Postcolonial Projection of
the Burden of a White European God
In Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus

Eugene Achike in Adichie's Purple Hibiscus, subjects his family to extreme physical violence in the guise of discipline and religious legalism. He repeatedly batters his pregnant wife causing her miscarriage for not going with his to visit the English priest; he lashes his wife and children with his leather belt for breaking a Eucharist fast; and he deforms his only son's hand for missing two questions in a catechism test. Eugene ruthlessly scalds his daughter's feet with boiling water for walking into sin when she stays with his pantheist father under the same roof, and he almost kills her for hiding a picture of him. This paper deals critically with the hypothesis that Eugene Achike is a psychopathic postcolonial mimic potentate who disdains his ethnic language, culture and faith. The paper investigates how Eugene projects his psychological throes unto his family members for fear of not conforming to the teachings of a culture and a religious faith that belong exclusively to a racist white European colonialist god.

Key words:
Postcolonial—Projection—Nigeria—Religion—domestic violence