Purple Hibiscus: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

The narrator, a 15-year-old girl named Kambili Achike, who lives in Enugu, Nigeria, says that “things started to fall apart” in her family after one specific day: her 17-year-old brother Jaja refused to go to communion on Palm Sunday, and her Papa, Eugene, a devout Catholic, threw his missal (a Catholic liturgical book) in anger, breaking the ceramic figurines on the étagère (a piece of furniture with a series of shelves).

Kambili explains what happened before this scene. She describes Papa’s fierce devotion to Catholic tradition and the priest at their church, St. Agnes, who is a white British man named Father Benedict. Father Benedict insists that prayers and recitations be done only in Latin, not in the native language of Igbo as they are at many Nigerian churches. In his sermons Father Benedict praises Papa extravagantly, describing his virtues as a righteous publisher of the newspaper the Standard. He says that Papa always prints the truth and speaks out for freedom even when it is difficult or dangerous. Papa is a wealthy business owner, but his money has not corrupted him like the other “Big Men.”

During this praise Papa’s face remains emotionless, and Kambili remembers his decree that modesty is important, so she also tries to hide her pride. On this Palm Sunday Papa notices that Jaja did not take the communion. When they arrive home Papa slams his missal down on the dining room table and interrogates Jaja about it. Jaja answers rebelliously, saying that he doesn’t like the wafer, and that if refusing to take communion means death, then he will die. Kambili pleads with her eyes for him to stop, but Jaja won’t look at her.

Papa then flings his missal at the étagère and breaks the small ceramic figurines of ballet dancers. Kambili’s mother, Beatrice (Mama), comes in and immediately starts picking up the pieces of the figurines. Kambili feels suffocated in the silence. Mama tells Papa to drink his tea and Jaja to help her clean up. Papa sits down. Usually he gives Kambili and Jaja a “love sip” of his tea before he drinks it—letting them share it, and Kambili likes this practice even though the tea always burns her tongue, because it proves Papa’s love for her—but today he does not, which disturbs Kambili.

Jaja helps Mama pick up the pieces of the figurines, and Kambili feels like she is in a nightmare because everything is so different from how it usually is. She goes upstairs to change and looks out the window at Mama’s red hibiscuses, which she uses to decorate the church. Many visitors also pluck the flowers as they pass by. Kambili remembers two government agents who came to the house to try and bribe Papa, and even they couldn’t resist picking some hibiscus.

None of the usual Sunday routines take place: Mama doesn’t plait Kambili’s hair in the kitchen and Jaja doesn’t go upstairs to his room to read. Kambili tells Mama that she is sorry her figurines broke, but Mama just nods and shakes her head as if the figurines weren’t important to her. Kambili knows that they were, though—every time she heard Papa beating up Mama in their room, Mama would come downstairs and meticulously polish the figurines afterwards.

The family sits down to lunch and Papa says a prayer over the food that lasts twenty minutes. He likes to refer to the Virgin Mary as “Shield of the Nigerian People,” a title he invented. Sisi, the family’s servant, brings in the food and they eat, though Kambili cannot taste anything because she is so stressed. Sisi brings in the new batch of cashew juice (which Papa will sell from his factories) and they each try it. Mama and Kambili both compliment it nervously.

Jaja is conspicuously silent, and Papa asks him if he has any “words in his mouth.” Papa says this in Igbo, which is a bad sign—Papa prefers everyone in the family to speak English, so as to “sound civilized.” Kambili remembers Papa’s sister, Aunty Ifeoma, calling Papa a “colonial product.” Jaja responds that he has nothing to say, and he excuses himself from the table before Papa’s closing prayer. Kambili notices that the fear has left Jaja’s eyes and entered Papa’s. Papa calls for Jaja, starts to get up, and then slumps back into his chair. Kambili chokes on her cashew juice and has a coughing fit.

That evening Kambili stays in bed and doesn’t go to dinner. Papa sits with her a while, and she notices that his breathing is labored and his face has a rash on it. Mama brings her some soup, but after eating it Kambili throws it up. She asks about Jaja, and Mama says that he didn’t come down for dinner either. Kambili asks if Mama will replace the figurines, and Mama says that she won’t. Kambili starts to understand that everything has changed now, and Mama may not need the figurines anymore.

Mama leaves, and Kambili remembers what started all this change. There were many years when she and Jaja and Mama “spoke more with our spirits than with our lips,” but the true changes began when they visited Aunty Ifeoma in Nsukka. Kambili remembers Ifeoma’s garden of purple hibiscus, and the scent of freedom they seemed to give off. This was a different kind of freedom from the one Kambili had heard angry crowds chanting for—this was “a freedom to be, to do.”