APPLICABILITY OF CULTURAL STUDIES IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S PURPLE HIBISCUS

Abstract

This paper construes‘cultural studies’ as a multidisciplinary theory which recognises the relationship between history, culture and power with the conviction that the nature of a people’s history and culture, including their concepts of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’,are determined by a dominant group at the expense of the minority in any society. The paper shows that it is for this reason cultural critics discountenance expressions like ‘factual history’, ‘true accounts of incidents’, ‘high art’, ‘low art’ and similar others, which representsentiments of dominant groups in any society. Using new historicism and post-colonialism as key strands, the paper submits that cultural critics seek to change the existing culture by making it possible for the marginalised to be heard; therefore, giving such marginalised persons the means of influencing the culture of their societies. The paper has used Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus to discuss cultural analysis; concentrating on how the colonial culture is depicted in the work vis-à-vis indigenous culture(s), what characters have been used in the work, how characterisation is done, how valid the narrative is, how effectively the novelist has usedlocal expressions to replace those from the dominant culture in the work, and the presence of political statements in the novel as well as what motifs dominate in the novelshowing the writer’s attitude to each of such motifs amongst other concerns.