Purple Hibiscus Lecture 2 Purple Lilac and Blue

Purple Hibiscus – Lecture 2 Purple, Lilac and Blue Hibiscus

Today’s Lecture 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Women and Food National Allegory Ideology Christianity Home

Aunty Ifeoma was at the dining table when I came out, dissolving a few spoonfuls of dried milk in a jug of cold water. “If I let these children take the milk themselves, it will not last a week, ” she said, before taking the tin of Carnation dried milk back to the safety of her room. I hope that Amaka would not ask me if my mother did that, too, because I would stutter if I had to tell her that we took as much creamy Peak milk as we wanted back home. Breakfast was okpa that Obiora had dashed out to buy from somewhere nearby. I had never had okpa for a meal, only for a snack when we sometimes bought the steam-cooked cowpea-and-palm-oil cakes on the drive to Abba. I watched Amada and Aunty Ifeoma cut up the moist yellow cake and did the same. Aunty Ifeoma asked us to hurry up. [p. 127]

I looked down at the jollof rice, fried plantains and half of a drumstick on my plate and tried to concentrate, tried to get the food down. The plates, too, were mismatched. Chima and Obiora used plastic ones while the rest of us had plain glass plates, bereft of dainty flowers or silver lines. Laugher floated over my head. Words spurted from everyone, often not seeking and not getting any response. We always spoke with a purpose back home, especially at the table, but my cousins seemed to simply speak and speak. . I did not say anything else until lunch was over, but I listened to every word spoken, followed every cackle of laughter and line of banter. Mostly my cousins did the talking and Aunty Ifeoma sat back and watched them, eating slowly. She looked like a football coach who had done a good job with her team and was satisfied to stand next to the eighteen-yard box and watch. [pp. 119 -120]

“Does your factory make this, Uncle Eugene? ” Amada asked, squinting to see what was written on the bottles. “Yes, ” Papa answered. “It’s a little too sweet. It would be nicer if you reduced the sugar in it. ” Amaka’s tone was as polite and normal as everyday conversation with an older person. I was not sure if Papa nodded or if his head simply moved as he chewed. Another knot former in my throat, and I could not get a mouthful of rice down. I knocked my glass over as I reached for it, and the blood coloured juice crept over the white lace tablecloth. Mama hastily placed a napkin on the spot, and when she raised the reddened napkin, I remembered her blood on the stairs. [pp. 98 -99]

Frederic Jamison – National Allegory ‘Third-world texts, even those which are seemingly private and invested with a properly libidinal dynamic – necessarily project a political dimension in the form of national allegory: the story of the private individual destiny is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society. ’ [Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism (Social Text, nor. 15 (p. 56)]

Mikhail Bakhtin Hetroglossia – many voices. A term used by Mikhail Bakhtin, especially in connection with the novel. Monoglossia = single voice of authority Polyglossia = many voices Hetrolgossia = many voices turn into Other voices Within a particular society it is the voice of communities – or the idioms used by different speech communities. In speaking of community idioms/voices he Bakhtin uses the term Ideolect = essentially it is a specific lexicon. A treasure of words associated with a specific group. The novel, by drawing on all these ways of speaking, is textually rich. It also brings a much fuller society into representation.

Aijaz Ahmad Argues against this theory insisting on what he defines as ‘the specificity of cultural difference. ’ He emphasises ‘the enormous cultural heterogeneity (difference) of social formations within the so-called Third World’.

‘the status of “native” is a neurosis introduced and maintained by the colonist in the colonized with their consent. ’ [Sartre’s introduction to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth] Papa 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 with the white religious. [p. 46]

Ideology persuades us to image society the way it is by those who have power – Louis Althusser Interpellation – ideas about the social order that are seen as natural.

Adichie Eugene is someone ‘who must prove himself Christian by condemning his past: This is very much a theme in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. . . I wanted to write the modern take. I wanted Papa to be a man who did horrible things, but who, ultimately wasn’t a monster. Unless he was complex it would be easy to dismiss him. There are lots of people who are kind and generous and thoughtful, but in the name of religion do all sorts of awful things? ’ [p. 4 ‘Profile of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’]

Eugene’s violence pp 32, 51, 52. Of course one of the most graphic examples of Eugene’s violence is burning Kambili’s feet.

Catholic Church Missionaries frequently accompanied a conquering army. Gun and Bible! The Church was wedded to the idea of the civilizing mission, was is grounded in a profound sense of instability. Catholicism and Christianity was most firmly grounded amongst the Igbo. Catholicism came to Nigeria as early as the 15 th century, although not really becoming significant until the 1920 s. Today the largest Catholic populations are in ‘third world’ countries, as the numbers of the faithful are in decline in Western Societies.

The dominant model of power and interest-relations in all colonial societies is the Manichean Opposition between the reputed superiority of the European and supposed inferiority of the native. Manichean Allegory: A field of diverse yet inter-changeable oppositions between white and black, good and evil, superiority and inferiority, civilization and savagery, intelligence and emotion, rationality and sensuality, self and other, subject and object. [See section on Eugene’s grandfather, pp. 67 -68]

A few examples of Eugene’s violence pp. 10 -11. Mama’s face ; ’the black-purple colour of an overripe avocado’. pp. 32 -3: Mama beaten – results in miscarriage. p. 145: Jaja’s finger broken. pp. 190: Mama – ‘face was swollen’ pp. 193 -195: Burning of Kambili’s feet. pp. 196 -7: Violence done to Eugene by a Catholic priest.

The church does not liberate, it ‘suffocated. See page 7.

‘When the missionaries first came, they didn’t think Igbo names were good enough. They insisted that people take English names to be baptized. ’ [272) [Why? Does God discriminate? Does the Christian God not like Igbo names? ]

The idea of home – a troubled/troubling notion. See interview at back of book.