Interspecies relationships in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus: an ecofeminist’s perspective

Abstract

The world that literature mirrors is not just a human world. Nonhumans are important as they play significant roles in understanding and interpreting realities around humans. Conscious of this, literary artists especially those that are inclined to feminism weave into the plot of their works an undeniable, inseparable but indirect link between human and non-human elements, including elements of nature. In instances where this subsists, no interpretation of the plot can be done neglecting the roles of non-human or elements of nature. This makes them symbolic and essential in understanding the experiences of the human character(s) they are linked to, mostly female. An investigation of the relationship between humans and nonhumans is the crux of this study for which Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s first novel, Purple Hibiscus, is purposively selected. This study, a critical qualitative analysis adopts ecofeminism as its theoretical underpinning. In its postulation, ecofeminism believes that concerns that are feminist are similar to concerns of nature and its elements. For ecofeminism therefore, an injury to the female gender is an injury to nature and its elements. It is from this perspective that the study x-rays the connections between human characters, elements of nature as well as ornaments in the novel. The study finds that nonhumans have significant implications for the human characters to which they are linked. Their roles cannot be downplayed in understanding and interpreting the realities human characters. It is based on this that the study concludes that no critical engagement and interpretation of Purple Hibiscus can be done neglecting the role of nonhumans as deployed by the novelist.