Abstract
Beyond voice lies a sound laden with dread. Dread, as Heidegger points out, is encountered in a feeling of nothingness. But nothingness is not an automatic existent; it is built up through actions that gradually breed detachment of self from a whole. This paper explores the journey of self towards nothingness in Andreas’ The purple violet of Oshaantu and Adichie’s Purple hibiscus. This journey is undertaken by the characters, Kauna and Mama, as they communicate with their spirits—silence. The silence of these characters is so shrieking that its echo is strongly heard in the lives of those around them. But are these characters able to liberate themselves after identifying selves or did they drench further into the helpless state they were before discovering selves? This is one question this paper answers as it traces these characters’ journeys towards self-identification through nothingness.
References
ADICHIE, CH. (2004) Purple hibiscus. Lagos: Farafina.
African Writer Profile: Neshani Andreas. The Wyoming Blog. [Online] Available from: https://woyingi.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/african-writer-profile-neshani-andreas-2/. Pp. 1–5. [Accessed: 30th August 2018].
ANDREAS, N. (2001) The purple violet of Oshaantu. Oxford: Heinemann.
BERNSTEIN, D. A., ROY, E. J., SRULL, T. K. & WICKENS, CH. D. (1988) Psychology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
BEUKES, J. (2011) The purple violet of Oshaantu. [Online] Available from: www.primefocusmag.com/articles/254/the-purple-violet-of-the-oshaantu/. [Accessed: 15th March 2019].
HEIDEGGER, M. (1949) Existence and Being. Washington: Henry Regenery Company.
JAWORSKI, A. (1997) Silence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
KABORE, A. (2013) The Symbolic Use of Palm, Figurine and Hibiscus in Adichie’s “Purple hibiscus”. Linguistics and Literature Studies. 1 (1). Pp. 32–36.
LEONE, M. (2017) Silence Propaganda: A Semiotic Inquiry into the Ideologies of Taciturnity. Signs and Society. 5. (1). Pp. 154–182.
Neshani Andrea. Wikipedia. [Online] Available from: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neshani_Andreas. [Accessed 31st August 2018].
NUTSUKPO, M. F. (2017) Domestic Violence in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Purple hibiscus”. International Journal of Arts and Humanities. 6 (3). Pp. 118–126.
OBEIDE, V. Violet without Purple: The Colour of Spousal Violence in Neshani Andrea’s “The purple violet of Oshaantu”. International Journal of English and Literature. 4 (3). Pp. 53–59.
OGAGA, O. (2009) Changing Borders and Creating Voices: Silence as Character in Chimamanda Adichie’s “Purple hibiscus”. The Journal of Pan African Studie. 2 (9). Pp. 245–259.
OGWUDE, S. (2011) History and Ideology in Chimamanda Adichie’s Fiction. Tydskrif Vir Letterkunde. Nigerian Literature: The Triumphs and Travails. 48 (1). Pp. 110–123.
SCHULTZ, D. (1976) Theories of Personality. 4th Edition. Monterey: Books/Cole Publishing Company.
TYSON, L. (2002) Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. 2nd Edition. New York: Routledge.
UDUMUKWU, O. (2006) The Novel and Change in Africa. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press.
UDUMUKWU, O. (2011) Adichie’s Purple hibiscus and the Issues of Ideology in the Constitution of the Nigerian Novel. Tydskrif Vir Letterkunde. Nigerian Literature: The Triumphs and Travails. 48 (1). Pp. 184–203.
WEISS, B. (2004) Shades of Utter(ing) Silences in “The purple violet of Oshaantu”, “Maru” and “Under the tongue”. In: Weiss, B. (ed.) Tangible Voice-Throwing: Empowering Corporeal Discourse in African Women’s Writing of Southern Africa. New York: Peter Lang.
License
Journal of Gender and Power is an Open Access Journal. Copyright of the article published in the Journal of Gender and Power is retained by the authors with first publication rights granted to the Adam Mickiewicz University Press.