Religious Bigotry In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus

Africa has a wide range of religious beliefs and practices which are derived from the people’s cherished cultural heritage and which connects the past with the present. Adichie’sPurple Hibiscus exhibits a technique of contrasting Christian characters with Traditional African ones in order to expose the contradictions of the Christian religion and its adherents in Africa. She also portrays Christianity as an extended arm of colonialism and neo-colonialism. This research employs textual or content analysis of the primary text, Purple Hibiscus, as well as other polemical works in evaluating and analyzing religious bigotry as a major theme in the novel. The researcher also consulted other critical works written by other critics on ChimamandaNgoziAdichie’s novels as secondary sources. This research shows that Adichie perceives Traditional African religion as the same, if not very similar in many respects as the Christian religion which was introduced by the white missionaries. The only difference being largely in names, mode of worship and certain principles. She is not against Christianity but only frowns at the way Christianity is manipulated by some adherents, especially the educated elites, in order to exploit and subjugate others