Subversive responses to oppression in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

Abstract

Focusing on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s critically acclaimed Purple Hibiscus (2003), this article argues that subversion, an aggressive performance that aimed at overthrowing and displacing patriarchal institutions which initially impact on the choices and activities of the oppressed, is the hallmark of the fictional figures’ responses to oppression. The essay contends that such forceful reactions to repression expand our understanding of twenty-first century Nigerian female-authored narratives. This argument I contrast with earlier critical readings, observing that while critics are eager to expose and endorse a female presence in the text, the readings often undermine its revolutionary suggestions. Through a radical feminist approach, my analysis of the novel highlights the heroines in order to demonstrate subversive behaviours in their drive to establish female agency, and notes such defiance to be necessary considering their repressive milieu. In doing so, I conclude with the notion that dissidence is a remarkable feature of the novel, and that the radical feminist paradigm is useful in widening awareness to this groundbreaking tenor.

Discussion of the applicability of feminism to cultures other than those in the West is a key concern that has long dominated feminist scholarship. This is a contested zone, with relativist feminists alleging that the hegemonic comportment of mainstream feminism emboldens minority groups to resort to modifiers in order to make their various backgrounds clear and specific. The case is similar in postcolonial Nigerian society (and more broadly Africa), where many women who practically espouse a feminist worldview theoretically refuse to identify as feminists. This rejection can be attributed to the debate surrounding the supposed foreignness and inadequacy of feminist ideology in conceptualizing the worldview of women of colour, a notion that was foregrounded in Alice Walker’s influential work, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983). Under-scoring black women’s self-determination in the face of oppression and cooperative endeavours between men and women, Walker articulates womanism as “referring to a woman who [is] committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a separatist” (1983: xi−xii). Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi concurs, adding that numerous black women novelists writing in English have understandably not associated themselves with “radical white feminists”, for whereas a white woman writer may be a feminist, her black counterpart is most likely to be a “womanist” (1985: 64−65). Suspicious of white allies due to years of racial discrimination, Ogunyemi contends that the talented African woman writer “conscious of the black impotence in the context of white patriarchal culture, empowers the black man. She believes in him; hence, her books end in integrative images of the male and female world” (1985: 68−69). Glo Chukukere takes it further, pronouncing Nigerian feminism a non-antagonistic, nonviolent, and non-confrontational concept, which places a high premium on “disciplined freedom” (1998: 138). Such perception, in my opinion, is instrumental in shaping the way African women’s texts are read and is responsible for the prevalent undermining of the revolutionary undertones of contemporary Nigerian women’s writing. Putting specific emphasis on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus (2003), this paper challenges such reactionary readings, and maintains that rebellion is the main feature of modern Nigerian women’s narratives. I argue that regardless of the politics of difference that threatens to weaken women’s liberation, the radical feminist paradigm is expedient in comprehending far-reaching responses of Adichie’s heroines to their limiting circumstances. This perspective, in my view, is yet to receive an in-depth critical attention.

Critical reviews of Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus have centred on three main approaches. The first are those which argue for a reading of the politics of the novel as womanist. Situating her discourse within Alice Walker’s brand of womanism, Brenda Cooper contends that although heroine Kambili Achike’s horrific experiences of violence at the hands of her father lead to the suppression of her speech, the protagonist eventually regains her voice and freedom through her subsequent exposure to the womanist emblematic “purple hibiscus” flower (2010: 8). For Cooper, this symbolic freedom lends credibility to “Adichie’s womanism as opposed to feminism and the influence of Alice Walker” (2010: 9). Shalini Nadaswaran concurs, comparing such liberation to the “metamorphic process of womanist theory where ‘the young girl inherits womanism after a traumatic event’” (2011: 24). The second group comprises those who argue for a reading of the text as a reformist rather than a radical work. Taking on the issue of faith, Cheryl Stobie upholds Adichie’s stance as “reformist” rather than “radical” since it suggests substitutes for totalitarianism by recommending veneration, broad-mindedness, and clemency while supporting liberal interpretations of gender roles, culture, faith, and piety (2010: 423−32). Lastly, there are those who, though attuned to the text’s radical implications, downplay its subversive undertones. Affirming the feminist tone of the novel, Chielozona Eze concludes that its brand of feminism is distinctive because the novel’s female characters nurse neither the intention to “dethrone man nor to enthrone woman on the seat of power” but to create a society where “human beings flourish” (2008: 115). Ogaga Okuyade expands on this by maintaining that the text’s mode of feminism is mild, and that the fictional figures are “differently rebellious” despite the act of murder that occurs in the text (2010: 72, 77). Still sustaining the “not too radical” readings of the text (Ikediugwu, 2013: 14), Jane Ifechelobi (2014) and Ijeoma Ibeku (2015) stress that the female characters’ reactions to oppression are suggestive of Adichie’s African feminist predilections. I argue instead that Adichie’s fictional characters are overtly rebellious, and that their revolutionary reactions to restrictive circumstances are best understood and appreciated through a radical feminist viewpoint.

Taking up a critical position not only in relation to womanist readings but also in relation to those critics who tend to minimize the subversive implications of Purple Hibiscus, I argue that the text, typically of modern Nigerian novels by women, deserves to be assessed differently vis-à-vis the heroines’ refusal to be cowed into false obedience by opting to be in conflict with the norm. Although these previous readings present valid ways of reading the text, Adichie’s reader stands to benefit more from a radical feminist reading in apprehending how oppression and resistance are interwoven in the story.

The expression radical feminism, in this context, denotes in the most general sense the patriarchal roots of disparity between men and women, an unfairness that necessitates feminists’ call for social reordering. In Sisterhood is Powerful (1970), Robin Morgan argues that since “all oppressed people […] are women [thus] worldwide Women’s Revolution” is the only solution for gender injustice (1970: xxxv). Pam Morris further explicates this notion, stressing that “changing the existing power relations between the sexes would mean a social revolution” (1993: 5). This article follows a similar trajectory to that described by Morgan and Morris by employing the expression “revolution” as a necessary and comprehensive change in power. A robust theoretical framework such as radical feminism, which acknowledges rather than denounces subversion, is needed to value Adichie’s female characters’ efforts. I concede that liberation might be attained through non-confrontational means; however, concerted effort in the form of overturning the status quo is required since the oppressors are determined not to relinquish their control. Such a far-reaching overhaul is what Adichie’s text seeks to promote.

Adichie’s debut novel Purple Hibiscus, first published in 2003, narrates the story of an Igbo household in Nigeria in the late twentieth century. From Kambili’s vantage point, the reader comes to know her father, Eugene, a philanthropist and religious bigot who denounces his father, Papa-Nnukwu, for being a traditionalist, and regularly beats his wife, Beatrice, and their children, Kambili and Jaja. The teenagers briefly escape the choking air of their family in Enugu when they are invited by their Aunt Ifeoma, Eugene’s widowed sister and a senior lecturer who lives in the University of Nsukka, to spend their holiday in Nsukka. The comfortable milieu offers Kambili and Jaja an ideal substitute for the environment of terror that permeates their home.

Right from the beginning of Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Kambili is positioned purposefully within domains of patriarchal control. The family home is walled around with coiled electric wires on top and characterized by the oppressive silence that envelops it: “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” (Adichie, 2003: 39). ¹ In Discipline and Punish, Foucault (1979: 138) maintains that power is a dynamic oppressive entity that maintains an inescapable and suppressive hold on its victims. Likewise, silence in this context is aimed at creating an unequal hierarchical structure where Eugene, being the head of the household and main point of reference, is positioned on top and his family from the base depends on his sole approval for everything, including when to eat. The traumatic effect of this silence paralyses Kambili with fear, resulting in her communicating with her eyes, stuttering when she makes an effort to speak, and never discussing the tension in the home so as to evade her father’s anger and chastisement. A particularly troubling instance of this happens when Eugene smashes the étagère. ² Kambili notes: “I meant to say I am sorry that Papa broke your figurines, but the words that came out were, ‘I’m sorry your figurines broke, Mama’” (18). Crucial at this point is Kambili’s use of the passive voice to emphasize the impersonal smashing of the ornaments without any reference to her father. Perhaps she is afraid to implicate him for fear of being punished, even though there seems to be no obvious threat of punishment from the context in which this happens, considering that “Kambili was still at the window when Mama came into [her] room […] while Papa took his siesta” (18).

Patriarchal surveillance in Purple Hibiscus undeniably increases the subjection of Adichie’s female characters; however, I strongly reject the notion that they are passive to their situation. In her study Foucault and Feminism, Lois McNay argues that “a […] serious problem with Foucault’s notion of the body is that it is conceived essentially as a passive entity, upon which power stamps its own images” (1992: 12). As McNay expresses, wherever domination is enforced, resistance will inevitably ensue. Similarly, Adichie’s female characters’ rebellion is born from their repression, and such defiant behaviours manifest in various degrees. While Beatrice’s and Kambili’s resistance takes a gradual but resilient process, from a subtle condemnation of ubiquitous excessive control mechanisms to a total rejection of patriarchal repressive ethical values, Aunty Ifeoma’s reaction to oppression is overtly subversive. This article, therefore, is significant in its approach in analysing some of these insightful, yet less theorized, responses of these fictional figures with the intent to foreground their determination to assert agency in a repressive milieu.

The type of the physical abuse that Adichie describes is highly emotive, for it is typified by horror. Three of Kambili’s experiences of domestic violence, one of which is gendered in dimension, are particularly awful. In the first, she is flogged with “a heavy belt made of layers of brown leather with a sedate leather-cover buckle” as a rebuke for desecrating the Eucharistic fast, a religious obligation for the Catholic faithful not to eat solid food an hour before Mass (110). The event occurs on a Sunday morning when her mother, contrary to the family ritual of fasting every Sunday before mass, encourages Kambili to eat before taking her medication, a drug which is meant to assuage her menstrual cramps. As she “started to wolf the cereal, standing”, her father unexpectedly emerges and in his rage whips the entire family with his belt (110). This action could be viewed as a reflection of Eugene’s insensitivity to Kambili’s biological needs, an organic aspect of her life which he painstakingly struggles to control. Following this episode is a more concentrated abuse in which she is tortured for sleeping in the same house in Nsukka as her grandfather: “her father poured the hot water on my feet, slowly, as if he were conducting an experiment and wanted to see what would happen” (200). In this text the heroine’s body is ill-treated in the most brutal of ways: her father scalds her feet with hot water, within the perimeter of their home. The hot water, similar to the belt, is a “disciplinary mechanism” (Foucault, 1979: 16), with which Eugene imposes control and ownership in the private sphere.

Eugene employs torture to regulate behaviour and to enforce compliance; however, such a control device at this point begins to slip as Kambili progressively refuses to be contained. Kambili, rather than being a character who unreservedly submits to oppression, in the last incidence of her domestic abuse begins to interrogate some of her father’s ethical values about the idea that Papa-Nnukwu is a heathen. She returns home from her aunt’s house in Nsukka with a gift from her cousin Amaka: a picture of her grandfather. Eugene’s anger explodes the moment he discovers the picture, which embodies a sort of change and resistance to oppression, and he subsequently tears it into pieces. This time Kambili protests by dashing onto the floor to prevent “Papa-Nnukwu’s body [from] being cut in pieces” (216). Kambili’s action, for a person like Eugene, is the worst kind of unruly behaviour, which in turn requires rapid punishment: “Get up! Get away from that painting [amidst kicking and beating] Godlessness. Heathen worship. Hellfire” (216). In her foetal posture, Kambili describes her experience of overtly physical violent treatment: “He started to kick me. The metal buckles on his slippers stung like bites from giant mosquitos” (216−17).

Regardless of the fact that this posture might be deconstructed in many ways — including, but not limited to, as an act of submission — for Adichie, I believe, it represents Kambili’s revolutionary move from needing to tremble at her father’s real and imagined presence to the point of asserting her individuality. Kambili’s defiance of the ethical values that would have her reject her grandfather is construed by Eugene as an act of insubordination which deserves severe discipline. The extreme violence of the beating, “as he has never punished her like this before” (219), demonstrates his loss of even the control he usually has when inflicting injury, and this can be read as the moment in which his regime of control is weakest and resistance becomes possible. Kambili’s rejection of her father’s control affirms her position as an agent, and this validates McNay’s notion that “repression produces its own resistances” (1994: 39). Kambili’s defiance, which is evident in her resolution to remain on the ground and take the beating rather than obeying her father’s instruction to detach herself from the picture, can be read as her distinctive mode of resistance that is born from years of abuse. Through this boldness, she demonstrates the aptitude to act in spite of the domineering presence of her father, insisting that her opinion concerning her grandfather be respected.

Like Kambili, Beatrice also experiences physical maltreatment when on a particular Sunday after Mass she expresses the need to stay in the car because of her feeling of nausea and dizziness while the family visit Father Benedict: “Let me stay in the car and wait, biko […]. I feel vomit in my throat” (37). Following this request is a sharp violent response from Eugene who “turned to stare at her” (37). Perhaps startled by Beatrice’s implicit request for autonomy, the first of its kind, Eugene in this description appears apprehensive about the likelihood of opposition to his patriarchal sphere of control. This implicit demand for autonomy, which can be read as a slippage of Eugene’s disciplinary regime of consent to control, however, results in domestic abuse as Eugene resorts to physical torture as a means of reinstating compliance. After they return home, the “Swift, heavy thuds on [the] bedroom door [and the] blood on the floor” result in a miscarriage, “There was an accident, the baby is gone” (41−43). All of this indicates a determined form of control with sole intent to dominate. The extreme nature of the abuse that results in Beatrice’s miscarriage shows Eugene’s intolerance to opposition and by extension to Beatrice’s freedom. Undoubtedly, Beatrice’s internalization of the omnipresent husband might be responsible for her unwillingness, similar to that of Kambili above, to implicate Eugene as the prime suspect in the miscarriage, even though he is notably absent within the context under consideration. Power is thus created and sustained through the twofold influence of invented surveillance and violent spectacle, performed by a deadly dangerous and ever-present patriarchal figure who is apprehensive of autonomy.

Adichie’s Beatrice, rather than being inert, demonstrates the desire to be free from patriarchal domination. In her seminal thesis, The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir argues that “for [a] woman there is no other way out than to work for her liberation” (1949/1971: 664). We find an implicit mirroring of this opinion in the attitude of Beatrice. Beatrice’s seeming will to defiance, specifically demonstrated in her desire to stay in the car, can be read in line with de Beauvoir’s notion of women working out their freedom. By voicing her need to be allowed to stay behind, Beatrice demonstrates her first step towards the decision to take control of her life; later, she will seize further control by killing her husband. While Beatrice’s action might not be viewed as revolutionary at this stage, it somewhat demonstrates her quest for autonomy, albeit in a formative stage. Because Beatrice’s gestation period of resistance takes quite a while, and perhaps because she is not as outspoken as Aunty Ifeoma, critics have seen her as “passive and silly” (Andrade, 2011: 97), “physically and emotionally blind” (Nadaswaran, 2011: 27), a “battered woman [that] turns into a husband-murderer” (Stobie, 2010: 432), who obviously “enjoys the [ill] treatment meted out on her” (Ibeku, 2015: 434) and whose ultimate deed is depicted not as an achievement but as a miserable requisite. Such dismissive readings notably downplay the revolutionary inferences of the text.

I argue instead that Adichie presents the character of Beatrice as a subversive personality whose minor acts of resistance are a prelude to her eventual radical response to oppression. Beatrice’s supposedly construed passivity, as I demonstrate below, can be read as disguised resistance precisely because neither Eugene, before his murder, nor the neighbours ever believe that she is capable of committing the crime she ultimately claims. For Adichie, Beatrice’s progressive yet lethal approach and Aunty Ifeoma’s confrontational mannerisms are both valid ways of responding to repression.

Using the analogy of a snail, Adichie through her narrator hints at Beatrice’s quest for freedom. On a particular occasion, Kambili’s attention is drawn to a covered basket full of snails at the entrance of her hairstylist’s shed. Kambili notes that Mama Joe

picked up an enterprising snail that was crawling out of the open basket. I wondered if it was the same snail, crawling out, being thrown back in, and then crawling out again. Determined. I wanted to buy the whole basket and set that one snail free. (243)

Through the imagery of a snail, Adichie encourages readers to consider a creature burdened with a heavy load, represented by its shell, which struggles for freedom under a repressive environment. It is revealing that Kambili’s desire to buy the whole basket is based on her seeming wish to set free the enterprising snail. Adichie through her narrator espouses the notion that freedom must be fought for rather than being given. While oppression ultimately produces resistance (employing McNay’s term), it takes determination, as evident in the effort of this lone snail, to bring it into actuality. What is evident, therefore, is the individual ability to decide whether to do nothing regarding one’s state, which is epitomized by the attitude of the rest of the other snails in the basket, or to elect for freedom, like the enterprising snail, through constant conflict with the repressor. I argue that Beatrice, like this enterprising snail, is not passive but rather has been progressively putting in efforts towards her freedom, although each of her attempts to crawl out has attracted severe punishment: “You know that small table where we keep the family Bible, nne? Your father broke it on my belly […] my blood finished on that floor […] I was six weeks gone” (253). The heaviness of her pain and abuse, similar to that of the snail’s shell, has built in her the deadly revenge against her repressor.

In spite of the fact that Beatrice implicitly resists repression for much of the text, the reader will observe a higher level of agency when her resistance develops, ultimately resulting in the killing of Eugene. Towards the end of the text, she progressively yet subversively moves from implicitly requesting autonomy to overtly asserting her individuality in the domestic sphere by exploiting her control over foodstuffs. Most noticeable, however, is the poisoning of Eugene’s tea, his very symbol of love, deliberately and steadily “putting the poison in his tea” (294). She eventually kills him by consistently dropping a poisonous substance into his tea. Eugene’s death marks the end of a regime of abuse in Achike’s family, and this validates Morgan’s and Morris’s views regarding the inevitability of social revolution as an antidote to gender inequity. By gradually “walking” her way up to this level of agency, Beatrice, I argue, is shown to be different to Foucault’s prisoners who elect to remain docile for fear of punishment. Her quest for autonomy, which demonstrates the manner in which she doggedly resists repression, shows that she is neither passive nor complicit with her restrictive and disadvantaging atmosphere.

Beatrice’s premeditated murder calls for a reconsideration of Purple Hibiscus as mainly a womanist text. Walker articulates womanism as a paradigm of communal wholeness. Conversely, I argue that this avowal might not apply to the text under consideration, as the narrative not only ends with the disintegration of the Achike family, but also the demise of Eugene and the resulting incarceration of Jaja. ³ I do not propose that every feminist text must end with the demise or incarceration of the male characters or that the wholeness promoted by womanism is unattainable. Instead, I argue that, for Adichie, individual subjecthood is paramount above shared commonality. Primary to Adichie in the text is individual safety and self-esteem. The sad ending of Eugene and Jaja does not suggest that Adichie, as a radical feminist writer, hates men. In her feminist manifesto We Should All Be Feminists, Adichie describes herself as a “Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men” (2014: 10). Such a feminist vantage point might be responsible for the creation of male characters such as Father Amadi, the Igbo priest, and Papa-Nnukwu, who are depicted, to some extent, in a good light. However, Eugene’s demise, for Adichie, is a practical solution to ending oppression when such cruelty becomes a threat to the existence of the woman. It is possible that Beatrice will die if she does not take the initiative to kill her husband. By killing Eugene, she not only saves her life but also reinstates her personal confidence. Her radical response to oppression, I argue, favours a radical feminist perception that advocates for the abolition of patriarchal agencies in all social and economic contexts. I contend that Beatrice’s act of dropping a poisonous substance daily in Eugene’s tea and watching him die gradually constitutes highly subversive behaviour, and that she is better understood as a radical feminist character whose deliberate desire for autonomy from a repressive tyrant propels her to kill him.

Indeed, Beatrice’s personality following the murder does evolve for she does not only kill Eugene, but also refuses to mourn him by not “wearing all black or all white for a year [or] attending the first- and second- year memorial Masses, [and] for not cutting her hair” (300). Marie-Antoinette Sossou depicts widowhood as a very trying moment for women: “The behaviour surrounding mourning is inherently gendered. Rituals are more to do with exalting the position of the dead man than allowing a real outlet for the widow’s grief” (2002: 202). Christine Ohale concurs, noting that “The Igbo widow is often subjected to unutterable cruelty to which she is expected to fully comply” (2012: 4), and that she is mandated to sit on the bare floor, take no bath or change her clothes, wail loudly every morning until the husband finally lays at rest, shave her hair, including pubic hair, dress all in black, never laugh or wear makeup, abstain from sex and live in seclusion while depending on others for support throughout the six-month or one-year mourning period. After the burial “the deceased husband’s family swoops on his property, leaving the widow utterly destitute” (Ohale, 2012: 4).

By contrast, Beatrice rejects not only the cultural norms of mourning that facilitate this abuse, but also the social expectations of widowhood: the wearing of a special mourning cloth in honour of the deceased, attending memorial services and cutting her hair. Through this act she makes a public statement about Eugene’s reputation, suggesting that though he was a respectable man in society, he was nevertheless a terror in the home. If a widow’s loud wail helps her deceased husband’s soul to rest in peace, then Beatrice’s blatant refusal to mourn can be read as a form of punishment of Eugene’s soul. Beatrice’s refusal of conventional mourning represents her acting out a subversive behaviour, and this act of bravery that sees her rebel against damaging cultural norms that encourage the marginalization of widows validates my reading of the text as a revolutionary feminist work.

The radical feminist undertones of the text are also evident in the theatrical manner with which Beatrice chases off mourners from her apartment. She instructs “Adamu not to open the gates” for sympathizers; even “members of our umunna who had come from Abba were turned away” (292−93). Here, Beatrice demonstrates the feminist inclination that an individual’s well-being precedes shared commonality. Her explosive behaviour can be understood in sequences. First, her performance could be read as a sort of revenge on Eugene’s kinsmen who earlier in the text encouraged him to take many wives so as to have more sons. Second, it could be hypothesized that her action is a personal defence, as among those men are brothers-in-law who might have come with the intention to disinherit or force her into conjugal relations. Finally, it is also possible to read her reaction as confrontation with social hypocrisy, since among the sympathizers are neighbours, friends, relatives, priests, and health officers who were privy to the abuse in the family but elected to do nothing about it. By ordering the gate to remain locked, she demonstrates a “coming-to-consciousness” — a high level of feminist awareness that enables her to avoid the further abuse, mistreatment, and violence of being a widow either from the neighbours or from Eugene’s relatives who come from Abba. Through Beatrice’s performance, Adichie makes a far-reaching statement against such social structures that covertly and overtly encourage the oppression of womanhood. Recognizing Beatrice’s reactions to oppression as revolutionary is, I submit, one of the key ways in which the radical feminist undercurrent of the text might be appreciated.

Rather than being a character who regrets her actions, Beatrice unapologetically takes ownership of her behaviour. Moving from the private domain to the public sphere, she declares herself responsible for the death of her husband: “she went about telling people that she killed Papa, that she put the poison in his tea. She even wrote letters to newspapers. But nobody listened to her; they still don’t” (300). From her writing to the newspapers, it is possible to hypothesize that Beatrice is educated, even though the text gives no insight into her educational background. It is demoralizing that no one believes her story, as people “think grief and denial — that her husband is dead and that her son is in prison — have turned her into this vision of a painfully bony body” (300). Embedded in this description is the notion that murder is purportedly a masculine crime, and that Beatrice is incapable of committing the offence she has claimed. As such, Beatrice’s persistent homicide claim signals her mental derangement to people, as no “normal” woman could be courageous enough to make such a claim. By constructing her identity around her loss — husband and son — people significantly dismiss this claim by rationalizing that grief must have turned her to this “abnormal” behaviour, especially as this supposed act of dissidence contrasts with her earlier reactions in the text.

It is interesting how Beatrice’s subversive demeanour is construed as atypical, which in turn deserves to be quarantined. Such a response, I argue, might not be strange in real life, and this has been researched by feminist critics such as Jordan and Hartling (2002), Porter (2002), and Hartling (2009), who have pointed to the proclivity of the dominant group to classify themselves as normal while placing those who do not fit in with their principles of normality as abnormal. Beatrice’s murder declaration likewise is considered abnormal as it is against the social expectations of an ideal woman; the idea of an innocent, calm, gentle, passive and sacrificial woman who surrenders all so as to gain the respect of the community. Her uprising, which privileges individual autonomy over social expectations of femaleness, however, is threatened by people’s dismissive attitude, a consequence that necessitates her struggle to be heard and ensure that such behaviours get recognized. For Adichie, although progressive resistance is a valid way of combating repression, it nevertheless has its pitfalls, as seen by the dismissive response to Beatrice’s subversive deeds, and this necessitates the creation of a more revolutionary character, in the personality of Aunty Ifeoma, who significantly exemplifies Adichie’s radical feminist worldview.

Aunty Ifeoma’s audibility and prompt confrontational approach against the conventions of gender and power politics clearly depict her as Adichie’s radical feminist model in the text. A tall, smart widow who works as a senior lecturer at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, Aunty Ifeoma is presented primarily as a revolutionary character whose demeanour exudes enthusiasm and blatant strength. This distinctive temperament distinguishes her from Beatrice’s calm personality. Early in the text, Aunty Ifeoma admonishes Beatrice to quit her relationship with Eugene while stressing, “This cannot go on, nwunye m […]. When a house is on fire, you run out before the roof collapses on your head” (219−20). De Beauvoir contends that “marriage [ought to be viewed] as a free engagement where spouses could break when they wanted to” (1949/1971: 760). Aunty Ifeoma likewise maintains the idea that marriage should not be an irreversible lifelong contract, but should be a union where either party is free to quit, especially when life is in danger. Her standpoint, I argue, has radical feminist connotations that apparently disturb the dynamism of “wholeness” and “integration” advocated by womanists. By counselling Beatrice to quit her marriage, Aunty Ifeoma can be read as a subversive character who encourages divorce, instead of endurance, as a viable solution to marital problems. Beatrice heeds this warning, albeit late, but the delay contributes to her deplorable mental health condition. She consequently pays dearly for waiting so long before implementing the advice. In this lies the difference between the two characters, for while Aunty Ifeoma audibly and rapidly resists repression, Beatrice calmly but progressively achieves the same, although belatedly. Via both women characters’ confrontational approach to repression, Adichie stresses not only the complications of progressive resistance but also the dangers of trying to mend repressive relationships, and by doing so she promotes spontaneous resistance as a radical feminist strategy.

For Adichie, Aunty Ifeoma’s rapid revolutionary response to repression is an ideal reaction. In one particular incident the Sole Administrator, who doubles as the military head of state and vice chancellor of the University of Nsukka, terrorizes Aunty Ifeoma. He includes her name in a list of staff disloyal to the university, sends unidentified security agents to harass her, and eventually terminates her appointment for daring to criticize his administration. Before this termination, the Sole Administrator implicitly gives her several opportunities to denounce her words, including sending emissaries who advise her to remain silent for her safety and that of her children. Aunty Ifeoma nevertheless refuses to be cowed into false obedience, as she maintains: “I am not paid to be loyal. When I speak the truth, it becomes disloyal” (227). As Kambili rightly points out: “The sole administrator was pouring hot water on Aunty Ifeoma’s feet in the bathtub of our home in Enugu. Then Aunty Ifeoma jumped out of the bathtub and, in the manner of dreams, jumped into America” (234). As Brenda Cooper observes, it is fascinating that the Sole Administrator doubles up in Kambili’s dream as “a violent father, the law, the abuser, who scalded his children’s feet in the boiling water” (2008: 129). Aunty Ifeoma, unlike Beatrice and Kambili who implicitly resist repression for much of the novel and only explicitly fight back almost at the end of the text, apparently confronts the Sole Administrator in his metaphorical experimentation by leaping from the bathtub and jumping into America. ⁴ This action is a subversive performance; a refusal to be muted or restricted by Foucault’s ubiquitous power through the conscious act of rapidly asserting her independence. Aunty Ifeoma’s rapid response to the Sole Administrator’s violent act is, for Adichie, mostly appropriate as it enables her to avert subsequent health damage.

Aunty Ifeoma’s subversive bearing is also reflected in the purple hibiscus flowers in her garden. So precious are these purple hibiscus flowers that the title of Adichie’s text is derived from it. The fact that they make reference to Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982) has prompted overt readings of the novel as a womanist text. Because Aunty Ifeoma’s garden grows flowers, mainly purple hibiscus, many critics have described her as a womanist who mentors Jaja, Kambili, and Beatrice to freedom. Nadaswaran notes that Adichie’s images of flowers, gardening, and the colour purple comprise a strong allusion to the nexus of womanist theory, particularly Walker’s axiom “Womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender” (2011: 31). Cooper takes this line of thought further by arguing that Adichie’s narrative technique, which engrafts Jaja into her vision of transformation and balances Eugene’s depraved private life with a reputable public lifestyle, explicitly favours a description of “Womanist as opposed to feminist” (2010: 9). I contend instead that the severity of the cruelty that Adichie describes in the text necessitates a subversive response from the recipients of power who elect to be free. For Adichie, although oppression ultimately produces its resistance, the confrontation must be covertly and overtly lethal for the desired freedom to be actualized. This view, as I demonstrate below, is embodied in Aunty Ifeoma’s purple hibiscus.

Entrenched in the purple hibiscus flower is a revolution, and this is significantly projected through the character of Aunty Ifeoma. This revolution exemplifies her feminist worldview, validating the reading of the text as a radical feminist work. In the discussion that takes place in her garden, Aunty Ifeoma tells the story of King Jaja of Opobo, “a defiant king [who] when the British came, […] refused to let them control all the trade […] so the British exiled him to the West Indies” (152). Through this story of a rebellious king, Adichie draws readers’ attention to Aunty Ifeoma’s revolutionary feminist philosophy, which promotes subversion as an essential aspect of resistance. Aunty Ifeoma shows through this discussion that “Being defiant can be a good thing sometimes, […]. Defiance is like marijuana — it is not a bad thing when it is used right” (152). In this statement, she evidently acknowledges rebelliousness as a positive behavioural trait that is not out of place when applied to the right course, the salvaging of the life and dignity of the oppressed.

Aunty Ifeoma’s perception, I argue, is significant as it embodies her radical feminist orientation, a distinctive standpoint that allows her to see beyond the colours of the flowers to the functions integral in them. She not only views rebellion as an essential aspect of these flowers but also upholds the notion that to be radically different can be a good thing, just as King Jaja, unlike the other kings who compromised their autonomy for a “bit of gunpowder”, elects to assert his individuality. Comparing the purple hibiscus flower to the female flowers of the hemp plant that are famous for their intoxicating properties, Aunty Ifeoma claims that both are not harmful when taken in the right proportion. This assertion disrupts Kambili’s ethical beliefs, as she explains that “the solemn tone, more than the sacrilege of what she said, made me look up” (152). Aunty Ifeoma’s endorsement of marijuana, used in a controlled way similar to a doctor’s prescription, is predicated on the full dose intake for the desired healing and freedom to take place. It is true that the validation promotes the need for revolution in women’s emancipatory agenda: its implementation arguably depends entirely on a personal resolution either to be radically different like King Jaja or to compromise like the other kings. However, for Adichie, no price is too high for personal dignity even if it takes fighting alone so as to effect the necessary changes.

Integral to Aunty Ifeoma’s revolution is change. Positioned in opposition to her brother, Aunty Ifeoma does not share Eugene’s bigotry: the readiness to disregard his father, offering long prayers during meal times and demonstrating a high level of intolerance to Pentecostalism, particularly the clapping of hands and the use of Igbo songs during Mass. She instead shows a forward-thinking brand of faith as she respects her father’s traditionalist beliefs, takes good care of him, sings Igbo songs, and offers short prayers. As I explored earlier, Stobie holds that Adichie’s religious stance in the text is reformist (2010: 423−32). If a reformist is, as Susan Arndt has noted, an African feminist who “does not challenge the foundations of patriarchal society […], but accept[s] the fundamental patriarchal orientation of their society as a given fact” (2002: 83), I would argue contra Stobie that Adichie’s religious stance, evident in the character of Aunty Ifeoma, is radical in pressing for transformation in the Catholic doctrine. Adichie clearly challenges the institutions of Catholicism that consider Biblical Eve as a guilty party to the fall of Adam, a patriarchal agenda responsible for mandatory celibacy in the priesthood. In her discussion with Kambili, Amaka avers: “Maybe when we are in the university you will join me in agitating for optional celibacy in the priesthood […]. Or maybe fornication should be permitted all priests once in a while, say, once a month?” (285). This statement, far from negotiating, challenges the doctrinal foundation of Catholicism. By agitating for change, Adichie through Amaka disturbs the Catholic norm that insists on the sacredness of the priesthood, and this intended sexuality campaign embodies that radical feminist activism which finds itself at constant war with patriarchal orientation and precepts.

The novel is coloured by Aunty Ifeoma’s revolutionary demeanour, particularly her rejection of male control. The most illuminating instance of this rejection happens at the death of Papa-Nnukwu, when she rejects Eugene’s intention to give their father a Catholic burial: “I will sell Ifediora’s grave first! Was our father a Catholic? […]. Uchu gba gi! [She] snapped her fingers at Papa” (195). Okuyade concludes that there is no “conflictual” relationship between man and woman in the text (2010: 77). I argue instead that Aunty Ifeoma’s confrontation with Eugene demonstrates the conflict between man and woman. Her clicking of her fingers in Eugene’s face while cursing him is a form of fight. Clearly infuriated by his sister’s act, Eugene resolves not to be part of the supposed “pagan” burial. Meanwhile, though Eugene is more financially stable than Aunty Ifeoma; his privileged position never deters her from firmly articulating the demand that their father’s own religious beliefs get respected. Her radical stance in this context, however, does not suggest that she is bound to her father’s will; it rather demonstrates her liberal instinct to respect other people’s individuality. Having vowed to put the grave of her late husband on sale instead of opting for Eugene’s solution, she demonstrates subversive carriage by electing to bury Papa-Nnukwu alone.

Alongside her decision to bear sole responsibility for giving her father a traditional burial, a role considered masculine, Aunty Ifeoma rejects the masculine assistance of her 14-year-old eldest son, Obiora, who offers to “clean where the ozu lay [and] accompany the ozu to the mortuary” (192). Obiora’s proposal is rooted in his recognition of the social expectations of him as the first son, a role which he notably lacks the courage and experience to perform. By refusing to be emotional but merely letting out “sporadic choking sounds, crying deep in his throat” (191), he reproduces the stereotypical assumption that bravery is the preserve of masculinity, and anticipates that his mother will opt for a feminine, passive role. This performance reveals the degree of his internalized normative gender roles in a society that trains men to acquire and retain power through masculine assertion whereas women are socialized to lose power by being “feminine” and “passive” (Sanders, 2002: 438). Conversely, Obiora’s expectation is corrected by Aunty Ifeoma’s rather abrupt response, “No, […] I will do it” (191). Her reaction to his masculine performance arguably interrupts the womanist theory of complementarity, the idea that men and women need to work together for a common goal. Aunty Ifeoma’s blatant refusal accords with the radical feminist emancipatory goal that promotes a radical restructuring of the society in which male dominance is eradicated in all social and economic contexts. Her objection to Obiora’s help does not necessarily suggest that she hates him, but does shadow forth her choice to decide what best suits her. By having her decline Obiora’s offer and take responsibility for her father’s funeral, Adichie, while upholding Aunty Ifeoma’s confrontational response as a feminist model, advances a reordering of the social system whereby women can obtain and retain power by resisting the socially-ascribed gender roles.

Aunty Ifeoma’s feminist worldview is explicitly opposed to the normative role of wifehood even though it is significantly moulded by her role as a mother. Introduced early on as a widow who has lost her husband in an auto crash, she remains a single mother to the end of the narrative. She unashamedly resists the pressure to remarry by rejecting her father’s prayer — “My spirit will intercede for you, so that Chukwu will send a good man to take care of you and children” — requesting instead: “Let your spirit ask Chukwu to hasten my promotion to senior lecturer, that is all I ask” (92). Aunty Ifeoma’s preference of academic promotion to marriage tacitly upholds the radical feminist stance that promotes women’s career development over conjugal relationships while stressing that marital associations with their attendant responsibilities limit women’s potential. Aunty Ifeoma’s negative view of marriage is why she discourages young girls in her undergraduate class from marrying early. By inspiring the girls to graduate before contemplating marriage, she can be read as a radical feminist character who promotes equality of the sexes and female agency through girls’ education, a subversive behaviour that I have also identified with the female characters of contemporary Nigerian female narratives.

Modern Nigerian women’s writing to some extent shares Adichie’s radical feminist concerns and, by extension, may also be subject to misreading if a womanist framework is uncritically applied. In her womanist reading of Purple Hibiscus alongside Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come (2005), Unoma Azuah’s Sky-High Flames (2005), and Sade Adeniran’s Imagine This (2007), Nadaswaran asserts that Adichie’s Kambili, Azuah’s Ofunne, Adeniran’s Lola, and Atta’s Enitan are “fully realized young female womanist characters” who while being mothers, wives and daughters emerge “educated, career-oriented and strong-willed” (2011: 20–25). Jonas Akung sustains this discussion, asseverating that although the female characters of these twenty-first century Nigerian women’s fictions are assertive, they are so in recognition of the “importance” of their male counterparts (2012: 115). Focusing on Atta’s Everything Good Will Come, Akung stresses that Atta’s heroine suffers incarceration for the sake of her father, and through this action validates her willingness to “give up her life for the survival of her society” (2012: 119).

These readings by Akung and Nadaswaran signal one tension involved in attempting to analyse twenty-first century Nigerian female-authored novels. Although both critics acknowledge self-assertion as a unique feature of the modern texts, they remain silent about the degree of this self-assertion. This silence, I argue, forecloses the rebellious temper inherent in theses texts, and such a foreclosure might hamper the emergence of a strong contemporary tradition that challenges gender inequity and other forms of oppression against womanhood. A rethinking along the lines of female rebellion becomes essential, not to undermine a womanist ideology of compromise or to idolize feminism, but to foreground the need for dynamic confrontation as a plausible solution to the woman question in Nigeria. I concede that although it is possible for these new writers to have been influenced by the older womanist models justifying the existing body of womanist readings of their texts, the drastic responses of the protagonists, which are individualistic rather than communal in nature, disrupt such readings. Entrenched in this individualistic tendency is the quest to be in charge of one’s life as opposed to letting that life be ruled by the wishes of others.

Recent novels by Nigerian women authorize female uprising as a sensible and inevitable response to oppression, and as such create a favourable impression of feminism. While this article may not address all of the modern Nigerian female-authored narratives, the approach I have applied to Purple Hibiscus might be fruitfully applied to other contemporary texts by (diasporic) Nigerian women writers. Authors such as Sefi Atta, Kaine Agary, Unoma Azuah, Chika Unigwe, Sade Adeniran, and Helen Oyeyemi have persistently employed fiction as a medium through which notions of radical feminism as inimical are challenged. By balancing representations of life under threat with a matched confrontational drive for survival, Atta’s Everything Good Will Come (2005), Agary’s Yellow Yellow (2006), Azuah’s Sky-High Flames (2005), Adeniran’s Imagine This (2007), and Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street (2009) promote rebellion as an appropriate response to restrictive circumstances. Readers are encouraged to visualize and identify with the fictional figures whose lifestyles and choices, much like those of many readers, are adjudged abnormal merely because they fail to conform to normative expectations. Atta’s Enitan, Agary’s Zilayefa, Azuah’s Ofunne, Adeniran’s Lola, and Unigwe’s Sisi, Ama, Joyce, and Efe are resilient and independent personalities who abdicate subsidiary roles in the private domain to assert agency in the public space. Opting for careers as lawyers, educators, and sex workers rather than plumping for domesticity might be considered by some readers as anti-family, yet these new writers have consistently validated such preferences as reflecting the genuine life experiences of some Nigerian women.

Through the platform of fiction, these new writers have continued to chart the degree of female distinctiveness in Nigerian society by featuring new ways of thinking about family, especially single parenthood, as valid ways of life. It is revealing that most of the female characters of these contemporary novels maintain a single parent status at some point in their life, and this, I suggest, reflects the authors’ attempts to draw attention to single parenting as a vital but silenced aspect of Nigerian culture. In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Beatrice becomes a single parent after killing her husband, just as Aunty Ifeoma becomes a widow and a single parent, having lost her husband to a tragic motor accident. Similarly, Atta’s Arinola and her daughter, Enitan, become single parents after divorcing and separating from their spouses respectively. Azuah’s Ofunne abandons her marriage on discovery of her spouse’s infidelity and infertility. Unigwe’s Sisi, Ama, Joyce, and Efe strive for a better life through sex work. Also, Adeniran’s Constance (Lola’s mother) deserts marriage in pursuit of a personal career, just as Agary’s Binaebi elects for single parenting.

However, whereas Beatrice’s and Aunty Ifeoma’s single-parenthood is predicated upon the death of their partners, Agary’s female characters are, from the inception of the plot, single parents by choice. Where Beatrice for financial and procreative reasons lingers awhile in marriage before asserting agency, young Binaebi not only remains unmarried but also declines further heterosexual relationships throughout the text. Binaebi’s self-ruling behaviour, which is in stark contrast with the usual gendered notion of female dependence, authenticates her individuality, outweighing feminine social expectations of an ideal woman who relies on men for protection and care. This primacy of autonomy above complementarity with men makes Binaebi a more radical feminist character whose impulse for independence is unprecedented. Again, I wish to note that this assertion does not suggest that Binaebi is a remote personality who hates men. Although there are helpful men such as Ikechukwu, her local church pastor, who assists in finding a place for her daughter in Port Harcourt, she never relies on such assistance for her daily needs, since she alone provides for her family. By transforming the social world order (to adapt Pam Morris’s expression (1993: 10)) through recognition of unconventional family form as single parenting through choice, contemporary Nigerian female novelists could be read as progressive feminist writers who articulate a radical feminist worldview that permits new ways of thinking about family.

In this article, I concentrated on Adichie’s fictional figures’ subversive responses to oppression, noting that regardless of the oppressive agents’ intent to constrain the choices available to their subjects, the recipients of power possess the tenacity to act in spite of, or in reaction to, the power imposed upon them. I argued that the nature of the female protagonists’ resistance primarily favours a radical feminist reading, for while Kambili and Beatrice gradually assert their autonomy, which reaches its climax with the killing of Eugene, Aunty Ifeoma displays subversive comportment by choosing to position herself at odds with normative rules through her negative views on marriage and her blatant refusal of masculine assistance. Aunty Ifeoma’s emphasis on subjectivity, as against shared commonality, validates the radical feminist undertone of the text, which in my view is yet to receive attention from Adichie’s critics.

In critiquing the womanist readings of Purple Hibiscus, I also developed the evaluation that recent Nigerian female-authored narratives share Adichie’s radical feminist concerns, and that such works may be subject to misreading if a womanist paradigm is uncritically applied. I admit that there are instances in these modern novels that might call for a womanist reading; however, such readings are deficient in apprehending the radical reactions of the heroines to repressive milieu. I conclude with the conviction that the radical feminist framework is helpful to our understanding of the nuances of the novels in this age. Employing a radical feminist rather than a womanist interpretation permits the reader to have a fresh insight into the revolutionary temper of the works of this period. This awareness, apart from portraying the Nigerian (and broadly African) female novel tradition as a non-static creative piece of art, makes visible how far Nigerian (African) female writers have gone in conceptualizing distinctive female experiences. By focusing on a radical feminist paradigm, for the novelists of the twenty-first century this article has claimed recognition of their impact on the genre. Through this model, the paper thus encourages liberal interpretations that are free from the conservative biases that have persistently ruled their readings.