Academic literature on the topic 'Purple Hibiscus'

O presente trabalho é uma análise da tradução do romance Purple Hibiscus, de Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, para o português do Brasil, feita por Júlia Romeu. Buscou-se analisar como os traços de etnicidade marcados no texto de partida foram reproduzidos na versão brasileira Hibisco Roxo, publicada em 2011. Primeiramente, foram apresentadas uma breve biografia da escritora e sua história na defesa da construção de um novo paradigma para a literatura sobre a África e a Nigéria, que fuja aos estereótipos ocidentais sobre o continente, os quais tendem a apresentar somente cenários de miséria, guerra e doenças. Em seguida, foi feito o resumo da história e os personagens principais foram descritos. Em um segundo momento, foi feita uma seleção de palavras e frases registradas na língua igbo no texto original e a análise da tradução desses termos para o português do Brasil. A seguir, foi apresentado o conceito de etnicidade do sociólogo Anthony Giddens e, com base nesse conceito, os termos selecionados anteriormente foram considerados marcas de etnicidade, do registro da presença da etnia igbo em meio à cultura colonizadora britânica. Finalmente, tomando-se a proposição de Antoine Berman de uma tradução ética, que dá abrigo ao estrangeiro e recusa o etnocentrismo, concluiu-se que a opção por reproduzir os termos em igbo na tradução contribuiu para manter a intenção manifesta da autora de, por meio de sua literatura, apresentar a leitores de outros países a cultura e a história da Nigéria.

This article invites readers to share the experiences of a teacher and his Grade 10 students as they read and discussed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Nigerian novel Purple Hibiscus. The novel was selected as part of a national action research study in which literacy researchers and teachers select postcolonial literature for the classroom and develop new pedagogical strategies for teaching the texts. The article suggests that contemporary international novels such as Purple Hibiscus have potential to raise complex questions of social justice in the classroom and to create new understandings of a changing world.

The focus of this paper exposed the engagement of the literary persons in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and its environment. How the characters interfaced with their environment to develop the plot is examined. The environment refers to the natural world as a whole or a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity. It can also refer to all circumstances, people, events, living or non-living things, physical or chemical processes, and natural forces. In Purple Hibiscus, the environment operationally refers to the cities and villages, flower gardens and insects, football field, the church, cultural and religious practices, the characters that people (inhabit) the setting of the novel. All these form the setting and influence the actions and behaviour of the characters. Eco-criticism as a literary theory best explains the relationship between literature and the environment. It interpretes the actions of the characters based on their surroundings. This literary exercise used a branch of eco-criticism that studies the relationship between literature and the physical environment to analyze Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.

The focus of this paper exposed the engagement of the literary persons in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and its environment. How the characters interfaced with their environment to develop the plot is examined. The environment refers to the natural world as a whole or a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity. It can also refer to all circumstances, people, events, living or non-living things, physical or chemical processes, and natural forces. In Purple Hibiscus, the environment operationally refers to the cities and villages, flower gardens and insects, football field, the church, cultural and religious practices, the characters that people (inhabit) the setting of the novel. All these form the setting and influence the actions and behaviour of the characters. Eco-criticism as a literary theory best explains the relationship between literature and the environment. It interpretes the actions of the characters based on their surroundings. This literary exercise used a branch of eco-criticism that studies the relationship between literature and the physical environment to analyze Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.

This article focuses on the first novel by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus (2003). It examines how religious prejudice is encoded in the account of the book’s autodiegetic narrator, a fifteen-year-old girl whose father is a violent, extremist Igbo Catholic. Based on a close reading of the text, the essay argues that an analysis of the novel’s use of speech and thought presentation may contribute to the assessment of the main character’s evolving ideological stance. It is suggested that the resulting appraisal of the narrator’s development provides key insights into the interpretation of the book.

Purple Hibiscus, a novel by third-generation Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie, appears at first glance to be a simple work of adolescent fiction, a bildungsroman in which a pair of siblings navigate the typical challenges of incipient adulthood: social ostracism, an abusive parent, emerging desire. However, the novel's setting-a revolutionary-era Nigeria-is clearly intended to evoke post-Biafra Nigeria, itself the setting of Adichie's other major work, Half of a Yellow Sun. This setting takes Purple Hibiscus beyond the scope of most modern adolescent fiction, creating a complex allegory in which the emergence of self and struggle for identity of the Achike siblings represent Nigeria's own struggle for identity. Adichie achieves this allegory by allowing the father figures of the novel to represent the different political paths Nigeria could have followed in its post-colonial period. The Achike siblings' identities develop through interactions with each of these patriarchs.

The aim of this essay is to analyze two different educational paradigms, which I refer to broadly as the behavioristic way of learning through imitation versus intercultural education, as these are depicted in the novel Purple Hibiscus by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The analysis focuses on how the narrator Kambili´s learning, identity and personal development are differently affected by these two contrastive approaches to education. After the analysis, examples of how the novel can be taught in intercultural, communicative EFL classrooms will be given. In the analysis theories of mimicry and imitation, and identity will be used as well as understandings of the terms intercultural education and behaviorism. The analysis shows that Kambili´s father Eugene represents behaviorism in the novel, whereas Kambili´s aunt Ifeoma symbolizes intercultural education. At home, Kambili learns to imitate her father´s behavior and values. In Ifeoma´s house on the other hand she encounters a kind of intercultural education, where critical thinking and questioning are encouraged. The thematization of contrastive educational and developmental paradigms in the novel is relevant to the comprehensive goals of Swedish upper secondary schools, which promote intercultural learning, as well as critical thinking and reflection on learning processes. Reading literature in the EFL classroom at this level may promote these broad educational objectives as well as the achievement of more specific, language- and culture-based learning outcomes. For many Swedish EFL students, Purple Hibiscus may represent difference, and therefore it is a suitable novel to include in intercultural education, as the students are encouraged tounderstand and reflect on different perspectives. By discussing the novel in groups, the education becomes intercultural because everyone becomes active participants and everyone´s voices are heard.

In Purple Hibiscus, Adichie describes what happens in a family when one person, Papa Eugene, takes control and completely subjugates other family members to his wishes and demands. The author shows the dire consequences his actions have on his family but also how those actions ultimately lead to his own destruction. This essay links the restrictions and abuse suffered by Kambili and her family to Michel Foucault’s theories on torture and surveillance as detailed in Discipline and Punish. Foucault’s theories are linked to Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon in order to further introduce the concept of surveillance. The essay describes the physical and psychological abuse suffered by the family and also details the surveillance and torture techniques used by Papa Eugene to stay in control. Moreover, it argues that power can be lost through applying too much control and by metering out punishment that is too harsh and it shows how such actions ultimately lead to rebellion.

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Letras, Departamento de Línguas Estrangeiras e Tradução, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Estudos da Tradução, 2017.
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Purple hibiscus, primeiro livro da escritora nigeriana Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, é um romance de temática feminista sobre a conquista da própria voz e do rompimento com a submissão e o silêncio impostos pelo patriarcado, pela religião e pelo conservadorismo. Tomando por base as teorias da Tradução Feminista, sobretudo de Simon (1996) e Von Flotow (1997 e 2012), investigo de que forma as marcas de feminismo na obra foram abordadas na tradução para o português do Brasil. A pesquisa inicia-se pela biografia da escritora – sua conexão com a literatura pós-colonial e militância feminista –, seguindo para os vários conceitos e vertentes do feminismo. Na sequência, apresento uma análise quali-quantitativa dos termos referentes aos campos lexicais do olhar e do falar no texto de partida, tomados como indicadores do desabrochar da liberdade, e proponho alternativas à tradução de Hibisco roxo, elaboradas com o intuito de reforçar as marcas feministas. Ao final, traço um histórico da Tradução Feminista, indicando novas tendências que estão a florescer. Este trabalho trata sobre a liberdade. Sobre vozes abafadas e inaudíveis que, aos poucos, começam a se fortalecer e a serem notadas, até aflorarem completamente. É uma pesquisa sobre a luta da mulher por independência e visibilidade, em uma sociedade patriarcal que, desde os primórdios, coloca-a em uma posição assessória, inferior e incompleta em si mesma. É sobre a liberdade do ato da tradução, da autonomia da tradutora para fugir da invisibilidade e da submissão, de manipular o texto e fazer sua voz ser ouvida pelo leitor. E é também sobre o processo de conquista da liberdade pelos personagens de Purple hibiscus, e de como essa conquista está associada à militância feminista de sua autora.
Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s debut novel, Purple hibiscus, is a feminist-themed novel about the conquest of one’s own voice and the break with submission and silence imposed by patriarchy, religion, and conservatism. Based on Feminist Translation theories, especially on Simon (1996) and Von Flotow (1997 and 2012), I investigate how the translator approached the feminist marks in the Brazilian Portuguese version. First, the research presents the writer’s biography, underscoring her connection to postcolonial literature and feminist militancy. Next, the various concepts and strands of feminism are discussed. After that, I present a quali-quantitative analysis of terms belonging to the lexical fields look and speech in the starting text, considered to be indicators of the blooming of freedom. In an attempt to intentionally reinforce the feminist marks in the text, I present alternatives to that translation of Purple hibiscus. Finally, I provide a brief background of Feminist Translation, presenting new trends that are flourishing. This work is about freedom. It is about muffled and inaudible voices that, little by little, became louder, until they finally flourished. It is a research on the struggle of women for independence and visibility in a patriarchal society which, from the earliest stages, places women in an inferior and secondary position. It is about the freedom of translation and the autonomy of the translator to fight invisibility and submission and to manipulate the text in order to make his/her voice heard by the reader. And it is also about the liberation of Purple hibiscus oppressed characters, and the connections between their freedom and the author’s feminist militancy.

This essay concerns Purple Hibiscus and Kambili's emotional development, and explores how violence, submission and emotional dependence along with a traditional feminine gender role can hinder acknowledgement of trauma. I propose that Kambili is encouraged to take on a culturally expected feminine gender role, and her submissive disposition is discussed and connected to her constant search for a father figure. The notion of personal and collective postcolonial trauma is explained and applied to contextualise her inability to question either her father or the political situation in Nigeria. I read Kambili's change as negative and aim to show that she has internalised patriarchal structures. Her change is contrasted to the change in her brother Jaja, to show how and why they develop in different directions. Traditional gender roles are discussed from a rather general perspective, but also in a context that concern masculinity, violence and power relations.

Thing theorist Bill Brown writes that “the thing names less an object than a particular subject-object relation.” This article examines the subject-object relation between African things and African bodies in Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's first novel, Purple Hibiscus. While the main character, Kambili, eventually learns to assimilate Western Catholicism into her Nigerian reality, her Christian fundamentalist father, Eugene, uses Catholicism to justify his self-hating destruction of African things and bodies. This article argues that both reactions are rooted in the characters' ability or inability to see African material things, including both objects and bodies, as autonomous subjects. Adichie's novel demonstrates that religious syncretism centered in an ethics of things is a viable, fruitful reaction to the colonizers' religion, and that religious practice can be healthily enacted through the medium of things and bodies.

The purpose of this essay is to conduct a character analysis on Eugene Achike from Chimamana Ngozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus, to see whether or not the character is used by Adichie as a portrayal of colonial Nigeria and its values. I have done this by looking at the themes of violence and hypocrisy in relation to Eugene’s language usage, religious attitude, and behaviour towards others, and comparing these aspects of his personality with the attitudes shown by colonialists in colonial Nigeria. The more important issues that prove Eugene’s character is a portrayal of colonial Nigeria are: his utter disregard for his heritage and background, including the physical disregard of his father; his absolute control over his family members, both physically and mentally, which leads to violent outbursts if he is disobeyed; the fact that he is shown in the novel to be a direct product of the missionaries and colonial structure that was present in Nigeria when he grew up. These things, together with the subtle connections in Adichie’s writing that connect her novel to Things Fall Apart, firmly place Purple Hibiscus in the postcolonial category. Thus, I concluded that Eugene’s character is a portrayal of Colonial Nigeria.
Syftet med denna upsats är att genomföra en karaktärsanalys på karaktären Eugene Achike i Chimamanda Ngozi Adichis roman Purple Hibiscus, för att se ifall karaktären används av Adichie som en skildring av koloniala Nigeria och dess värderingar. Jag har gjort detta genom att undersöka två teman – våld och hyckleri – i samband med Eugenes användning av språk, religös attityd, och beteende mot andra, för att då jämföra dessa aspekter av hans personlighet med attityderna kolonisatörer hade i koloniala Nigeria. De viktigaste sakerna som bevisar att Eugenes karaktär är en skildring av koloniala Nigeria är: hans fullständiga ignoreing av sin bakgrund, inklusive den fysiska ignorering av hans pappa; hans absoluta kontroll över sin familj, både fysiskt och mentalt, vilket leder till våldsamma utbrott om han inte blir åtlydd; det faktum att han beskrivs som en produkt av missionärerna och koloniala samhället vid flera tillfällen i boken. Detta tillsammans med romanens subtila kopplingar till Achebes Things Fall Apart, placerar tveklöst Purple Hibiscus i den postkoloniala kategorin. Därmed drar jag slutsatsen att Eugene’s karaktär är en skildring av koloniala Nigeria.

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A presente dissertação propõe o estudo das consequências da dominação colonial britânica sobre a República Federal da Nigéria no que concerne à religião, educação, língua, raça e gênero, tendo como objetos de análise Things Fall Apart (1958) de Chinua Achebe e Purple Hibiscus (2003) de Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. A maneira de ler e produzir literatura vem se metamorfoseando ao longo dos séculos XX e XXI, abrindo espaço para que despontem as literaturas pós-coloniais, isto é, obras que possuem como atributo comum o fato de emergirem da experiência da colonização. Impulsionada por este contexto, a produção literária africana vem conquistando espaço e notoriedade no cenário mundial. Este trabalho busca relacionar literatura e situação sócio-política, trazendo para o debate vozes historicamente silenciadas e abrindo possibilidades de resistência às perspectivas impostas pelo olhar do colonizador, através da investigação da literatura nigeriana. Embora o período de dominação britânica sobre a Nigéria tenha chegado ao fim, as consequências de tal política ainda se fazem presentes no cotidiano daquele povo, seja na religião tradicional brutalmente substituída pelo cristianismo, nos idiomas autóctones que perdem lugar para a língua inglesa, no sistema de aprendizado estrangeiro que toma o lugar do ensino familiar ou na valorização da pele branca e do sistema patriarcal de poder. Tendo destacado papel no estabelecimento da estrutura colonial, busca-se aqui converter a literatura em instrumento de libertação.
The present thesis proposes the study of the consequences of British colonialism over the Federal Republic of Nigeria concerning religion, education, language, race and gender, having as objects of analyses Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe and Purple Hibiscus (2003) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The way in which literature is written and read has been changing throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, opening space to the postcolonial literatures, that is, literatures that have as a common background the fact that they come from the experience of colonialism. Propelled by this context, African literary production has been achieving space and renown in the global scenery. This work aims to relate literature and social-political situation, bringing to the debate historically silenced voices, opening possibilities to resist the colonial gaze while investigating the Nigerian literature. Even though the british colonial rule has come to an end, the consequences of this politics are still present in the daily lives of that people, in the fact that traditional religion was brutally substituted by Christianism, in the ancient languages replaced by English, in the educational system that took over home schooling, in the valorization of white skin and the patriarchal power system. Literature has a central role in establishing colonial structures and this work tries to convert literature into a liberation tool.

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.
ENGLISH ABTRACT: In recent years, original and exciting developments have been taking place in Nigerian literature. This new body of literature, collectively referred to as the ―third generation‖, has lately received international acclaim. In this emergent literature, the negotiation of a new, contemporary identity has become a central focus. At the same time, recent Nigerian literary texts are articulating responses to various developments in the Nigerian nation: Nigeria‘s current political and socio-economic situation, diverse forms of cultural hybridisation, as well as an increasing trans-national consciousness, to mention only a few. Three 21st-century novels – Chimamanda Nogzi Adichie‘s Purple Hibiscus (2004), Sefi Atta‘s Everything Good Will Come (2004) and Chris Abani‘s GraceLand (2005) – reveal how new avenues of identity-negotiation and formation are being explored in various contemporary Nigerian situations. This study tracks the ways in which the Bildungsroman, the novel of self-development, serves as a vehicle through which this new identity is articulated. Concurrently, this study also grapples with the ways in which the articulation and negotiation of this new identity reshapes the conventions of the classical Bildungsroman genre, thereby establishing a unique and contemporary Nigerian Bildungsroman for the 21st century. The identity that is being negotiated by the third generation is multi-layered and inclusive, as opposed to the exclusive and unitary identities which are observable in Nigerian novels of the previous two generations. Such inclusivity, as well as the hybrid environments in which this identity is being negotiated, results in a form of ―identity layering‖. Thus, the individual comes into being at the point of intersection, overlap and collision of various modes of self-making. Such ―layering‖ allows the individual, albeit not without challenge, to perform a self-styled identity, which does not necessarily conform to the dictates of society. At the same time, the identity is negotiated by means of an engagement, in the form of intertextual dialoguing, with Nigeria‘s preceding literary generations. The most prominent arenas in which this new identity is negotiated include silenced domestic spaces, religo-cultural traditions, constructs of gender and nation, as well as in multicultural and hybrid communities. The investigation conducted in this thesis will, consequently, also focus on such areas of Nigerian life, as they are portrayed in the focal texts. Various theories of literary analysis (some of which specifically focus on Nigeria), Bildungsroman theory, theories of allegory, (imaginative) nation formation, feminism, gender and performativity, as well as theories of cultural identity and cultural exchanges, will form the critical and theoretical framework within which this investigation will be executed. Chapter One explores how Purple Hibiscus‘s protagonist, Kambili Achike, negotiates her gender identity and voice in order to constitute herself as an independent, self-authoring individual. Chapter Two, which focuses on Everything Good Will Come, investigates the dialectic relationship between Enitan Taiwo‘s national and personal identity, which inevitably leads to her quest to reconceive her gender identity, since national identity, as she finds out, is always an engendered construct. In its analysis of GraceLand, Chapter Three turns to the difficulties that Elvis Oke faces when he attempts to negotiate an alternative masculine identity within a rigid patriarchal system and between the cracks of a fraudulent African modernity.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In die afgelope paar jaar was daar opwindende, oorspronklike ontwikkelinge in Nigeriese literatuur. Hierdie nuwe literatuurkorpus, wat gesamentlik bekend staan as die ―derde generasie, het onlangs internasionale erkenning ontvang. In hierdie opkomende literatuur, kry die soeke na 'n nuwe, kontemporêre identiteit ‘n sentrale fokus. Terselfdertyd reageer onlangse Nigeriese literêre werke met verskeie ontwikkelinge in die Negeriese nasie: Nigerië se huidige politieke en sosio-ekonomiese situasie, diverse vorme van kultuurverbastering asook 'n toenemende trans-nasionale bewustheid, om maar ‘n paar te noem. Drie 21ste eeuse romans – Chimamanda Nogzi Adichie se Purple Hibiscus (2004), Sefi Atta se Everything Good Will Come (2004) en Chris Abani se GraceLand (2005) – onthul hoe nuwe kanale van identiteidsonderhandeling en –vorming in verskeie kontemporêre Nigeriese situasies ondersoek word. Hierdie studie ondersoek die maniere waarop die Bildungsroman, die roman van selfontwikkeling, as ‗n medium dien waardeur hierdie nuwe identiteit geartikuleer word. Terselfdertyd sal hierdie studie ook worstel met die maniere waarin die artikulasie en soeke na hierdie nuwe identiteit die konvensies van die klassieke Bildungsroman genre hervorm, en daardeur 'n unieke en kontemporêre Nigeriese Bildungsroman vir die 21ste eeu vestig. Die identiteit wat ontwikkel deur die derde generasie is veelvlakkig en inklusief en staan teenoor die eksklusiewe, eenvormige identiteite wat in Nigeriese romans van die vorige twee generasies opgemerk word. Hierdie inklusiwiteit, sowel as die hibriede omgewings waarin hierdie identeite ontwikkel word, lei tot die vorming van identiteitslae. Die individu kom dus tot stand by die kruising, oorvleueling en botsing van verskillende metodes van selfvorming. Hierdie vorming van lae laat die individu toe, alhoewel nie sonder uitdagings nie, om 'n selfgevormde identiteit te hê wat nie noodwndig aan die eise van die gemeenskap voldoen nie. Terselfdertyd word hierdie identiteit onderhandel deur ‗n skakeling met Nigerië se voorafgaande literêre generasies in die vorm van intertekstuele dialoog. Die mees prominente omgewings waar hierdie nuwe identiteit onderhandel word, sluit stilgemaakte huishoudelike spasies, religieus-kulturele tradisies, konstrukte van gender en nasie, sowel as multi-kulturele en hibriede gemeenskappe in. Die ondersoek wat in hierdie tesis uitgevoer sal word, sal daarom ook fokus op hierdie areas van Nigeriese lewe, soos deur die fokale tekste voorgestel. Verskeie teorieë van literêre analise (sommige wat spesifiek op Nigerië fokus), Bildungsromanteorie, teorieë van allegorie, (denkbeeldige) nasievorming, feminisme, gender en performatiwiteit, sowel as teorieë van kultuuridentiteit en -uitruiling, vorm die kritiese en teoretiese raamwerk waarbinne hierdie ondersoek uitgevoer sal word. Hoofstuk een ondersoek hoe Purple Hibiscus se protagonist, Kambili Achike, haar genderidentiteit onderhandel en uitdrukking gee om haarself as onafhanklike, self-skeppende individu te vorm. Hoofstuk twee, wat fokus op Everything Good Will Come, ondersoek die dialektiese verhouding tussen Enitan Taiwo se nasionale en persoonlike identiteit, wat onvermydelik lei tot die herbedenking van haar genderidentiteit, aangesien nasionale identiteit, soos sy uitvind, altyd 'n gekweekte konstruk is. In sy analise van GraceLand, draai Hoofstuk drie om die moeilikhede wat Elvis Oke in die gesig staar wanneer hy probeer om ‘n alternatiewe manlike identiteit te onderhandel in 'n rigiede patriargale sisteem tussen krake van 'n bedrieglike Afrika-moderniteit.

This thesis project examines the work of three female Nigerian authors: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sefi Atta and Chika Unigwe. They are part of a growing number of young African writers who are receiving international acclaim and challenging narratives that have long defined the continent in pejorative terms. They question what it means to be female and African in a transcultural, global world but counter discourses that are both restrictive and prescriptive. Their female characters are not imaged in binary terms as either victims or villains. For all three writers, the African story has to be told in its entirety incorporating what some may argue are negative stereotypes but doing so in a manner that examines and undermines those same stereotypes. For the purposes of the thesis, I focus on their first novels: Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Atta’s Everything Good Will Come and Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street. Chapter One examines Purple Hibiscus and argues that the novel is much more than a coming of age story or, as some critics have posited, an allegory of the postcolonial state. Chapter Two highlights Atta’s use of fairly familiar feminist theories but grounds them in the lived realities of the African city. All three authors are concerned with issues of violence and death. Unigwe’s novel, which forms the focus of Chapter Three, offers a critical perspective on how both of those themes intersect with the increasing commercialisation of global culture. Her characters are female sex workers whose lives are irrevocably altered by the murder of one of their colleagues. I conclude by arguing that the three novels offer a nuanced if not necessarily new understanding of the various social, economic and political forces that continue to shape the lives of women on the continent.