THE WOUNDED CHILD: TRAUMA AND RECYCLED INHUMANITY IN CHINUA ACHEBE'S THINGS FALL APART AND CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'S PURPLE HIBISCUS

Abstract

This thesis examines manifestations of childhood trauma in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, with a particular focus on the experiences of Okonkwo and Eugene. Okonkwo and Eugene have largely been dismissed by various critics as violent misogynists whose highhandedness leads to the collapse of their individual families. Although this interpretation is understandable, given the belligerence of Okonkwo and Eugene towards other characters, little has been said about the experiences which propel this violent streak. I address this lacuna by reading Okonkwo and Eugene’s brutality towards others as manifestations of their own childhood trauma. My arguments are anchored on Cathy Caruth’s literary trauma model, which discusses how the incomprehensibility and belatedness of traumatic events shape their impact on the individual. Caruth contends that trauma disrupts the linear progression of time, leading to a perpetual return of the event in the survivor’s consciousness. Caruth also argues that trauma leaves a shock in the mind, which is often repressed in an attempt to survive it, only to be pried open later when certain stark or similar incidents trigger it. Accordingly, I argue that Okonkwo’s protracted deprivation and the resultant bastardisation of his self-esteem as well as Eugene’s maltreatment and eventual radicalisation by the Catholic priests who raised him lead to their traumatisation. As such, both characters demonstrate a form of recycled inhumanity later in their adult lives, not being able to devise a strategy to cope with their own gruesome experiences. I therefore interpret their inhumanity towards others as a helpless reenactment of the inhumanities they suffered as children.