Purple Hibiscus: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

One rainy day Ade Coker is assassinated in his home. He receives a package from the Head of State, and when he opens it at the breakfast table with his family he is blown up. Kambili and Jaja come home that day to find Papa sobbing on the sofa, looking small and broken. Mama and Jaja comfort him. Later Papa funds Ade’s funeral, buys a new house for Ade’s family, and gives the Standard staff bonuses and a long leave. Kambili starts having nightmares about Ade getting blown up, but sometimes in her dreams it is Papa dying in an explosion at a meal, and she is the daughter at the table with him.

In the following weeks Papa looks more weary and unwell. He prays more, and Father Benedict often visits the house. Soldiers go to one of Papa’s factories, plant dead rats there, and then shut down the factory, claiming unsanitary conditions. Papa doesn’t check very often that Jaja and Kambili are following their schedules, so they spend more time together.

One day when Papa is with Father Benedict, Jaja comes into Kambili’s room and asks to see the painting of Papa-Nnukwu. Kambili nervously takes it out. Jaja runs his deformed little finger over the painting, entranced. Kambili joins him in staring at it. They stay there for a long time, longer than they know they should, as if secretly wanting to confront Papa that day.

Papa comes in and sees the painting. Jaja and Kambili both claim that the painting is theirs, and Papa starts to sway back and forth in rage. He takes the painting and rips it up. Kambili screams and tries to pick up the pieces. Papa yells at her and then starts to kick her as she curls up on the floor on top of the pieces of paper. He kicks her with his metal-buckled shoes, yelling about heathens and Hell, and then strikes her with his belt. Kambili smells Amaka’s paint on the paper and eventually passes out.

Kambili wakes up in the hospital. Mama is there, crying gratefully that Kambili is awake. Kambili’s whole body is in terrible pain. She hears the doctor saying that she has a broken rib and internal bleeding. Later she sees Papa crying and calling her his “precious daughter,” and then Papa and Father Benedict praying and giving her extreme unction. Kambili tells Mama to call Aunty Ifeoma. Mama’s face is puffy from crying, and Kambili suddenly wants to both hug her and shove her down.

Kambili later wakes up to see Father Amadi leaning over her. She wonders if she is dreaming. She hears Aunty Ifeoma’s voice, saying that her children could not come because of school. Ifeoma tells Mama that “this cannot go on”—she must escape before things get worse. Mama protests that Papa has never done something like this before. Ifeoma firmly declares that Kambili and Jaja will go to Nsukka, at least until Easter, once Kambili is healed. Eventually their voices fade away. Later Kambili wakes up again, and Mama tells her that Papa has been at her bedside all night, every night. Kambili looks away.

Papa picks out a private tutor for Kambili, and she comes to the hospital the following week. She is a young white nun, but she speaks fluent Igbo, which surprises Kambili. Kambili pretends to recover more slowly than she actually is, as she doesn’t want to go home. She can tell that her tutor realizes this but doesn’t say anything. Kambili takes her exams from her hospital bed, and she comes in first in the class.

Kambili’s class comes to visit her. Chinwe Jideze gives her a card and talks to her as if they were close friends. Ezinne says that Kambili should stop running off after school when she comes back. That night Mama tells Kambili that she will be going to Nsukka with Jaja when she is discharged in two days. Somehow Aunty Ifeoma had convinced Papa.