A Little Look Into “Purple Hibiscus” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Brief Analysis: Themes

Journey and Growth

Within Purple Hibiscus, the main characters, Kambili and Jaja experience change, not only in environment but in character. Although journeying does not necessarily mean transformation, for Kambili and Jaja, their visit to Nsukka alters the way they live and think. In the first half of the text, Kambili and Jaja typically travel from home to school, from home to church. Their lives at home is a ritual: the children have to literally follow a schedule laid out by their father. Their father ensures they follow the plan precisely, so much so that Kambili wonders if their unborn sibling would get a schedule too right after he/she is born. Even the game they play with their father, chess (24), does not seem fun; it is dependent on strategy, order and silence, as are nearly all their activities and movements in the house (31). They long for freedom, revealed in the way they try to create pseudo-freedom[1] by often asking each other questions about their day when they already knew the answers (23). They do not get the chance to socialize with their friends at school or anywhere else. The description of their home also gives the impression of a prison and hints at a kind of order: Their home is wide and spacious, “the compound walls, topped by coiled electric wires, were so high [Kambili] could not see the cars driving by on the street…[there is] a row of purple bougainvillea, cut smooth and straight…” (9).  (see page 41 also).

In Nsukka, the Achike children discover people who are happy, even in the midst of poverty; their aunt’s community hints at togetherness rather than artificial isolation;: “The street gradually lost its tarred smoothness and its cultivated hedges, and the houses became low and narrow, their front doors so close together that you could stand at one, stretch out, and touch the next door. There was no pretense at hedges here, no pretense at separation or privacy…” (130). In Nsukka, they learn to live without a schedule; they learn to laugh, joke, love, sing, defy and choose. Kambili discovers a lightheartedness missing from her own home where one cannot speak without purpose (120) or pray for laughter (127). She, along with her brother, learn the necessity of freedom and experimentation as symbolized by the purple hibiscuses their aunt plants in her garden.

When Kambili returns to Enugu, she notes how lifeless, cold and unfeeling her home is. Thereafter, a series of rebellions by her and Jaja slowly demolish the power of their father. The fear that he placed for years in Jaja’s eyes had now left and entered his (13). Kambili and Jaja’s routines does not remain the same as before as Jaja becomes defiant: he rebels by not attending communion on Palm Sunday and disagreeing with his father’s religious logic; Kambili wonders if “something [came] loose in his head” (6), but Jaja is possessed of self, he is no longer mechanical.  In anger, their father throws his missal and it breaks their mother’s ceramic figurines but as noted by Kambili, “it was not just the figurines that came tumbling down, it was everything” (15). The confrontation marks the end of Papa’s reign over his family; also indicated by the rash on his face which tells of his future death by slow poisoning. Prior to the events leading up to this scene, Jaja tested his rebellion by asking for a key so that he may have privacy in his room and Kambili joined a group of girls at school in volleyball. Although Eugene pours boiling water on their feet after they return from Nsukka for failing to tell him that they spent time with Papa-Nnukwu, they decide to look at an unfinished painting of their grandfather in Kambili’s room (given to her by Amaka after he dies). They know that they would most likely be caught with the painting but the consequences of defying their father’s will does not scare them as much as it once did.

When Eugene, the man who had seemed immortal to Kambili is poisoned by her mother and dies, she feels conflicted, yearning for his presence yet feeling released by his absence. We are not told how Jaja feels but he expresses his regret at not doing enough to protect his mother. Afterwards, Kambili tells him, ““God knows best…[He] works in mysterious ways” and she thought Papa would be proud and approve of her saying that” (289). Jaja replies but his response reveals that he is transformed even more than she is: He uses satire to question her statement and asks her, “have you ever wondered why [God] has to murder his own son so that we could be saved? Why didn’t He just go ahead and save them?” (289). He now questions what he had always been told by his father, he wonders why his father, who was like a god, had to harm them in order to help them. He later pleads guilty, telling the police he killed his father so that his mother would not have to go to prison.

Kambili, in contrast, has a way to go before she departs from the negative aspects of her upbringing but closing chapters of the text reveals that she is changing and has more changing to do. At one time, she had never considered university, where she would go or what she would study: “When the time came, Papa would decide” (130); now she could reflect on the future. By the close of the novel, they visit Jaja in prison to inform him that he will be released. The good news allows Jaja to briefly “connect with Mama and Kambili even in the simplest observation[2], and Mama breaks her silence with a simple “thank you,” which seems to thank him both for his sacrifice in taking responsibility for Papa’s death and for not holding that sacrifice against Mama” (www.litcharts.com). Kambili soon after tells her mother of her plans: she wants Jaja and her mother to accompany her to America where they will visit Aunt Ifeoma. She also wants them to plant orange trees in Abba, “and Jaja will plant purple hibiscus, too, and [she will] plant ixora so [they] can suck the juices of the flowers” (307). She is still able to laugh, and she does so while placing her arm on her mother’s shoulder and her mother leans towards her and smiles; Kambili then observes “…the new rains [that] will come down soon” (307). These final lines, through nature/tree-planting references, foreshadow possibilities for their family beyond the drought of imprisonment and silence they had once endured.


Family/Relationships and Belonging

Within the Achike family, “belonging” means turning a blind eye to abuse. Beatrice, Kambili and Jaja want to belong, Kambili mainly yearns for her father’s love and approval. Her father is hard to please, nonetheless, proven by how he is deeply disappointed when Kambili comes second in her class. She “needed him to smile at [her]., in that way that lit up his face, that warmed something inside [her]. But [she] had come second. [She] is stained by failure” (39). She remembers fond memories of him holding her as a child, but as she and her brother grew older, the abuse seemed to dominate their knowledge of him. “There were stories in his eyes that [she] would never know” (42), stories that perhaps could explain his shifting “love”. He burdens them, mentally (53) and physically and they are only able to get away from his wrath temporarily when their aunt request their presence in Nsukka. There, at their aunt’s home, Jaja matures into a thoughtful and brave young man. His aunt welcomes him wholly in a way his father has not, calling Jaja “my father” which is what she sometimes calls her sons (155); his young cousin Obiola also provides an example of how to be daring and outspoken. Kambili likewise develops as a person from the feelings of acceptance she gets from her Aunt, cousins and a priest by the name of Amadi. She additionally finds sisterhood with her cousin Amaka who once believed she and Jaja were “abnormal”. When Amaka learns more about Kambili, along with why she is reserved, their cold hugs turned into warm physical contact and playful conversations. By observing Amaka and Papa-Nnukwu interact, their voices twining together, Kambili realizes that “they understood each other, using the sparest words. Watching them, [she] felt a longing for something [she] knew [she] would never have” (165). Yet, she did have it by the close of the novel with her cousins; they all laughed together, “it seemed so easy now, laughter. Jaja was laughing too…” (284). What the Achike children lack at home is fulfilled by their extended family who not only reveal history to them through orality[3] but fight for them and encourage their true selves to manifest.



Papa looked at me and then at Mama, searched our faces as if looking for letters beneath our noses, above our foreheads, on our lips, that would spell something he would not like (77)

The Achike children endure their father’s abuse in silence; the cause of the pain, their father is never named, as can be seen on page 10 when Kambili “meant to say I am sorry Papa broke your figurines, but the words that came out were, “I’m sorry your figurines broke, Mama” (10). Or we can use another example when Jaja says “we will take care of the baby; we will protect him.” [Kambili] knew that Jaja meant from Papa…” (23). Kambili and Jaja’s voices are mainly utilized to pray, answer to, praise and compliment their father. The children speak in low tones or through eye contact; their mother, Beatrice, also has a low voice as she is conditioned to speak that way in order to express submissiveness, avoid punishment and maintain peace. Criticism, blame and individual thought[4] is not encouraged in the household. Through Kambili’s narration, we see that she wants her father to approve of her actions/words since her life is only centered on his desires. Thus, she often wishes she had complimented or agreed with her father before her brother or mother did, using their exact words. She is awed by his character, “and sometimes she forgot herself, sometimes [she] wanted to stay like that forever, listening to his voice, to the important things he said.” (25). But that is the problem, he makes her forget herself, thus, when she goes outside of the home she is confused; she does not know what she wants, why she wants it. She only has his opinion as her guide. Eugene does not mind his family’s silence, yet, this is ironic If one observes how he is troubled by the silence and lack of truth in journalism(58)[5].

Kambili, Jaja and Beatrice “spoke more with [their] spirits than with [their] lips”, that is, until Nsukka. “Nsukka started it all; Aunty Ifeoma’s little garden next to the verandah of her flat in Nuskka began to lift the silence. Jaja’s defiance seemed to [Kambili] now like Aunty Ifeoma’s experimental purple hibiscus: rare, fragrant with the undertones of freedom…a freedom to be, to do” (16). Ifeoma teaches them the value of affection along with the value of speech and strength. Her personality resists silence, even her tears, for “she had not learned the art of silent crying” (185). Her children, Amaka, Obiora and Chima also reveal these characteristics in their home filled with laughter, critical thinking and debates. Each child is different from the other, encouraged to be opinionated individuals by their mother (226). For instance, when Ifeoma and her children initially have dinner at the Achike’s home, Amaka offers her opinion on Eugene’s drink made at his factory. She tells him “it would be nicer if you reduced the sugar in it” (98). Kambili is shocked but later learns that at her aunt’s dinner table, “you could say anything at any time to anyone…the air was free for you to breathe as you wished” (120). Kambili first finds it hard to express herself in Nsukka unlike her brother Jaja whose attitude changes after a few days. He becomes bold as indicated by his broadened shoulders and decision to finally speak about his father’s true nature. However, Kambili’s aunt, cousins and Father Amadi eventually challenge her silence[6] and build her self-esteem, especially Amaka who misreads her personality and only tells her little so that she has to ask. Soon, Kambili starts to speak for herself and apologize less without waiting on her aunt to defend her or for her brother to rescue her with his words. In the ease of her aunt’s homely residence, Kambili also recognizes that silence can be comfortable such as the quiet moments she shares with Amaka while they clean rice or listen to music (247). By the end of the text when her father dies, she diagnoses her family and states that “Silence hangs over us, but it is a different silence, one that lets me breathe. I have nightmares about the other kind, the silence of when Papa was alive. In my nightmares, it mixes with shame and grief and so many other things…” (305). Yet, with all the burden and heartbreaks of the past, “[she] can talk about the future now” (306) with them.


Religion, Superstition and Society

Religion within Purple Hibiscus hints at the deeper fight in Nigeria between colonial and tradition, new and old, black and white. If you take a look at the St. Agnes church and Father Benedict, you might come to the conclusion that the author suggests that tradition is not always backwards and religion must be for the people, not against them. At the St. Agnes church for instance, the congregation is awed by their priest, Father Benedict, simply because he is white. The church reveals that although slavery is abolished and Nigerians can govern themselves, colonial thought did not perish with the laws that offered black people physical and political “freedom”. The description provided by the narrator of the St. Agnes church and Father Benedict expose how the church provokes a conflict of identity. The “blond life-size Virgin Mary” (4) and the blond white British God/Jesus whose servants believe “Igbo was not acceptable” in church (4) emphasize two things: the physical difference between the whites and blacks[7] and the hopelessness of individuals aspiring to be made into an image that they are furthest from. When Kambili describes the holy water as tasting of a “stale saltiness”, this implies how outdated and irrelevant the religion is as it cannot be applied to the lived realities of the people.

Eugene describes those who worship African gods and idols, godless/heathens, particularly his father Papa-Nnukwu. He dislikes his father for his Igbo tongue which does not speak Latin or English in the way Beatrice’s deceased father, whom he admired, did. Yet, Eugene’s church seems to profit from not only preaching in the name of Jesus and the pope but by praisingnhis monetary contributions. Individuals within the society often operate in a similar manner as the distribution of money or help to them would produce exaggerated praise and God-Blesses from their lips. It seems that both the African and Christian tradition seems to deal not only in charity, confession and prayer but in superstition (99) and idolatry[8]. It is no surprise then that the deception of the church is alluded to when Kambili describes Father Benedict’s eyes as green like a snakes (105), perhaps like the one in the garden of Eden which called men to sin while pretending to call men to liberation.

Ironically, it is the superstitious people and “pagan” religions who seem to value humanity and goodness more than the Catholics in the text. While Eugene is able to buy his way through life, he could not convince his father, Papa-Nnukwu, to accept his material gifts and convert to Christianity. It is also the language of Igbo that is less rigid, communicating fondness, belonging and equality in a way that English does not (see page 73). And although Aunt Ifeoma is in contact with “heathens” (Papa-Nnukwu), she reveals to Kambili that Christianity can be a religion of tolerance and inclusion[9]: Ifeoma prays for Papa-Nnukwu which makes Kambili remember how her father only prays for God to convert Papa-Nnukwu and rescue him from hell’s fire. Although Eugene shuns Papa-Nnukwu, Papa-Nnukwu prays for him with “the same earnestness that he prayed for himself and Aunty Ifeoma” (168). Papa-Nnukwu is a “traditionalist” as explained by Aunt Ifeoma but the generation made into hybrids by European religion and values (such as Eugene) are often taught to reject tradition in order to move forward and be wholesome people. However, it seems for all of Eugene’s talk of renewal and civility, his actions are not progressive and he remains incomplete.

Religion as a Mask

Eugene Achike uses religion as a way to justify the abuse of his wife and children; his cruelty may be the result of his difficult childhood. He reveals to his daughter, midway through the text, that he was abused as a child. Eugene grew up poor, working as a houseboy and gardener for priests. He experiences trauma as a child, particularly at St. Gregory’s when his hands were burnt in hot water by a “good father” for apparently masturbating. As an adult he still tries to keep his hands clean in that sense, fervently rinsing his family and others of deeds he believes are dirty sins. He becomes one of the few versions of a “man” but not the popular/typical kind: a man who cheats on his wife or marries more than one wife and drinks/boasts with his friends. He is a religious gentleman, a troubling form of masculinity. He exerts power, not sexually or through verbal boasting, but by utilizing the Bible, his fists and money. When he sits in church and is praised by Father Benedict, he has a “blank look” (5) on his face, pretending modesty. In truth, he feels proud of his status in the church and community, he enjoys his role as the most exemplary and kind God-abiding member. In truth, however, he is a hypocrite, for he hates moral sin but engages in it.

Eugene nonetheless believes himself to have deep insight into bettering the country and his people through God; when he prays, it is often overdone, drawn out for up to twenty minutes. The diction within the novel reveals that Eugene seems to function like a God-like figure. He prays at dinner time, “asking God to forgive those who had tried to thwart His will, who had put selfish desires first…” (32). He also rebukes Kambili by saying, “Because God has given you much, he expects much of you” (47).  Of course, his prayers and warnings are often directed against his family or any situation he finds unpleasant; he wishes that his family and others would bend to his will and not necessarily God’s will. It is why his sister says he “has to stop doing God’s job. God is big enough to do his own job…let God do the judging…” (96, 97). It is also why Kambili could never imagine him dying, “he had seemed immortal” (287). His grip on his family does not hold in the end, for all their actions after Nsukka seem to fall into his misguided classification of “godlessness”. It is also worth knowing that the wife rebels in her own way: Beatrice had once agreed with Eugene’s disbelief in superstition (20) but she later poisons him with the help of Sisi who knew a witch doctor.

Ultimately, Eugene is a conflicted character, and it is why his children and wife both love him but want to get away from him. He often cries during and/or after he physically harms his family. He tells his children to take a “love sip” (8) of tea which actually burns their tongue, Kambili says “it burns [his] love into me” (8). Thus, his love is paradoxical and so is his family’s affection for him (268). He likely seeks approval and/or pardon[10]; perhaps the spirit of the missionaries haunt him in memory; it explains why he is “gracious, in the eager-to-please way that he always assumed with the religious, especially the white religious” (46).


Abuse: Physical and Emotional Abuse; Emotional Scars

The forceful character of Eugene is foreshadowed from the first page when he “…pressed hard on each forehead to make a perfect cross” (3) on Ash Wednesday at church. Kambili and Jaja grow up fearing their father and Kambili repeatedly tries to copy his behavior to please him, in part to avoid being punished and also because she partly believes what he tells her. Kambili cannot eat her meals and enjoy it like her cousin Amaka because she is always tense and on guard, afraid to act in any way which her father might find inappropriate. When he speaks they all obey; when he says ““Pass the salt, please”, they all reached for the salt at the same time” (12). He is without compassion, beating Kambili for eating food during the Eucharistic fast when she could not withstand the hunger. When Jaja was ten he crushed his little finger when he was not named the best in his class. Eugene also beats Beatrice; at one point, he beat her until she loses their unborn child. The children were emotionally scarred by the experience; they have to clean their mother’s blood from the floor and for days later, “the words in [Kambili’s] textbooks kept turning into blood” (37). She is haunted by the violence and a feeling of helplessness. Their mother is also deeply affected by the loss as noted in her “vacant” eyes that reflect those of a mad person (34). Beatrice internalizes the pain and displaces her sorrow in cleaning: Whenever Eugene hits her, she wipes the ceramic figurines in the dining area. When he kills the unborn child within her on another occasion (by breaking a table on her belly), she goes to Nsukka where she tells everyone, and cries openly for a long while after. Their mother had always been unable to name the oppressor, even when Kambili ends up in hospital after Eugene kicks her repeatedly (212). The loss of Beatrice’s second fetus seems to be the deciding factor that leads her to poison her husband, “[her] eyes were still glazed, but she looked like a different woman…she looked possessed by a different demon” (250)[11]. The poison she gives to Eugene weakens him and seems to give her emotional and verbal energy; she could give orders, ignore his rules and raise her voice around the house. When Eugene dies and the autopsy reveals the cause of death, Jaja tells the police that he is the one who poisoned his father. Their mother’s authority and speech dies down after his imprisonment; she becomes withdrawn and loses weight. However, she along with her children are able to look forward and hope for a better tomorrow nearly three years later when they are able to get Jaja out of prison.


‘Othermothers’[12], the Mother Figure and Gender

Kambili and her mother are not only oppressed by Eugene but by social and religious institutions that place females in inferior positions. At Kambili’s catholic school for girls, the walls are just as high as those at her home, “topped by jagged pieces of green glass with sharp edges jutting out” (45). On her report card, Kambili is commended for being quiet, responsible and obedient (38,39). These are traits that girls are often told to strive towards. While her brother is told he will inherit his father’s riches, she is told she is a ripe fruit, ready to be picked by a strong young man (91). It is no surprise then that Kambili relates to the struggle of being female in a world where men seem to have power and choice. When she sees a crying woman on the ground being abused by soldiers, she felt as if she knew her and she wished she could have gone over and helped her up (44).

Their mother, Beatrice, does not set a good example for what a female must tolerate in marriage and society. She is spoken to and treated in a similar manner as her children are by her husband. There is little difference between her and Sisi, the housegirl, who cooks and cleans.  “There was so much [Beatrice] did not mind” (20), living in her husband’s shadow, she tries to excuse his behavior by arguing that he is not like other Big Men[13]. Beatrice explains that when she had miscarriages and the villagers and members of their umunna (community) urged Eugene to have children with someone else, he did not. There were willing daughters, many university graduates ready to have his sons and take over the household, driving them out, she explains. Hence, she overlooks her husband’s abusiveness in order to remain financially secure and have a roof over her head, but Kambili’s aunt, Ifeoma, is unwilling to accept her reasoning.

Aunt Ifeoma is the first voice of opposition to Eugene in the text (see page 13). Kambili does not have any female role models but her aunt Ifeoma becomes one when they spend more time together. Ifeoma is a university teacher and single mother described as being as “tall as Papa, with a well-proportioned body. She walked fast, like one who knew just where she was going and what she was going to do there. And she spoke the way she walked, as if to get as many words out of her mouth as she could in the shortest time” (71). Ifeoma defies and mocks Eugene in Igbo, she impresses Kambili who “watched her every movement…It was the fearlessness about her, about the way she gestured as she spoke, the way she smiled to show that wide gap” (75).

Ifeoma’s actions reveal that a female can be both emotional, expressive, strong and intelligent. She does not expect Kambili or Jaja to be conventional, she tells them that “being defiant can be a good thing sometimes” (144). Ifeoma lets Kambili’s mother know that a husband does not necessarily crown a woman’s life. A female’s purpose and will to live is not dependent on marriage or children; she also stresses the need for young women to have choice and education. She believes marriage/domestic life “is what [women] think they want” (75) because they are taught gender roles from an early age. Ifeoma clearly teachers her daughter Amaka this for she is a “teenage copy of her mother. She walked and talked even faster and with more purpose than Aunty Ifeoma did” (78).

Kambili learns to open up and relax at her aunt’s home; it is there that she first wears a shorts after being told all her life that it is sinful for women to wear them. She also tries on lipstick owned by her cousin Amaka, who could also wear a dress that clings to her body. Kambili begins to laugh often and sing in the shower, during prayer or in the car with her cousins. Her sexuality is also awakened in Nsukka by Father Amadi when she discovers that she has feelings for him. Her affection for Father Amadi is not discouraged by her aunt or cousins, neither do they treat Kambili’s connection to Amadi as sinful or dirty. Thus, through Ifeoma, Kambili learns that it is alright to be a female with voice, sensual feelings and self-centered desires.


  • Mama’s Figurines[14]
  • Purple Hibiscus
  • Dream (Romantic love versus Fatherly Love) pg 282. The conflict is resolved on page 303 when Kambili decides to share Father Amadi with God.

[1] Pseudo means “fake”. Fake freedom.

[2] “”You did not tie your scarf well,” Jaja says to Mama. [Kambili] stare[s] in amazement. Jaja has never noticed what anybody wears…” (306).

[3] Papa-Nnukwu’s storytelling, traditional beliefs, traditional games and the Masquerade.

[4] When Eugene asks the children to pray for their mother’s forgiveness after he beats her, Kambili did as commanded, she “did not think; she did not even think to think, what Mama needed to be forgiven for” (36).

[5] This contradiction is similar to how Eugene’s paper speaks about the need for a renewed democracy while his paper is ironically called the Standard (25), a word which often speaks to the norm rather than change.

[6] See pages: (170, 173, 176, 177, 179, 239, 276)

[7] When Father Amadi sees Christ in the poor boys’ faces, Kambili “could not reconcile the blond Christ hanging on the burnished cross in St. Agnes and the sting-scarred legs of the boys” (178).

[8] Eugene tells his wife it is sinful to bow to another human being when she visits the Igwe’s palace and greets him with a traditional bow. Kambili takes his advice and does not bow and kiss the bishop’s ring at Awka but she is scolded by her father who tells her the bishop is a man of God.

[9] Father Amadi also demonstrates this; he is nothing like Father Benedict who lives by a script (175) of condemnation. At Amadi’s church, people could come as they were, in jeans, trousers, hatless, as long as they came (240).

[10] “It was the way Papa shook his head when he talked about [Kambili] liking sin, as if something weighed him down, something he could not throw off” (102).

[11] Popular social metaphor in West Indian novels, “the use of the madwoman in their fiction reflects feelings of female fragmentation, [a disconnection] between self-image and expected role…” (Out of the Kumbla, O’Callaghan, 108) Madness “…may involve breakthrough as well as breakdown” (O’Callaghan, 46).

[12] A terminology obtained from Rosalie Riegle Troester in “Turbulence and Tenderness: Mothers, Daughters, and ‘Othermothers’ in Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones.” Othermothers are present in the traditional childcare network common among those of African descent such as families engaged in polygamous unions where the females become substitute mothers to the younger children in the household.

[13] An influential, often wealthy man who ‘collected many wives’ or as termed in Jamaica, a “gyallis” (cunning, unattached, promiscuous male); see Amadiume, p. 45; Meeks and Hall, p. 236.

[14] Mama always polishes her beloved ceramic figurines of ballet dancers after Papa beats her. Mama, Kambili, and Jaja never speak aloud of Papa’s violence, but polishing the figurines become a kind of euphemism for his domestic abuse. When Mama cleans the figurines that Papa breaks in anger, she tells Kambili that she won’t need to replace them. This shows that something has changed in the family dynamic, and Mama won’t stand for violence anymore, just as Jaja asserts his independence by disobeying Papa. Thus the figurines symbolize the submissiveness and silence the family lives with under the fear of Papa’s violence, and when the figurines are broken it means the beginning of freedom and free speech (litcharts.com)


The Harder They Come: Getting My Share. An Analysis of Two Worlds

Within the film “The Harder They Come” written and directed by Perry Henzell and Trevor Rhone, the city plays a fundamental role in depicting the intransience of colonialism. Kingston embodies the features of the colonial world cut in two and this is evident if one observes the racial, political and geographical conditions presented in the film. This follows the theory of decolonization put forward by Frantz Fanon who states that the “colonial world is a compartmentalized world.” The issue lies in the strategies deployed by leaders and citizens in “new” postcolonial countries: they adopted a culture of enlightenment, mirroring European government, racial, gendered outlooks, thus, they failed to adequately reconstruct and question the Eurocentric which meant their societies simply refashioned oppression and inequality. These nationalist approaches lead to instances witnessed in the film where there basically exists an invisible boundary with the colonizers’ privileged off springs on one end and the common folk on another, experiencing the city in antithetical ways. It is through this divergent postcolonial landscape that the status quo of the society in the film is maintained.

If the viewer pays attention to the geographic arrangement of the city in “The Harder They Come”, he/she will be able to examine the covert situations which support and preserve a refined form of colonialism. In the opening scenes of the movie, Ivan makes his way out of a rural, and presumed traditional environment, into the modish and vibrant streets of Kingston. The journey takes Ivan into the hub of the city where vehicular and human presence increases. In the beginning scenes, Ivan sees a light blue convertible drive out of an all-white shopping center[1] with a black man and two black females; in this point-of-view shot, the area appears to be clean, spacious and inhabited by a few people. 2.jpgThe parked cars are privately owned and arranged neatly in their designated parking spots. Contrasting this “Uptown” area is the hustle and bustle of “Downtown” Kingston which provides limited space to manoeuvre through. There are more public transport vehicles moving haphazardly, to and fro. The buses are rickety and overcrowded with passengers and luggage. When pedestrians cannot afford to pay the stipulated bus fare, they rely on the hand-cart man instead. There are no Chevrolet cars in these scenes; the typical means of transport for the lower-class citizens are buses, carts, bikes and bicycles. The areas where the British settled and procreated, along with their favoured compatriots, effectively become commercial and upper-class districts. Later, aspiring citizens on the periphery such as Ivan point to these locations with a smile and a wave, hoping to become a propertied bourgeois. c0a7f2895f65021f5065ac9fab424d23.png

The film explores the boundaries within the city even further by juxtaposing the images of the posh suburbs with the ramshackle environment of Shantytown. The uptown areas Ivan walks through have structures that are built differently and are aesthetically pleasing.  The houses are predominantly white with white picket fences complimented by spacious green lawns. The trees and flowers that line the fences are beautifully arranged. Cars are parked in each yard and the roads are paved, smooth and clean. There are no sounds to be heard but the chirping of birds. Individuals can be seen reclining in comfort on their front porch such as the haughty female Ivan approaches for a job. 8.jpgThe woman tells Ivan she does not require a worker and orders Ivan to close the gate behind him, reminding one of the exclusivity that belongs to the rich. Even Mr. Ray is seen relaxing in a hammock in his back yard as Jose frantically discusses the issues of the ganja trade.  Those residing in the pristine areas are usually white or light-skinned individuals. Even the glamorous hotels only cater to the well-off. Ivan’s stroll through the pool area populated by the wealthy lounging on benches, basking in the sun and swimming in the pool.

The “downtown” environment lacks the many commodities that the “uptown” areas enjoy. This sharp contrast is made when the camera cuts to a scene of the Riverton Dump, immediately following the footage of the suburban landscape. The multitude of garbage and flies seem endless as the johncrows (vultures) fly overhead. Like the vulture, the poor people are mere scavengers digging their way through the waste in the hopes of finding some marvelous trash left-over by the more fortunate. Ivan looks on in sadness and realizes there are “many rivers to cross” before he can reach the other side where the grass is always greener. the-harder-they-come-1972-720p-largescreenshot1.jpgThe footage also extends to the derelict houses of shantytown where the structures are built haphazardly and seem less sturdy; there are no steel fences or concrete walls but zinc and board all round. Residences are often marked by zinc enclosures bearing paint that read “don’t piss or urine at this gate, people are living here.” The roofs are the color of rust and rubbish covers the roadside along with carcasses of old cars.  Even the roads are unpaved, stony and dusty. These shots reveal how socio-political abandonment fuels communal abandonment; the respect for property is diminished in such disorganized infrastructures that lack basic amenities. They are the seemingly the “wretched of the earth”, living in “a disreputable place inhabited by disreputable people. [They] are born anywhere, anyhow. [They] die anywhere from anything” (Fanon, 4).

In Kingston, the division of labour also reflects a taking up of what the colonizers left off since the black majority work for the wealthy, Eurocentric minority who often exploit them. The poor citizens often occupy the informal market space and are also engaged in manual-labour occupations and industrial work. This is exemplified in the film where black men seeking employment form a long line outside a construction site. A light-skinned overseer decides whether to employ or reject the men desiring work. Even in the hotel scene one witnesses how the black workers cater to the affluent, proudly guarding the white doors[2]. As mentioned by Aggrey Brown in Color, Class, and Politics in Jamaica, a black man, with supervisory authority often “abuses his unaccustomed power in dealing with his own and toadies to the white boss” (1). Additionally, within the movie the dispossessed no longer cut sugar canes but sell ganja which becomes the postcolonial crop of the village. The plant is cultivated by the lower-class population yet the bulk of the profit still finds its way to the bourgeoisie. It can be likened to a modern-day plantation with the owner on one side (Mr. Ray) and Jose along with the other traders on the next side as paradoxical free slaves. Within the film, not much has changed in the postcolonial city where one’s job description is dependent on colour, background and money.

The poorer half of the society, as expressed in previous paragraphs, is largely populated by darker hued individuals who, like Ivan, dream of crossing over one day. It is interesting to note how the positions of power held in the film are by “brown” men such as Mr. Hilton, Mr. Ray, the radio spokesperson and various drivers of expensive Chevrolet cars. the-harder-they-come.jpgAs noted by Fanon, “looking at the immediacies of the colonial context, it is clear what divides this world is first and foremost what species, what race one belongs to.” The colonial world espouses a love for “whitedom” and an ambivalence and often rejection of “blackdom”; the white or brown/ light-skinned people are considered civilized and by default, able to access more resources than their “crude” “black” counterparts. The border dividing the upper classes from the lower classes consists of the police, soldiers and political representatives. These individuals monitor and control the common folk in order to prevent an insurgence, similar to the plantation overseer in the colonial period. They maintain the invisible walls through the use of their rifle butts, intervening between the maltreated and the exploiter. Communication between the two worlds in the film seem futile, one group is always excluded from the world of the other; as expressed by Fanon, “the colonist’s feet can never be glimpsed, except perhaps in the sea, and then you can never get close enough.” This is evident when we see how the brown elite drops the roof of his car when Ivan runs up begging some money at the hotel entrance. The same can be said of Mr. Hilton who is always being chased by those hoping for a bridge across the social gap. Ivan, like the other men with big dreams, call out to Mr. Hilton from behind a latticed fence. This is symbolic of the tangible and intangible barriers which separate the prosperous from the needy; a world that excludes yet invites you in and otherizes you if you dare reject it. Fanon contends that the human reality is that “you are rich because you are white; you are white because you are rich.” This inequity leads many underprivileged citizens to perceive the ruling class and their allies as “Babylon”, “the oppressors” that they will overthrow by any means necessary. This explains why the traders would not provide the location of Rhygin even after Mr. Ray brings the ganja trade to a standstill.

In the city of Kingston, the gap between the two worlds are also widened by the coping mechanisms employed by the lower classes. Whereas the postcolonial upper classes laze around in the sun at their fancy resorts, the black population, unable to copy British culture or conduct, nestle themselves in the dancehall, at the bar, at the movies or on the street corner playing dominoes. 4.jpgThe latter often partake in these activities to quell their frustration and reservations. These behaviors date back to the colonial period where the slaves (usually at harvest time) would assemble and dance/sing in tune with African drums while the plantation owners hosted soirées. The entertainment centers within Kingston likely offer what Fanon states about the phenomena of dance: a “muscular orgy during which the most brutal aggressiveness and impulsive violence are channeled, transformed and spirited away” (19, 20). An additional boundary marker between the two worlds in “The Harder They Come” is the church. 2311997470_aaafc230ed_o.jpgThe film pays special attention to the presence of this social institution for while the colonizers and their descendants have the land, the slaves are mainly left with the Bible. The church is an epicenter which not only consoles the colony but acts as a mediator between the subjugated and the authorities. The disenfranchised are taught patience, forgiveness, obedience and tolerance. In “The Harder They Come”, one does not see the elite attending church, perhaps because they are rich and do not need God for comfort?  The church, as articulated in Marxist philosophy, is the opium of the people; it often represses rebellion and promotes acceptance of one’s exploitation. Fanon asserts that “it does not call the colonized to the ways of God… [but] to the ways of the oppressor.” For instance, in the film, the choir sings “Jesus hear my plea” and the preacher tells the congregation that “whereas God so clothed the grass of the fields…shall he not so much more clothe you? Oh yea of little faith!” The poor folk are essentially told to be patient and wait for the “pie up in the sky”. Hence, religion in the film fails to encourage critical thinking about the real realities of the people along with the possible solutions that might decrease inequality and poverty.

The film, “The Harder They Come”, clearly demonstrates that Jamaican society is divided in matters of labour, infrastructure, leisure, travel and worship. The colour and race of individuals often determine how easily they can access the nations’ resources. In order to eradicate the mental and literal boundaries colonialism erects, Jamaican society, like most postcolonial landscapes, must confront its antinomy. Questions must be asked: How best can a country and its government spread its resources/opportunities evenly so that crime does not become a logical alternative, so that capital moves beyond the “brown” or “uptown”? In what way can the country re-imagine its people to be more than British imitators in speech and action, bearing in mind that Caribbean people are hybrids, neither fully African nor fully European? These answers, along with others, will impact the lives of literal Ivans who often must choose between drawing on their talent or drawing weapons.

[1] Known today as Manor Park Plaza, an area frequented by middle – upper class individuals, typically of lighter hue.

[2] Note how “white” colors symbolize the desire to be legitimate, that is, to do as white colonizers did: own white houses with white fences, gates, and well-tended gardens.