she tries to resolve the conflict of being both a
Freeman and a Savage. Her friendship with Zoe, however, does not resolve the split she feels
between the two opposite cultures of her mother and father. Their differences surface when Clare
refuses to allow Zoe to try on her bathing suit. She tells Zoe: No, man, Grandma say no
(Cliff 101). Zoes response to Clare that she is one wuthless cuffy, passing off wunnaself as
buckra exposes their social and racial differences (101). By referring to Clare as a cuffy10
passing as a buckra,11 Zoe emphasizes Clares social privileges (Cliff 101). Clares inability to
connect fully to Zoe points to her connection to her father and the privilege associated with the
Eurocentric sphere.
Though their friendship oftentimes erases issues of color and class, the social constructs
associated with race and class are inescapable. After being ostracized from a game by her male
cousins, Clare develops a plan for her and Zoe to kill a wild pig in the bush not only to rebel
10
11

A cuffy is an upstartone who fancies herself upper class (Gourdine 51).

A buckra is a white person; specifically one representing the ruling class (Cliff 167).

19

against the social expectations of a lady, but also to gain equal respect from her male cousins.
Zoe resists Clares plan and highlights Clares social and racial privileges. Zoe says:
Wunna know, wunna is truly town gal. Wunna a go back to Kingston soon now.
Wunna no realize me have to stay here. Wunna no know what people dem would
say if two gal dem shoot Massa Cudjoe. [D]em will say dat me tink me is buckra
boy, going pon de hill a hunt fe one pig. Or dat me let buckra gal lead me into
wickedness. [D]is place no matter a wunna a-tall, a-tall. Dis here is fe me
territory. Kingston a fe wunna. Me will be here so all me lifeme will be a
marketwoman like fe me mama. Me will have fe beg land fe me and fe me
pickney to live pon. Wunna will go a England, den maybe America, to university,
and when we meet later we will be different smaddy. But we is different smaddy
now. (Cliff 117-118)
Since Clare can easily pass as a member of the dominant white culture, she can choose her
position in society, while her friend Zoe cannot. The wild pig incident further reveals the split
Clare feels between white and not white, town and country, scholarship and privilege, Boy and
Kitty (Cliff 119). In acknowledging what Zoe tells her that Kingston [is] the place of her
existence, Clare recognizes the privileges she has that her friend does not (119).
Not choosing sides becomes more and more difficult as the novel progresses because her
parents never let go of their daughters duality and attribute her behavior to her divided racial
makeup. When Clare is punished for taking a gun from her grandmothers house, Kitty wonders
if it was whitenessand the arrogance which usually accompanied that statewhich had
finally showed through her daughters soul (Cliff 148). Boy, on the other hand, thinks that
Blackness was the cause of his daughters actions (149). Her fathers authority in the house

20

prevents her from feeling secure in siding with either parent. Clare tries to merge both identities
and because [her] biological genealogy is complicated by the social/class rules of life in
Jamaica she must conflate her fathers simple understanding of identity as rooted in color and her
mothers location of selfhood in place (Gourdine 50).
Though Kitty continues to insist that Clare reject darkness, and embrace Eurocentric
values, she questions whether she should save her daughter from thisor give in to it and
subconsciously wants her child to embrace both worlds without having to choose (Cliff 148).
This gesture points to the internal struggle she experiences in neglecting her daughter. In
questioning her lack of affection towards her daughter, Kitty implies that she wants to save Clare
from the Eurocentric values her husband imposes on their daughter and teach her about the love
she has for African culture. Boy, on the other hand, does not take any responsibility for his
daughters actions and just faults her African traits. He refuses to see Clares blackness and
wants her to preserve her whiteness. He thinks: On this little island so far removed from the
mother country, a white girl could so easily become trash (Cliff 149). Clares parents recognize
a racial, cultural split and reinscribe a black/white binary that Clare resists (Dagbovie 95).
These racial constructs that her parents rely on prevent her from identifying with whomever she
chooses.
Although Kitty wants Clare to share the same love she has for her African heritage, she
suggests that her daughters punishment12 of living with a Savage family friend, Mrs. Beatrice
Phillips, will be a valuable learning experience in claiming her European identity. Kitty tells
Clare: You have to learn once and for all just who you are in this world. [M]rs. Phillips can
teach you to take advantage of who you are. I cant do that for you (Cliff 150). Despite Kittys
efforts, Clare refuses to assimilate into Eurocentric culture. Kittys warning that Mrs. Phillips is
12

Upon taking a gun from Miss Matties house, Clare accidentally shoots and kills her grandmothers bull.

21

narrow-minded about colored people urges Clare to ask, then what do you want me to learn
from her? (151). Kittys responseYou will just have to overlook that other part. There are
many many narrow-minded people in this world. You have to learn to live among them (Cliff
152)suggests that she is telling her daughter to negotiate her visible identity, to lose her
blackness, to be white, in order to attain upward mobility (Dagbovie 98). Because of the stigma
attached to African heritage, Kitty urges her child to embrace her European heritage exclusively
and consider leaving Jamaica to engage in better opportunities.
Mrs. Phillipss home becomes an extension of the home culture established by Boy and
replicates the similar Eurocentric focus. This home is one of leisure, routine, and mundaneness.
Like Boy, Mrs. Phillips is adamant about maintaining the social division between whites and
non-whites. Here, Clare moves towards her fathers expectations of a lady and learns how to
suppress her ideas about race. In one incident, Clare reads the newspaper and comes across an
article about a renowned coloratura soprano coming to Kingston to perform (Cliff 157). Mrs.
Phillips mistakes the word coloratura for a black woman, and when Clare tries to correct her
she is reprimanded (157). The narrator notes:
[C]lare learned to keep her mouth shut about anything to do with color or colored
people. Anything that might be mistaken by Miss Beatrice for sympathy or
concern. She was learning to live with narrow-mindedness. Learning not to wince
when the white lady rolled down the Packard window and slid her stick through to
slap Minnie Bogle across the shoulder blades. Learning not to smile when she
heard Minnies voice in the kitchen wearing out the ole bitch. (Cliff 158)
In [n]ot rocking the boat, Clare learns to suppress the African identity of her mother and adopt
Mrs. Phillipss views that align with her fathers principles (158).

22

Clares final search for identity, self, and place, arises not only after the abrupt separation
from her mother and father, but also upon meeting Miss Winifred, Mrs. Phillipss sister, at their
childhood home. Unlike her sister who values decency and respectability, Miss Winifred rejects
societal standards of what a lady traditionally represents. For example, she does not bathe
because she thinks water [is] sacred, and is open about intimacy (Cliff 159). Though forbidden
by Mrs. Phillips to talk to Miss Winifred, Clare is fascinated with her behavior and rebellion
against social rules. The narrator notes,
Clare had never heard a grown-up woman talk like this. She was embarrassed by
the intimacy of Mrs. Stevenss [Miss Winifreds] words. Caught between
politenessnot wanting to hurt Mrs. Stevens, not wanting to ask too muchand
needing to know more about her. No grown-up had ever been so bare before her,
and she was confused. (Cliff 162)
Miss Winifred catalyzes a way for Clare to become comfortable with both of her identities. In
Clares search for identity, Miss Winifreds perceived madness and conduct allow Clare to
branch out from the parental and societal worldviews that pressure her to form a monolithic,
homogeneous identity.
In a brief conversation, Clare discovers that Miss Winifred lives on the fringes of
Jamaican society because she has born a child out of wedlock with a black gardener. Miss
Winifred talks about her relationship with the black man, which parallels Clares relationship
with her mother. Just as Kitty instructs Clare about the bush and its purposes, the gardener
teaches Miss Winifred significant aspects of island culture such as grafting mango trees and
swimming in the sea (Cliff 163). Although she speaks highly of the gardener, Miss Winifred

23

warns Clare not to make the same mistakes she does.13 Like Kitty, she insists that Clare not
engage in interracial relationships and suggests that, since her child was taken away from her to
be raised by nuns, only sadness comes from mixture (Cliff 164). Clares response is,
[T]heres all kinds of mixture in Jamaica. Everybody mixes it seems to me. I am mixed too
(164). By affirming that the mixed-race identity is the new, improved race among Jamaicans and
the white race is obsolete, Clare reconciles her two identities. This gesture suggests that Miss
Winifreds confusion and disorderly conduct are the catalysts behind that recognition. In proudly
acknowledging her identity as mixed-race, Clare admit[s] what she was afraid to admit to Miss
Beatrice. Maybe it was becoming time. Maybe she was relying on the confusion in Miss
Winifreds mind. So she might take it back (Cliff 164). For this reason, the childhood home of
Mrs. Phillips and Miss Winifred not only raises questions of resistance to decorum and racial
boundaries, but helps Clare assert a hybrid identity that includes both the identity of her mother
and father.
Though Clare is conflicted at the end of the novel about her identity, the narrator suggests
that she favors her mothers cherished Africanness over her fathers Europeanness. Clares
dream of Zoe at the end of the novel not only marks her growth, it also represents her desired
connection to her mother and her black identity. She dreams that,
[S]he and Zoe [are] fist fighting by the river in St. Elizabeth. That she picked up a
stone and hit Zoe underneath the eye and a trickle of blood ran down her friends
face and onto the rock where she sat. The blood formed into a pool where the rock
folded over itself. And she went over to Zoe and told her she was sorrymaking

13

Miss Winifreds warning, however, does not suggest that she is prejudiced, but implies that her past experiences
lead her to this resolutionthat black and mixed-race individuals are persecuted because of their skin color.

24

a compress of moss drenched in water to soothe the cut. Then squeezing an aloe
leaf to close the wound. (Cliff 165)
This dream alludes to the actual incident of Tia and Antoinette who are childhood friends in Jean
Rhyss Wide Sargasso Sea (1966). Like Clare and Zoe, Antoinette and Tia are close friends
separated by race and class. The roles, however, are reversed in Wide Sargasso Sea. Like Clare,
Tia throws a rock at Antoinette, which metaphorically represents Antoinettes movement from
her black childhood into a white Creole world of Spanish Town. Here in Abeng, Clare throws the
stone at Zoe and later apologizes for her actions. Her violent actions point to the conflict she
feels about whether to embrace her African identity or reject it. In throwing the stone at Zoe, she
expresses uncertainty and perhaps considers assuming an all-white identity. Her apology and
gesture of using an aloe leaf to heal the wound, however, at the end of her dream, fully reject an
all-white identity and suggest that she wants to maintain a relationship to the island culture and
her black Jamaican heritage.
Though the narrator states [s]he was not ready to understand her dream. She had no idea
that everyone we dream about we are, Clares dream of blackness points to her fervid desire to
be accepted fully by her mother and Zoe (Cliff 166). Without succumbing to the notions that
favor whiteness over her other racial identities, she rejects the white privilege of her father and
the larger society. In shaping a new identity, Clare chooses to reject the European identity
imposed on her and creates her own. This consists of multiple identities: indigenous, Indian,
African, European, and Jamaican, with a particular emphasis on her Africanness. Her parents
insistence that she identify with whiteness has ironically encouraged Clare to live without racial
scripts and move towards blackness (Dagbovie 107). In the end, Clares rejection of her family

25

positions her outside of the black-white dichotomy and assumes an identity that is not limited by
racial and social constructs.

26

CHAPTER THREE:
TRADITION OR MODERNITY
IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIES PURPLE HIBISCUS
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies coming-of-age novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003), set in
Enugu and Nsukka, explores a Nigerian girls conflicted relationship with her admired but
flawed father who insists that his family adhere to the principles of Catholicism. As Kambili and
her brother journey from Enugu, where they reside, to Abba, where her grandfather lives, to
Nsukka, where her aunt lives, she is able to discover a life without limits away from her fathers
authority. As she emerges from girlhood to womanhood, Kambili contends with her fathers
social expectations that she will become a Christian, and must decide whether she will conform
to these expectations or resist them. The Christianity that Kambilis father values stems from the
colonizers distorted interpretation of the Christian religion, which was implemented by British
rule to colonize African nations such as Nigeria (Fanon 42). Kambili confronts what it means to
be a colonized child of both Catholic teachings and Igbo practices and formulates new ways of
embracing both cultures.
Like Boy in Abeng, Eugene, Kambilis father, embodies the post-colonized lifestyle. He
represents the supremacy of modernity over tradition and values Catholicism over Igbo religious
customs. In the text, the house in Enugu, Nigeria, becomes a metaphor for the fathers
Eurocentrism and his value of the rigid doctrine of Catholicism over traditional religious
customs. For Kambili, the house is a site of terror and betrayal, where silence is inevitable and
she, her brother Jaja, and her mother all seek approval from Eugene. In this home culture, silence

27

is a central part of Kambilis life. For example, she mentions that the members of her family ask
each other questions when they already know the answers. She says: We did that often, asking
each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask
the other questions, the ones whose answers we did not want to know (Adichie 23). She
continues:
Our steps on the stairs were as measured and as silent as our Sundays: the silence
of waiting until Papa was done with his siesta so we could have lunch; the silence
of reflection time, when Papa gave us a scripture passage or a book by one of the
early church fathers to read and meditate on; the silence of evening rosary; the
silence of driving to the church for benediction afterward. Even our family time
on Sundays was quiet, without chess games or newspaper discussions, more in
tune with the Day of Rest. (Adichie 31)
This silence that exists in the home interrupts Kambilis growth, since her father makes her
decisions for her and limits her choices. In the beginning of the novel, fear keeps Kambili from
embracing a fulfilling identity. Sheltered from the outside world, she knows very little beyond
the confines of her fathers home, which implies that the home becomes an obstacle and place of
entrapment, limiting her perceptions and knowledge.
Her fathers lifestyle is contradictory. He condones freedom of speech against the
military in his paper, the Standard, but at the same time, he rules his home like a Catholic
patriarch. In addition, Eugene is an important figure in the local church and community. He
donates to charities and provides for his hometown in Abba during the Christmas season by
hosting gatherings with an abundance of food for his extended family. At the same time,
Eugenes patriarchy at home is ever present. Calculating his childrens every move, Eugene

28

draws out daily schedules that separat[e] study from siesta, siesta from family time, family time
from eating, eating from prayer, [and] prayer from sleep (Adichie 24). A vivid example of his
abuse occurs when Eugene scalds Kambilis feet for disobeying his rules of no extended contact
with ungodly people like her grandfather. Though her father shows great remorse after he abuses
his children, he continues to be the sole arbiter of punishment towards his family.
Limited by her fathers schedules and rules, Kambili knows very little beyond the world
at home that her father creates. For this reason, she does not question him. For example, when
Beatrice, Kambilis mother, miscarries as a result of her husbands abuse,14 Kambili never
questions why she and her brother must ask for Beatrices forgiveness instead of their fathers.
She notes:
Later, at dinner, Papa said we would recite sixteen different novenas. For Mamas
forgiveness. And on Sunday, the first Sunday of Trinity, we stayed back after
Mass and started the novenas. Father Benedict sprinkled us with holy water. Some
of the holy water landed on my lips, and I tasted the stale saltiness of it as we
prayed. If Papa felt Jaja or me beginning to drift off at the thirteenth recitation of
the Plea to St. Jude, he suggested we start all over. We had to get it right. I did not
think, I did not even think to think, what Mama needed to be forgiven for.
(Adichie 35-36)
A novena is a nine-day period of prayer for special occasions or intentions.15 The novena prayers
described in the text are to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, and are prayers that help
people through distressed times (Guiley 196). In addition, the novenas in the text are indulgenced
14

There is an implication in the text that Eugene beats Beatrice for asking to wait in the car because she is not
feeling well while the rest of the family visits Father Benedict. As a result of the physical abuse, Beatrice miscarries.

15

Its origin can be traced to the nine days Mary and the disciples spent together in prayer between Ascension and
Pentecost Sunday (Meagher 466).

29

novenas, a ritual used to seek forgiveness or pardon (Meagher 466). Generally, forgiveness of
others is the Christian duty of the believer. In Roman Catholic churches, Gods forgiveness of
the believer is mediated through the Church through ritual acts such as the novenas, which
involve an ordained priest (Meagher 467). Christian rituals of forgiveness, however, are
generally focused on the individual who wants forgiveness. Although it is clear in the text that
Eugene rather than Beatrice should ask for forgiveness, his authoritarian rule suppresses his
childrens ability to think for themselves. Eugene immorally abuses the Christian doctrine by
demanding his children recite novenas for the improbable wrongs of their mother. He distorts the
concept of forgiveness, and instead of examining his own actions, Eugene concludes that
Beatrice has sinned.
Unlike Cliff in Abeng, Adichie uses the first person perspective of Kambili as the
narrator. Her strategic use of the first person raises questions of how the book would differ if
Jaja, Eugene, Beatrice, or any of the other characters would have assumed the role as narrator.
The events Kambili presents as significant would change for the other characters. Although the
first person narrative often leaves gaps for the readers, Kambilis perspective aids in portraying
an intimacy that would not have been expressed by the other characters. Her narration portrays
her vulnerability and later her growth as a protagonist. In presenting only Kambilis perspective,
Adichie shows how Kambili evolves throughout the novel.
Although Kambili fears her father, she also loves and admires him. In describing her
father, Kambili alludes to the Biblical story of Jesus and the woman with the issue of blood. She
portrays both the generous and authoritarian sides of her father when she says: He led the way
out of the hall, smiling and waving at the many hands that reached out to grasp his white tunic as
if touching him would heal them of an illness (Adichie 90-91). This scriptural reference alludes

30

to Luke 8:41-48, which describes a poor woman who is plagued with an issue of blood for
twelve years. By touching the cloak of Jesus garment, the woman is instantly healed because of
her faith. Eugenes generosity and ability to help his fellow Nigerians financially parallels Jesus
miraculous deeds in healing the sick. However, according to Mosaic Law found in Leviticus
15:19-28, the woman with the issue of blood is considered unclean, and as a result, an outcast of
society. Although the woman violates the law by being a part of the crowd, Jesus does not scold
her, but shows compassion. After he discovers who touches him, Jesus response, Daughter, be
of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, is not one of rebuke and
correction; rather he comforts her and tells her that her faith heals her (Luke 8:48). Unlike Jesus,
Eugene displays a lack of compassion toward non-Christians; instead, he reproves them and
devalues their traditions. For this reason, Eugene is both a philanthropist and a zealot.
For many colonized and/or formerly enslaved people, God is a form of control. Several
European colonizers and American slave owners believed that they were fulfilling Gods plan
and it was their responsibility to enslave and/or Christianize people of African descent. They
formulated many misconceptions of the Bible and justified British colonization and American
slavery by arguing that blacks were ancestors of Cain and Ham. As descendants of Cain or Ham,
blacks were assumed by many white Christians to possess the status as lowly servants of whites
(Skinner 20). As a result, many Africans thought of the Europeans as the Supreme Being and
even looked at them as divine. When the oppressor makes the slave and/or colonized person
conform to the European mindset, he or she feels worthless and often views his or her master as
all-powerful. This brutal psychological technique, utilized by European colonizers and American
slave owners, compelled some members of the oppressed groups to conflate the Christian God
and the oppressors who assumed the role of God.

31

Like American slaveholders, European colonizers used religion to suppress and control
the minds of native African populations. Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth (1961) and
Malcolm X in his autobiography (1964) both convey that white Christians, who justify colonial
rule and slavery respectively, take biblical scripture out of context to suggest black individuals
were not made in the image of God and must whiten themselves to become acceptable in Gods
sight. Often taken out of context, a familiar scripture, [T]hough your sins be as scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow, alludes to this misconception that black is evil (Isaiah 1:18). Fanon
further suggests that the Christian doctrine was projected on Africans to portray white culture as
superior to African culture(s). He notes: The Church in the colonies is the white peoples
Church, the foreigners Church. She does not call the native to Gods ways but to the ways of the
white man, of the master, of the oppressor (Fanon 42). According to Fanon, the colonizers
Christian religion was not utilized to encourage Africans to attain a relationship with God, but to
convince natives that their cultural values were wrong. Likewise, Malcolm X argues that warped
Christian beliefs become a justification for double standards, arrogance, and inferiority. He
declares:
And where the religion of every other people on earth taught its believers of a
God with whom they could identify, a God who at least looked like one of their
own kind, the slavemaster injected his Christian religion into this Negro. This
Negro was taught to worship an alien God having the same blond hair, pale
skin, and blue eyes as the slave master. This religion taught the Negro that
black was a curse. It taught him to hate everything black, including himself. It
taught him that everything white was good, to be admired, respected, and loved.
(Autobiography 162-163)

32

Like Fanon, Malcolm X questions the hypocrisy of Christianity in the West and wonders why
blacks are considered inferior to whites under this religion.
Just as European colonizers and American slaveholders perpetuate misconstrued versions
of Christianity, Eugene uses Christianity in a similar fashion. In controlling his family through
fear and violence, Eugene develops such dominion over Kambili that she becomes paranoid. In
fact, the paranoia Kambili develops is similar to how, as stated earlier, some Christians may have
been taught to view God. Upon leaving for Nsukka, Kambili is frightened and delighted by the
idea that her father would not be with them for five days. She says, [M]y throat tightened at the
thought of five days without Papas voice, without his footsteps on the stairs (Adichie 108). In
addition, when her father is poisoned and dies, Kambili questions the truth of his death because
his dominant control causes her to think he is invincible. In coming to terms with her fathers
mortality, she thinks, I had never considered the possibility that Papa would die, that Papa could
die. He was different from Ade Coker, from all the other people they had killed. He had seemed
immortal (Adichie 287). Eugenes unyielding dogma compels Kambili to confuse God with her
father, who looms as God-like to her.
Eugene controls his family both through fear and violence, and by abusing the principles
of Christianity. In valuing Catholicism, he has a misunderstanding of what constitutes
Christianity, because he hates the sinner more than the sin. God is not viewed this harshly by all
Christians; the opposite view of Christianity which asserts Gods love for everyone follows John
3:16 that states, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). Another familiar text,
treat others the way you wish to be treated, often referred to as the Golden Rule, proposes that
God teaches us to love everyone even if each has sinned (Matthew 7:12). In the text, however,

33

Eugene does not adhere to the actual teachings of God. His sister, Ifeoma, talks about how her
brother tries to do Gods job by converting fellow Nigerians to Christianity with bribes
(Adichie 95). Eugene is so judgmental that he banishes his own father from his life because he
practices Igbo religion instead of Catholicism. Criticizing Eugenes tactics, his sister says,
Eugene has to stop doing Gods job. God is big enough to do his own job. If God will judge
our father for choosing to follow the way of our ancestors, then let God do the judging, not
Eugene (Adichie 95-96). Eugenes lack of compassion for individuals who do not profess to be
Christians contradicts scriptural teachings that address judging others and unconditional love. He
instead internalizes the Christian values of the colonizer that consider indigenous forms of
religion sinful and ungodly.
Eugene not only embodies the role of colonizer, he parallels the idea that many Africans
and African Americans cannot respect culture(s) of their homeland because of the significant
effects of colonization (Fanon 23-24). For example, he admires and shows more respect for his
father-in-law, who values Eurocentrism, than his own father. In describing the ways in which
Eugene treats his father as opposed to his father-in-law, Kambili says,
If Papa-Nnukwu minded that his son sent him impersonal, paltry amounts of
money through a driver he didnt show it. [I]t was so different from the way Papa
had treated my maternal grandfather until he died five years ago. [P]apa would
stop by Grandfathers house at our ikwi nne, Mothers maiden home, before we
even drove to our own compound. [P]apa still talked about him often, his eyes
proud, as if Grandfather were his own father. He opened his eyes before many of
our people did, Papa would say; he was one of the few who welcomed the
missionaries. Do you know how quickly he learned English? When he became an

34

interpreter, do you know how many converts he helped win? Why, he converted
most of Abba himself! He did things the right way, the way the white people did,
not what our people do now! (Adichie 67-68)
Like his father-in-law, Eugene internalizes the view of Africa as uncivilized and demonstrates
how colonization can alter natives minds about their own skin color and heritage (Skinner 28).
Eugene embodies the notion that everything associated with whiteness is morally right and holy,
and everything associated with the Nigerian nation before colonial rule is immoral and sinful.
Language is often used to privilege the culture of the colonized. Literary critics who
study marginalized groups often address the significance of language as it pertains to selfidentity and discuss the inferiority attached to speaking a native language as opposed to the
standard or national language. Gloria Anzaldas assertion, Wild tongues cant be tamed, they
can only be cut out, emphasizes the idea that English and other languages of the colonizer are
used to detach natives from their language and assimilate them into the dominant culture (76).
Similarly, Fanon discusses in great detail how language can be a tool of oppression for nonWestern populations. He says:
Every colonized peoplein other words, every people in whose soul an
inferiority complex has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural
originalityfinds itself face to face with the language of the civilizing nation; that
is, with the culture of the mother country. The colonized is elevated above his
jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother countrys cultural
standards. He becomes whiter as he renounces his blackness, his jungle. (18)

35

As Fanon asserts, natives language(s) and culture(s) are diminished by the colonizers, creating
an inferiority complex that pressures the colonized to whiten his or herself and thus become
more like the colonizer.
Like Christianity, Kambilis father Eugene prioritizes a Western education and English
over native African languages and culture: [He] changed his accent when he spoke, sounding
British, just as he did when he spoke to Father Benedict. He was gracious, in the eager-to-please
way that he always assumed with the religious, especially the white religious (Adichie 46). In
addition, Eugene teaches Kambili and her brother to suppress Igbo, their native tongue/language.
In forbidding Kambili and her brother, Jaja, to speak Igbo in public, Eugene emphasizes the
colonial approach that Anzalda speaks of in her essay How to Tame a Wild Tongue (1987)
and that Fanon highlights in his book Black Skin, White Masks (1952). Eugene privileges
colonial languages and detaches not only himself, but also his children from Igbo culture,
assimilating into the culture of the colonizer (Fanon 18).
Eugene not only promotes English as the official valid language, he values the written
word. His own role as a newspaper editor for the Standard informs this position. Because of
Eugenes refusal to communicate between the two educational systems, the tension between the
colonial education he values and the native, oral education of Kambilis grandfather creates an
even wider generation gap between older and younger generations. Unlike Eugene in the novel,
Anzalda recognizes that her native tongue represents her full being and existence. She suggests
that she must accept all of the languages she speaks as legitimate to accept the legitimacy of
herself. She says: So if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic
identity is twin skin to linguistic identityI am my language. Until I can take pride in my
language, I cannot take pride in myself (Anzalda 81). Anzalda encourages Chicanos and

36

Latinos to actively speak their language(s) and take pride in their mother tongue. Likewise, PapaNnukwu, Kambilis paternal grandfather, takes pride in his Igbo heritage and the informal, oral
educational system that he values allows his grandchildren to connect to a culture that affirms
them. For example, while in Nsukka, Papa-Nnukwu recounts to his grandchildren the story of
why the tortoise has a cracked shell (Adichie 157). Through storytelling, the grandfather
introduces Kambili to a culture that is neglected and devalued in her home.
Although Kambili does not defy her father as openly as her brother does,16 she knowingly
goes against his rules by bringing a portrait of Papa-Nnukwu to his home. Kambili notes,
Perhaps it was what we wanted to happen, Jaja and I, without being aware if it. Perhaps we all
changed after Nsukkaeven Papaand things were destined to not be the same, to not be in
their original order (Adichie 209). For Kambili, the unfinished portrait of her grandfather,
which results in her nearly fatal beating, connects her to Igbo religion and culture and becomes a
symbol of rebellion against her father. When her father apprehends the portrait, Kambili
exclaims:
The painting was gone. It already represented something lost, something I had
never had, would never have. Now even that reminder was gone, and at Papas
feet lay pieces of paper streaked with earth-tone colors. [I] suddenly and
maniacally imagined Papa-Nnukwus body being cut in pieces that small and
stored in a fridge. No! I shrieked. I dashed to the pieces on the floor as if to save
them, as if saving them would mean saving Papa-Nnukwu. I sank to the floor, lay
on the pieces of paper. (Adichie 210)
The Igbo religion and culture allow Kambili to connect to an identity that articulates the values
and realities of her Nigerian identity. Her connection to her grandfather, as symbolized by the
16

Kambilis brother, Jaja, defies his father when he refuses to attend communion on Palm Sunday.

37

portrait, has given her voice and agency. Kambilis refusal to remove herself from the ruined
portrait of her grandfather is a way of questioning the established order that her father values.
For this reason, the beating marks the growth of the protagonist because she is no longer
silenced. In her own way, she resists the rigid home culture and questions his dictatorial rule.
Because Kambili and her mother, Beatrice, both share similar positions of seeking
Eugenes approval and avoiding his violence, Kambili and her mother only connect through
silence and tears. They both become conditioned to accept oppression found in the home as the
natural order. For example, Eugene hits his wife and children with a belt for suggesting Kambili
break the Eucharistic fast to take Panadol, a medicine that requires food before consumption
(Adichie 101-102). In another instance, Eugene breaks a table on Beatrices belly without
probable cause, resulting in her second miscarriage in the novel (248-249). Beatrice, like Kitty
in Abeng, conforms to patriarchal notions associated with womanhood, which include constant,
relentless interdependence and submissiveness to her husband. Although her husband beats her,
she speaks highly of him for staying and not choosing a second wife even after she has difficulty
bearing more children (Adichie 20). Her response to Aunty IfeomaWhere would I go if I
leave Eugenes house?parallels Kittys reasons for marrying Boy in Abeng and points to the
idea that her choices are limited and she must stay with her husband out of obligation (250).
When describing her mother, Kambili says, there was so much that she did not mind
and expresses that she spoke the way a bird eats, in small amounts (Adichie 19-20). This
description shows how Kambilis sense of self is at first intricately linked to her mother because
she too speaks very little. Although Beatrice cannot protect her children from Eugenes wrath,
she seeks other ways to show love and nurturance towards her children by tending to their
wounds after they have been abused by their father. For this reason, Kambilis relationship with

38

her mother is centered around silence because her mothers position does not allow her to deal
with the abuse of both herself and her children. An example of Beatrice nurturing Kambili is
vividly illustrated after her father scalds her feet for neglecting to tell him that she and her
brother were living with their grandfather in Nsukka. In speaking about her mother after the
incident, Kambili says:
Papa put his hands under my arms to carry me out, but I heard Mama say, Let
me please. I did not realize that Mama had come into the bathroom. Tears were
running down her face. [S]he mixed salt with cold water and gently plastered the
gritty mixture onto my feet. She helped me out of the tub, made to carry me on
her back to my room, but I shook my head. She was too small. We might both
fall. Mama did not speak until we were in my room. You should take Panadol,
she said. (Adichie 195)
As many others in the novel, this passage shows how the rigid home life will not allow Kambili
to have a closer relationship with her mother.
At the conclusion of Purple Hibiscus, though their relationship is still centered around
silence, Kambili and Beatrice reverse roles. The authors title of the ending section, a different
silence, suggests that after the death of the father/patriarch, the silence of Kambili and Beatrice
is not measured by Eugenes rules, but by defiance (Adichie 293). In assuming her mothers role
as the nurturing one, Kambili rewrites the script of a sacrificing woman. She and her mother now
connect in a different way and their relationship evolves as a result. Kambili becomes more
nurturing like her mother, and Beatrice becomes more defiant like Kambili. For example,
Beatrice defies the status quo by not wearing the proper dress after her husbands death, while
Kambili chooses to attend a church that values what her father rejects. Without the patriarch

39

hovering over their every move, Kambili and her mother both come-of-age at the end of the story
and challenge the established order.
Like the bush and the childhood home of Miss Winifred and Mrs. Phillips in Jamaica for
Clare Savage in Abeng, Nsukka embodies the island culture and is a place where Kambili can
discover a life away from her fathers authority. It is not until she visits her Aunty Ifeoma in
Nsukka that she begins to question her life in her fathers home. Her aunts home is cramped,
mismatched, and noisy; however, it has everything Kambilis home lacks: laughter, freedom of
expression, warmth. For Kambili, her aunts home is a place where you can say anything at
anytime to anyone, where the air was free for you to breathe as you wished (Adichie 120).
Kambili is both frightened and amazed by so much freedom to talk and express herself. She
continues, Laughter floated over my head. Words spurted from everyone, often not seeking and
getting any response. We always spoke with a purpose back home, especially at the table, but my
cousins seemed to simply speak and speak and speak (120).
Amaka, Kambilis first cousin, becomes the catalyst behind Kambilis ability in Nsukka
to break her silence and empower herself. Aunty Ifeoma asks Kambili to prepare the orah, but
because Kambili has a maid at home who prepares the food, she does not know how to perform
this task. In turn, Aunty Ifeoma asks Amaka to do it and Amaka shouts, Why? [B]ecause rich
people do not prepare orah in their houses? Wont she participate in eating the orah soup?
(Adichie 170). Amakas insults allude to Kambilis higher class status and her ignorance of
preparing Igbo food. Aunty Ifeomas firm suggestion that Kambili defend herself and [t]alk
back to her aids in breaking her perpetual silence in the text (170). Kambili describes her final
outburst:

40

You dont have to shout, Amaka, I said, finally. I dont know how to do the
orah leaves, but you can show me. I did not know where the calm words had
come from. I did not want to look at Amaka, did not want to see her scowl, did
not want to prompt her to say something else to me, because I knew I could not
keep up. I thought I was imagining it when I heard the cackling, but then I looked
at Amakaand sure enough, she was laughing. (Adichie 170)
As a figure of empowerment, Amakas values that consist of speaking her mind compel Kambili
to achieve voice and selfhood. In addition, Amaka gives the portrait she illustrates of PapaNnukwu to Kambili as a gift, which becomes a symbol of rebellion to Eugenes rules and the
Eurocentric sphere.
While in Nsukka, there is a brief mention that Kambili reads Equianos Travels, or the
Life of Gustavus Vassa the African (1798). Adichies insertion of this slave narrative possibly
points to the false teachings of Christianity, a main theme addressed in slave narratives (143). In
this narrative, Equiano provides a trenchant critique of the distorted Christianity of the
slaveholding South.17 Like Clare in Abeng, it is through literature that Kambili possibly
recognizes her fathers misconstrued version of Catholicism and becomes enlightened that the
slaveholders Christian teachings depicted in the slave narrative she reads parallel her fathers
teachings of Christianity. Her reading of the text subconsciously transforms her views that
Catholicism is superior to Igbo religion.
In Nsukka, Kambili also gets to know her grandfather, who is a contrast to Eugene.
Unlike his son, Papa-Nnukwu values the Igbo nation over British colonization. Described as a
traditionalist, Papa-Nnukwu follows the teachings of Igbo religion and only speaks in Igbo, his
17

The depth of this tradition is prevalent in other slave narratives such as the Frederick Douglasss Narrative of the
Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) and Harriet Jacobss Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), which shed light
on the way slaveholders immorally abused the Christian doctrine.

41

native tongue. For this reason, he regrets letting his son attend missionary school. He says,
[L]ook at me. My son owns that house that can fit in every man in Abba, and yet many times I
have nothing to put on my plate. I should not have let him follow those missionaries (Adichie
83). Papa-Nnukwu suggests that British teachings in the missionary schools have resulted in the
demise of his son and their detached relationship. Because Papa-Nnukwu is not Catholic and
practices an indigenous form of religion that includes gods and spirits, Eugene has excluded him
from the family life. Kambili and her brother have become accustomed to restricted visits of
fifteen minutes to spend with Papa-Nnukwu over the Christmas holidays. Gradually, Kambili
begins to notice that her grandfather does not appear as ungodly as her father suggests: I had
examined him that day, too, looking away when his eyes met mine, for signs of difference, of
Godlessness. I didnt see any, but I was sure they were there somewhere. They had to be
(Adichie 63). Visiting Nsukka for an extended period of time allows her to create her own
perceptions of her grandfather that oppose her fathers opinions and thus represent her move
towards independence.
Though Kambili is forbidden to have a relationship with her grandfather, she wants a
connection to him like Amaka. She says, Amaka and Papa-Nnukwu spoke sometimes, their
voices low, twining together. They understood each other, using the sparest words. Watching
them, I felt a longing for something I knew I would never have (Adichie 165). Just as Clare in
Abeng wants a relationship with her mother and the culture she values, Kambili desires a similar
connection with her grandfather. Her fathers restrictions and Papa-Nnukwus untimely death do
not allow Kambili to engage in a more intimate relationship with her grandfather. Because PapaNnukwu is a culture bearer and is interested in keeping the family rooted in Igbo language,
religion, and tribal customs, he emerges as a maternal figure for Kambili upon his death. The

42

portrait of Papa-Nnukwu allows Kambili to develop a connection to her Igbo roots and her
grandfather.
Upon returning home, Kambili and Jaja are filled with new ideas which complicate their
sense of place in the rigid home culture. For Kambili, nothing will be the same. She says:
I wanted to tell Mama that it did feel different to be back, that our living room had
too much empty space, too much wasted marble floor that gleamed from Sisis
polishing and housed nothing. Our ceilings were too high. Our furniture was
lifeless: the glass tables did not shed twisted skin in the harmattan, the leather
sofas greeting was a clammy coldness, the Persian rugs were too lush to have any
feeling. (Adichie 192)
In suggesting that her home lacks warmth, love and affection, Kambili implies it is no longer
fulfilling. Her exposure to a more leisurely, laid-back lifestyle in Nsukka has catalyzed this
change.
The question of being forced to choose between two cultures instead of being able to
embrace them both is Kambilis dilemma in Purple Hibiscus. Clares stance, however, at the end
of Abeng becomes more radical than Kambilis. In Abeng, the novel ends at the childhood home
of two women, which implies that the patriarchy is not present. Though the author seems to
suggest that Catholicism does not have to be as rigid, Kambilis decision not to reject
Catholicism fully but to attend a church that embraces both Igbo and Catholic customs suggests
she still adheres to patriarchal notions associated with Catholicism. In the end, Kambili no
longer questions the ideals that oppose her fathers ideologies. St. Andrews Church, which joins
both British and Igbo cultures, becomes a symbol for how she ultimately learns to be at peace

43

with both. The story of how St. Andrew18 unified two cultures in the Bible is found in John
12:20-22. In these verses, because Andrew and Phillip have Greek names and originate from
Bethsaida in Galilee, a Gentile region of Palestine, they become mediators in bringing the
Gentiles to Jesus (Guiley 18). In joining St. Andrews Church, Kambili similarly finds a way to
combine both European cultural values and Igbo cultural values. She says:
I no longer wonder if I have a right to love Father Amadi; I simply go ahead and
love him. I no longer wonder if the checks I have been writing to the Missionary
Fathers of the Blessed Way are bribes to God; I just go ahead and write them. I no
longer wonder if I chose St. Andrews church in Enugu as my new church
because the priest there is a Blessed Way Missionary Father as Father Amadi is; I
just go. (Adichie 303-304)
St. Andrews Church metaphorically represents unity. In the end, Kambili is able to embrace
both formal and informal segments of European and Igbo religious customs. Kambili takes all
that she learns from those around her and shapes a hybrid identity, finally flourishing into a girl
who speaks for herself.

18

In the Bible, Andrew and his brother, Simon Peter, are the first disciples chosen by Jesus. In turn, Jesus summons
Andrew and Simon Peter to be fishers of men (Mark 1:35-36).

44

CHAPTER FOUR:
CONCLUSION
Abeng (1984) and Purple Hibiscus (2003) provide explorations of hybridity and raise
questions about what it means to be Jamaican and what it means to be Nigerian. Michelle Cliff
and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie use the Bildungsroman to reveal the life and circumstances
behind a hybrid identity and show how each female protagonist attempts to reconcile her two
identities. Through their female protagonists, they investigate the larger issues of a hybrid
identity, place, and the trauma one experiences as a result of colonialism. Cliff addresses the
ways in which Clare resists an all-white identity. In assuming multiple identities, she rejects the
Eurocentric identity imposed on her by her father. Likewise, Adichies Kambili rebels against
her fathers religious expectations and ultimately embraces both the religion of her father and
grandfather. In these literary texts, Cliff and Adichie dismantle the postcolonial structure that
creates hierarchies of class, color, and religion and through their female protagonists, they
encourage women to come up with new definitions of identity.
In addition, Cliff and Adichie capture the complexities of the relationship between father
and daughter and investigate the ways in which the fathers assume the role of colonizer. Boy
values European culture and continues to perpetuate the misconceptions of blackness by
denigrating blackness and associating stability and power with lighter skin. Similarly, Eugenes
missionary schooling greatly influences the reasons he imposes the colonial ideal on his family
that Christianity is superior to indigenous forms of religion. Through father-daughter
relationships, these coming-of-age novels show how the emotional bond between a father and

45

daughter is often varied and complex and how sometimes views of the colonizers permeate
relationships and are either passed down from generation to generation or disrupted.
At the same time, these literary works provide varied, complex relationships between
mothers and daughters and offer different perspectives on the ways in which each motherdaughter relationship explores distance and/or reconnection during a girls growth into
adulthood. Though the mothers do not neglect their heritage, they do not contest their husbands
rearing of their daughters. Though the mother-daughter relationship between Kitty and Clare is
not one of love and nurturance, Kitty finds subtle ways of sharing her values with her child. On
the other hand, Kambilis mother, Beatrice, cannot aid in helping Kambili assert an identity
beyond the home culture because she is reduced to the same status as her children. Because
Beatrice is largely silenced by marital abuse, the mother-daughter relationship in the text is less
prominent and, as a result, the grandfather emerges as a maternal figure and aids in connecting
Kambili to her Igbo culture. Unlike Clare who is separated from both her mother and father at
the end of Abeng, Kambili reconnects with her mother and they both achieve voice at the end of
the novel.
The distinct places illustrated in each novel either inhibit or stimulate the growth of the
protagonist. While the home culture in each novel becomes a metaphor for the Eurocentric
sphere, and compels each female protagonist to conform to a fixed identity, the island culture
represents the pristine, traditional culture and exposes Clare and Kambili to other aspects of their
identity. Because each female protagonist eventually makes the decision to resist and refuse a
single identity, hybridity becomes feminized in each coming-of-age story. Clare and Kambili are
able to attain a hybrid identity only after they are exposed to other aspects of their identity in the
island culture. For this reason, the home culture is depicted as masculine, while the island culture

46

exudes the feminine and becomes the catalyst behind each female protagonists recognition of
her multiple and/or hybrid identities.
Clares journey to the bush/countryside and to the childhood home of Mrs. Phillips and
Miss Winifred, her final destination in the novel, enables her to claim her black Jamaican
heritage. It is in the bush where she is able to assert an African identity and learn about home
remedies from her mother and facts surrounding puberty and sexuality from Zoe. At the same
time, her visit with Miss Winifred is the catalyst behind her recognition of her mixed-race
heritage. Like Clare, Kambilis trip to Nsukka allows her to discover a life beyond the
constraints of her father and the rigid home culture. In Nsukka, Kambili achieves voice and
attains the ability to deviate from the original teachings of Catholicism and combine Igbo
religious customs to the Catholic doctrine. Because Abeng ends at the childhood home, we are
uncertain about how Clare changes after her trip. We can only assume by her dream that she
embraces a mixed-race identity that highlights her Africanness. In Purple Hibiscus, however, we
are able to see the complete change and growth of Kambili. After her visit to Nsukka, she defies
her father and later joins St. Andrews Church, a church that combines Catholic teachings with
Igbo ancestral worship.
In shaping an identity, Clare and Kambili question the identity chosen for them and seek
out an identity that embraces the home culture which represents the father and the island culture
which represents the mother and/or maternal figures. Although Clares father and mother both
insist she claim an all-white identity, she must negotiate the Eurocentric identity of her father and
the Afrocentric identity of her mother. Ultimately, Clare rejects an all-white identity and creates
an identity that consists of indigenous, European, African, and Jamaican cultures. In asserting a
hybrid identity, however, Clare highlights her African identity, the identity of her mother, which

47

suggests that she privileges her African identity over her other identities in the end. Kambili, on
the other hand, successfully finds a way to merge both of her identities. By joining St. Andrews
Church, she combines Catholic teachings with Igbo religious customs. All in all, by defying
societal notions, Michelle Cliffs Clare and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies Kambili negotiate the
identities of both their mother and father and achieve an individual identity without succumbing
to the ideals of the dominant culture that their fathers value.

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