by Cristy Argueta 6 years ago
746
ENG12ISU Purple Hibiscus Focus
by Cristy Argueta 6 years ago
746
Quotations:
Fear. I was familiar with fear, yet each time a felt it, it was never the same as the other times, as though it came in different flavors and colours (196).
PPC: Kambili cannot taste her supper due to her shock and fear of Jaja and Papa's conflict
Quotations:
I was certain the soup was good, but I did not taste it, could not taste it. My tongue felt like paper (12).
I reached out quickly for my glass and took a sip. It tasted watery. I wanted to seem eager; maybe if I talked about how good it tasted, Papa might forget that he had not yet punished Jaja (12).
Punishment and Reconciliation: Papa claims his punishment is for their own good, but it carries a bitter taste
Quotations:
Father Benedict sprinkled us with holy water. Some of the holy water landed on my lips, and I tasted the stale saltiness of it as we prayed (36).
--> after Papa beats and drags their mother out of the house, he brings the family to the priest for Mama's "forgiveness".
The boiled yam and peppery greens refused to go down my throat; they clung to my mouth like children clinging to thier mother's hand at a nursery school entrance" (41).
--> Kambili anticipates and fear her fathers punishment for coming second in school
Kambili's obsession with Papa's approval is toxic
Quotations:
Then he reached out and held my hand, and I felt as though my mouth were full of melting sugar (26).
head and ears filling with pressure from stress and fear
PP: Kambili's fiery pain after being hospitalized by Papa
Burning Love Sip
PP: When Aunt Ifeoma's family starts singing in the middle of prayer, Jaja and Kambili have a nonverbal debate of whether to join or not. Jaja has an intense yearning to join, but Kambili, under the influence of Papa refuses him.
PP: Kambili dreams of her laughter and is initially startled and fascinated by it because alienated and foreign to her. She does not even know her own laugh. Later, she learns the freedom of laughter
PPC: Jaja talking back to Papa after not taking communion.
PPC: Jaja purposely not complimenting Papa's juice like the others
Quotations:
"Say something, please, ..(13)
Silence as tension
Quotations:
"The silence was broken only by the whir of the ceiling fan as it sliced through the still air" (7).
Subtopic
Kambili, Jaja, and Mama usually only speak to compliment or supply calculated, careful comments to please Papa
Kambili always has a self loathing when she was not the one to say something that made Papa pleased
Kambili's and Jaja's eye language
Quotations:
"the past, through the years when Jaja and Mama and I spoke more with our spirits than our lips" (16).
"
Kambili's Yellow Flower
Connects to to Ash Wednesday which proceeds Palm Sunday, the day "things fall apart" in the family. Ash means the destruction of their perfect facade. The burning of the ashes can be connected to Papa's burning rage that the family can no longer tolerate.
Quotations:
"Her skin, usually the smooth brown of groundnut paste, looked like the liquid had been sucked out of it, ashen, like the color of cracked harmattan soil" (30).
--> Mama's complexion due to pregnancy
The shadow shifts into Papa's eyes and it grows
Quotations:
"There was a shadow clouding Papa's eyes, a shadow that had been in Jaja's eyes. Fear. It had left Jaja's and entered Papa's" (13).
The shadow in Jaja's Eyes
Quotations:
"Fear had darkened Jaja's eyes to the colour of coal tar, but he looked Papa in the face now" (7).
In Enugu garden, it represents to seed of freedom planted in their oppressive household as the purple flowers grow despite the cold conditions, symbolic of prevailing hope and freedom.
Quotations:
"Jaja's defiance seemed to me now like Aunty Ifeoma's experimental purple hibiscus: rare, fragrant with the undertones of freedom, a different kind of freedom from the one the crowds waving green leaves chanted at Governmental Square after the coup. A freedom to be, to do." (16).
In Nsukka garden, its the introduction to freedom which the siblings have never felt before. Jaja takes a particular liking to the flowers.
Represents the domination and control of Papa with its undertone of domestic violence
Quotations:
"But my memories did not start at Nsukka. They started before, when all the hibiscuses in our front yard were a startling red" (16).
The blood in Papa's red face and eyes: his rage or uncontrolled warped sympathy when he punishes his family
Quotations:
"His eyes were swollen and red, and somehow that made him look younger, more vulnerable" (34).
--> Papa telling Kambili their mother will not be back until tomorrow after he beat her
"I had been teetering on that boundary that divides sleep and wakefulness, imagining Papa coming to get us himself, imagining the rage in his red-tinged eyes, the burst of Igbo from his mouth" (182).
Mama's blood after Papa abuses her -the trauma of witnessing the aftermath of her trail of blood causes the words in Kambili's textbook to stream into blood. Also any danger of displeasing Papa.
Quotations:
"We cleaned up the trickle of blood, which trailed away as if someone had carried a leaking jar of red watercolor all the way downstairs. Jaja scrubbed while I wiped" (33).
"I went upstairs then and sat staring at my textbook. The black type blurred, the letters swimming into one another, and then changed to a bright red, the red of fresh blood. The blood was watery, flowing from Mama, flowing from my eyes" (35).
"I knocked my glass over as I reached for it, and the blood-colored juice crept over the white lace tablecloth. Mama hastily placed a napkin on the spot, and when she raised the reddened napkin, I remembered her blood on the stairs" (99).
"My head was quickly filling with blood or water or sweat. Whatever it was, I knew I would faint when my head got full" (181).
Quotations:
"He knew I was looking at him, that my shocked eyes begged him to seal his mouth, but he did not look at me" (6).
