Kambili's Purple Hibiscus

Shannon L. Alder once said, “Your perspective on life comes from the cage you were held captive in”. Kambili has lived in a “cage” her whole life. She has never experienced the different emotions she learns while staying with Aunty Ifeoma and her cousins. While, at Aunty Ifemoa’s house Kambili develops confusion with her feelings for her grandfather. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie demonstrates Kambili’s internal conflicts with her feelings for Papa-Nnukwu in Purple Hibiscus through the use of indirect characterization; she focuses the narrative on the internal and external conflicts Kambili faces to reveal how an individual needs to have outside interactions in order to grow in confidence.

Kambili’s thoughts about her father’s feelings toward Papa-Nnukwu

Kambili describes how Papa explains to her and Jaja they will visit their grandfather: “Kevin will take you. Remember, don’t touch any food, don’t drink anything. And, as usual, you will stay not longer than fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes” (Adichie 61). While Kambili listens to her father inform her that she must not touch the food or stay longer than fifteen minutes, reveals Kambili's initial doubts about Papa-Nnukwu. She wants to express her feelings; however, she knows her father would not accept her true thoughts and feelings. The external conflict exhibits the limitation her father places on, not just her but her entire family, demonstrates the internal conflict between her feelings and what she should do to satisfy her father. In addition to her not being allowed to visit her grandfather, Kambili’s father finds out that she had stayed in the same house as her Papa- Nnukwu. At

However, she still fears and wants to be accepted by her father. Once her grandfather passed away, her Aunty Ifeoma and her cousin, Amaka, mourned his death. Kambili wished she would mourn with them; however, she thought about what her father would say: “I wanted to cry loudly, in front of her, with her. But I knew it might anger her. She was already angry enough. Besides, I did not have a right to mourn Papa-Nnukwu with her; he had been her Papa-Nnukwu more than mine” (Adichie 187). Although, Kambili doesn’t understand her true feelings for Papa-Nnukwu, she demonstrates through indirect characterization that she is sympathetic while still being realistic with herself. Kambili’s external conflict reveals she is more concerned about what others think rather than her own thoughts. Once Kambili and Jaja left their aunt's house, Amaka rushes to Kambili to give her a painting of Papa-Nnukwu. At home Kambili and Jaja look at the painting, when their father is not home, except he came home like an interloper, and crept up the stairs quietly seeing that they were looking at the painting of Papa-Nnukwu. Kambili thought, “The painting was gone. It already represented something lost, something I had never had, would never have. Now even that was gone, and at Papa’s feet lay pieces of paper streaked with earth-tone colors [...] I dashed to the pieces on the floor as if to save them, as if saving them would