Sociohistorical Derivatives of Conflict Related Thematic Foci in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

Abstract

The debilitating smokes of sociopolitical conflicts re-enacted in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus are unpleasant derivatives of remarkable sociohistorical fires whose embers were fanned by certain political and socioeconomic conditions. After over six decades of independence from British colonial adventure, the fires are still burning while the firefighters and householders who are duty-bound to extinguish them pretend not to discern the infernos let alone direct proportionate efforts to either ameliorate or extinguish them. Thus while the fires continue to devour the House, the supposedly householders and firefighters rather compete in the reckless pursuit of elusive rats and rodents, ignoring the hapless lamentations of the citizenry who scream out the inherent and imminent dangers to no avail. Like some other indigenous creative writers, Adichie has just done so with the instrumentality of her literary rendition in the aforementioned fiction. The study postulates that the unamusing pretenses and prevarications, even indifference of the firefighters and householders portend grave repercussions for the present and for posterity. Deploying the critical machinery of New Historicism, the research demonstrates how the Nigerian State refuses to learn from certain costly and consequential sociohistorical conflicts, thereby allowing a continuous repetition of such sour manifestations to the detriment of many.