An Ambiguous 'Freedom Song': Mind-Style in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus

Abstract

This article attempts a stylistic analysis of Purple Hibiscus (2003), the first novel by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Using Roger Fowler's concept of "mind-style" and Halliday and Matthiessen's functional grammar, the essay examines the language of the book's first-person narrator, a fifteen-year-old girl whose father is a violent Catholic extremist. It is argued that the unveiling of linguistic patterns in her account leads to a deeper understanding of the concepts of freedom and tyranny in the novel. Thus, while the narrator's deceptively simple style initially conceals her prejudices, it gradually grows into a more straightforward type of language as the character liberates herself from her father's authoritarian grip.