"Purple Hibiscus" - post 3

In this post I will be discussing Kambili's relationship with her cousin, Amaka.

Although the girls are about the same age, their different upbringings lead them to be very different and seemingly always in confrontation. Kambili, as we know, is raised in a rich, strict, Catholic, family in the city. However, her life is far from the perfect one that Amaka judges her by; she leads an unhappy life filled with fear and hidden abuse. Amaka, on the other hand, has grown up poor in the area surrounding the university where her mother, a widow, works. Although her life can be extremely hard, it is at least one that is never dull and is filled with laughter and people who love each other. When Amaka and Kambili first interact in Abba, Amaka is very hostile towards Kambili, judging her for her family's opulence (for example, buying the TV that they don't use). This hostility and judgement almost to a point of being condescending throughout their trip to Abba and then when Kambili and Jaja come to visit Aunty Ifeoma and her family in Nsukka. Aunty Ifeoma stands up for Kambili for most of her visit, chiding Amaka to stop saying mean, judgmental things to her cousin. However, towards the end of the visit, Aunty Ifeoma turns the tables and instead chides Kambili for not speaking up for herself, or even speaking above a whisper. This moment forces Kambili to overcome the "bubbles" in her throat that prevent her voice and opinions from flooding out in order to get her cousin to stop teasing her and judging her just because she appears to have a much easier life than Amaka. This moment is also the turning point in the girls' relationship. After she stands up to her and tells her to stop, Amaka seems to respect Kambili and wants to spend time with her. She no longer begrudges her having to teach Kambili how to do basic cooking skills, and she no longer judges her for not having things like shorts or never playing soccer. She even gives Kambili her unfinished portrait of Papa-Nnukwu before Kamibli and Jaja go back to the city. Kambili is amazed by this transformation, and is very grateful not to be teased all the time any more, signifying her being accepted by her extended family. She is sad to leave Nsukka at the end of the 10 days, rather than being elated like she would have been had she gone home after one or two days. Later in the story, Amaka even invites her to her confirmation, something that Kambili was touched by and wanted to attend if she was allowed.

I think that Amaka did not respect Kambili because she had no voice, and thus was entirely dependent on someone else. She may have even tried to provoke her into speaking for herself with all of her teasing and judging. Once Kambili learned to use her voice, learned to be her own person that was capable of laughing and smiling and not just following orders, Amaka was happy to be around her. Perhaps Amaka was uncomfortable by the idea that someone who had so much and yet was unable to be her own person, whereas being her own person was something that was innate in Amaka's less fortunate family. Perhaps she realized that she was jealous for the wrong reasons, and once they were on semi-equal footing as people, Amaka could put aside her jealousy and her potential guilt. With the gaining of her voice and confidence, Kambili also seemed to stop seeing her cousin as a "wild child" and someone who was too far advanced for her to ever be anything close to resembling friends (which Kambili doesn't really have in the first place). I think that the newfound friendship and amicable relationship between Amaka and Kambili will prove invaluable in the rest of the book as Kambili recovers in Nsukka from her beating and when she returns to the city and to her father (Kambili has another family to go to, an ally in both her aunt and Amaka, and someone who can give an outside opinion should she need help).

"Purple Hibiscus" -post 2

In this post I will be discussing Kambili's complicated relationship with her father. In many instances throughout the first 106 pages of the book, Kambili exhibits symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome. This disorder is often simply defined as growing attached to a captor or abuser to the point of even defending them after long durations of captivity or abuse. Kambili seems to nave been periodically abused by Eugene throughout her whole life, and lives in constant fear of failing to meet his insanely high expectations or not following his incredibly strict rules. She essentially does not have any friends because her father makes her run from class to meet Kevin so that she does not waste any of his time nor get behind on her schedule. Her father permits her and Jaja from getting to know their dying grandfather or expierence anything of their cultures heritage because they are all "pagan."He also does not really let them see their cousins, the closest people to their own age who don't go to their school, because their mother supports their "pagan" grandfather, and won't convert to Catholicism. One would think that all of these restraints on her life and even being beaten or watching her family being beaten would create animosity between Kambili and Eugene. On the contrary, Kambili practically worships her father, craving his love and attention, desiring to make him happy (although that could be self defense), and defending his actions. She even critizies Aunt Ifeoma and her cousins for their failure to see her Papa as "special."

I am interested to learn how this Sockholm Syndromeesque relationship between Kambili and Eugene changes (if at all) as she gets older and after she returns from a week with her comparitively extremely liberal Aunt and cousins without her parents or servants.

                                                               Works Cited

"Stockholm Syndrome: The Psychological Mystery of Loving an Abuser, Page 1." CounsellingResourcecom Library RSS. Ed. Dr Greg Mulhauser. N.p., 20 Dec. 2014. Web. 22 Feb. 2016. <http://counsellingresource.com/lib/therapy/self-help/stockholm/>.

"Purple Hibiscus" - post 1

In this post, I will be comparing and contrasting Purple Hibiscus's Eugene and Things Fall Apart's Okonkwo. 

Both Eugene and Okonkwo are important men in their societies (for Eugene, more so in Abba than in the city). They are wealthy and titled, and display their wealth through large houses/compounds. Eugene and Okonkwo are also very controlling of their families, threatening and dolling out abuse if they do not follow every order, meet every expectation. Both men have very high expectations stemming from their hardships in life in order to get to the place of high status that they are at the start of their respective stories. Their high expectations also come from their strong relgious beliefs. Okonkwo's faith is very deeply rooted in the ancestral tribal religion, and fights Christianity with all of his might when the missionaries arrive to Mbanta and Umofia. He even disowns his eldest son for converting to Christianity. Eugene is a Christian in the most extreme form. He practically erases his father from his life because he will not covert to Catholicsm, will not let "pagans" into his compound in Abba, and makes his family focus on God and religion at every moment of every day. Eugene is ashamed of his father's reluctance to convert, just as Okonkwo is ashamed of his for his laziness and indebetness. 

Although these two men are very similar, they have some notable differences. First of all, their religous differences creates a divide in their reactions to their actions, particularly abusing their family. Okonkwo never shows signs of remorse about hurting his family, except when he is forced to by the rest of community because he broke a sacred time of peace. However, every time Eugene abuses his family, he is sinning. As a result, he seems to show some sort of remorse, asking if they are hurt or bleeding after he beats them with a belt for letting Kambilli eat breakfast on Sunday in order to take medicine. Eugene is at the mercy of other people for his security as a factory owner and newspaper publsiher. Okonkwo is a farmer and a warrior, thus he could be independent of the community if he wanted to. Eugene, despite his abusive and extremely controlling nature, seems to genuinely care for his immediate family (although he shuns his father and occasionally his sister and her family). He had the opportunity to take a second wife and replace Kambili, Jaja, and their mother with a new, more reproductive family after Kambilli's mother had several miscarriages, but he chose not to. Okonkwo on the other hand, does not seem to know how to demonstrate affection (which he sees as a weakness-- his focus rather than Eugene's focus on sin), but he does not seem to care for all of his wives and thier children to the same degree.

Both seem to be used by their respective authors to demonstrate the extremes of society, which I think will be used in both novels to demonstrate the power of colonialism and the effects that cultural eradication has on people. 

"Things Fall Apart" - Part 2

Part Two of Things Fall Apart details Okonkwo's seven years in exile. During this time, the villages experience their first interactions with white men and Christianity. I found it interesting that when Mr. Bryan and Mr. Kiaga came to Mbanta, they didn't gain many followers when they conveyed their message to the villagers, but they gained the majority of their followers by not dying. The people of Mbanta gave the Christians part of the Evil Forest to build their church, figuring that the gods would kill them for simply coming, as well as for building in the Evil Forest. They lived. The same thing happened when they started rescuing twins from the forest. It was as if the converts converted because their gods seemed to be distant, or even dead, due to their lack of action over the breaking of so many rules. The converts figured they had a better chance of a good afterlife with the mighty Christians who defied the gods and lived than with their traditional gods.

The transformation of the attitude of the converts was also interesting to me. In Chapter 18, the town's outcasts were admitted into the church, but not without a major debate among the converts and Mr. Kiaga. During the debate one of the converts said, "'What will the heathen say of us when they hear we receive osu into our midst?'" (156) I was surprised when the convert referred to his fellow clansmen as "heathen" when just a short time ago he was fully enthralled in their traditional religion. "Heathen" has the connotation of being lesser than the speaker. Mr. Kiaga (the African interpreter for Mr. Brian who runs the Mbanta mission) also uses this term, even though this othering and superior nature is often associated with the European missionaries, and not with their converts who now look down upon those who were their friends, family, and equals (or more titled in society) before they converted and moved apart from the clan.