Purple Hibiscus

Discuss how writers depict the theme of crime in their works.

In the novels Purple Hibiscus by Adichie and in Rebecca by Daphné du Maurier, the theme of crime is powerfully depicted. In both novels, the main characters commit crimes like Papa torturing his family or Maxim murdering his wife.

Firstly, Adichie uses the theme of torture to expose Papa’s crimes. For example, when Papa beats Mama, the author states: “Mama was slung over his shoulder”. As Papa “slung” Mama on his “shoulder”, we easily understand that Mama is treated like an object and Papa “slung” Mama on his shoulder just after beating her enough to cause a miscarriage. The words “his shoulder” show that Papa is a strongly built man because he carries Mama on only one of his shoulders. Furthermore, the author states: “Papa poured boiling water on Kambili’s feet». This quotation proves that Papa tortures his family because he “poured boiling water” on his daughters’ feet just because he learnt Kambili shared a room with Papa Nnukwu. The issue of this excessive torture is that Kambili doesn’t show any resistance and accepts her violent punishment for her supposed sins she had committed. Even Mama and Jaja who had started to rebel against Papa submitted to his punishment. This links to Rebecca although Mrs. Danvers uses mental torture to try to kill the narrator, but she does not use physical abuse.

Secondly, in Rebecca Mrs. Danvers to uses torture to try and kill the narrator. For instance, Mrs. Danvers says: “We none of us want you” just after tricking her at the costume ball at Manderley. Mrs. Danvers says that to try to manipulate the narrator insecurities and preoccupation with Rebecca to convince her that Maxim is still in love with Rebecca. This works so well that the narrator thinks she has no place at Manderley and for a moment, she was going to commit suicide by jumping out from the window. Next, to make the narrator even more insecure, Danvers says: “I hear her just behind me”. The words “hear her” show that Rebecca haunts the memories of the people who known her at Manderley. As she stays in the memories of everyone, everything in the house is kept just like before Rebecca died like the menus, the furnishing… Although the narrator is new to Manderley, Rebecca is deeply rooted in her head, and she is now obsessed by Rebecca all because of Mrs. Danvers repeated little mental tortures that made the narrator feel very bad. Furthermore, there is an alliteration on the h sound which is the sound ghosts make to scare people. This can be compared to Purple Hibiscus because both Papa and Mrs. Danvers torture the people they live with without someone behind them telling them it’s dreadful.

Furthermore, Adichie depicts Papa as a dictator in his house and his dictatorship can be compared to Manderley or a house burning. For example, Ifeoma says “when a house is on fire, you run out” to refer to Papa’s dictatorship. What she meant is that when a house is on fire you try to escape, whilst living under a dictatorship means watching everything around you catch on fire because of the problems and war. But when your house is burning, you either hope that your siblings escape, or you can fight hoping you do not die. Living with Papa is the same thing, Jaja, Kambili and Mama were constantly beaten but when they started fighting back and that Papa finally

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