What is the relationship between culture and conflict in Purple Hibiscus?

The Purple Hibiscus has its main focus on the strained relationship between the first-person narrator, Kambili, and her dominant father and has a military coup as a backdrop.

Because Kambili is aged 15, and events are delivered in her first person voice, The Purple Hibiscus is filtered through her adolescent perspective. Initially, the narrative appears to be overly naive, but, when remembering her age, this gradually becomes an authentic coming-of-age story. The depiction of her violently authoritative father allows for some complexity that criticises both British colonialism and traditional patriarchal powers for their influences on the oppression of marginalised groups. The connection is also made between the two as her father’s respectability is measured by himself and others in his adherence to Eurocentric values: ‘Papa changed his accent when he spoke, sounding British, just as he did when he spoke to Father Benedict. He was gracious, in the eager-to-please way that he always assumed with the religious, especially with the white religious.’ His material success is seen to go hand in hand with his seemingly devout Catholicism and in this way his corrupt view of the world becomes entangled with an imposed religion and the workings of capitalism.