1.1 Introduction
Purple Hibiscus is set in postcolonial Nigeria, a country beset by political instability and economic difficulties. The central character is Kambili Achike, aged fifteen for much of the period covered by the book, a member of a wealthy family dominated by her devoutly Catholic father, Eugene. Eugene is both a religious zealot and a violent figure in the Achike household, subjecting his wife Beatrice, Kambili herself, and her brother Jaja to beatings and psychological cruelty. Beatrice even has two miscarriages because of the violence (Wikipedia, 2021).
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Achebe’s creative and intellectual output has profound impact on world literature and human learning. He has been compared to his tragic hero, Okonkwo, but unlike the latter who is only “known throughout the nine villages of Umuofia and their neighborhood, Chinua Achebe’s fame as a writer has spread all over the world” (Obiechina 1990: 23). In his onerous task to recapture the pillaged culture of his people owing to colonial encounter, Michael Thelwell compares him to the Afro-American prolific writer, James Baldwin. In his opinion, despite the differences in their style, the two men form a warm and powerful affinity, because:
Out of the idiom of our experience, the vocabulary of our cultures, the styles of our sensibilities, these two brothers fashioned prose instruments of an uncommon precision and compelling poetry. Deployed always in the service of enlightenment and struggle, both commended, grudgingly the respected attention of an indifferent world (1990: 2).
In the history of Africa and Africans, two significant events – slavery and colonization – have left traumatic and indelible impact on the continent and its peoples. These two catastrophic situations, therefore, have been reflected in Diasporic and African literatures. The earliest form of writing in English by the black race is the slave narratives of Ignatius Sancho, Phillip Quaque, Olaudah Equianoh, Ottobah Cuguano and Phillis Wheatley, to mention only but these five. To these enslaved Africans in their new worlds, the meaning of literature is “quite remote from the pages of the Sunday newspapers” (Eagleton 187). And since there is no injustice like slavery which traumatizes one and “leads one to a change of identity” (Opata 2005: 84), their narratives mirror the reality of their situation. They may be rightly described as a way of escape for the disillusioned and brutalized, who “often shared the same role and the same iconography as domestic pets such as dogs and parrots” (Griffiths 7).
It is not only slavery, which has classed the black man and the ox together. It is believed that the contact of the “European civilization with the world’s underdeveloped people… forms a chapter in human action not pleasant to look back upon” (Dubois 76). Colonization, therefore, which is the second contact of Europe and Africa, leaves devastating consequences for the colonized. This new social order, which “demands and obtains from the people immediate compliance” (Akwanya 2005: 221), to borrow Eugene Ionesco’s term, is the “tragedy of tragedies” (1964: 33). The self-appointed civilizers of the backward peoples institute “enduring hierarchies of subjects and knowledges, the colonizers and the colonized” (Prakash 3). It is a mission which must produce a master- servant relationship in which the weak-willed slave, preferring life to liberty, accepts his subjugation to the victorious master (Hegel 1910). No stone is left unturned, therefore, to ensure that colonization “works to decivilize the colonized” (Césaire 13) as they are psychologically, materially and culturally ruined.
Therefore, in Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to examine the Psychological in Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus.
1.3 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to examine the Psychology in Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were set out as follows:
- To examine the trauma of Domestic Violence in Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus
- To assess the trauma of Social Forces in Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus
- To ascertain the trauma of Emotional Mishaps
- To evaluate the traumatic experiences of Nigerian women in its various facets as represented in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus
1.4 Justification of Study
This study, it is hoped, will contribute to a re-evaluation and re-examination of the traditional Psychological in Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus, which seeks to locate “phallic symbols” (Eagleton 155) or the libidinal symptoms of the authors of literary texts. This is biographical criticism, which no matter how profound it is, “seems to encourage a wrong sort of psychoanalysis of art” (Ricoeur 170). It is also believed that it may “illuminate the creative process but the goings-on in the psyche itself are not central as such to literature since they are only preparatory to the act of creation” (Nwahunanya 36).
It is also hoped that this research will open up a new vista for looking at known phenomena such as colonization.
Finally, and hopefully, it is assumed that this research will usher in reactions that will point out its limitations as well as proffer new methods of critical discourse in the examination of the dispossessed in literary texts; for the essence of this research is “not necessarily to recognize a known, to find an answer, but also, and perhaps more challengingly, to locate an unknown, to find a question” (Felman 188).
1.5 Methodology
The researcher adopts a multi-dimensional approach in her efforts to get at the substance of this work. The researcher made use of both primary and secondary sources of obtaining pieces of information. Books, journal articles, encyclopedia, dictionaries, magazines, unpublished project works etc were consulted as secondary source materials. Questionnaire schedule was designed as a primary source of obtaining oral information from the respondents. Both structured and unstructured questionnaire items were designed for eliciting information out of these respondents.
1.6 Scope of Study
The study focuses on Representing Psychological in Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials.
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