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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Love Sip:
In this passage, Adichie describes Kambili taking a “love sip” from her father’s scalding tea. She uses strong tactile imagery and a metaphor of burning to show the painful effects of Eugene’s parenting on Kambili:
The tea was always too hot, always burned my tongue, and if lunch was something peppery, my raw tongue suffered. But it didn’t matter, because I knew that when the tea burned my tongue, it burned Papa’s love into me.
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Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—The Hollows:
Eugene feels deeply guilty and responsible about Ade Coker’s torture and death at the hands of the Nigerian military. Because he was the one who published the offending material in The Standard, he walks around like a ghost following Coker’s death:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Weeks after Ade Coker died, the hollows were still carved under Papa’s eyes, and there was a slowness in his movements, as though his legs were too heavy to lift, his hands too heavy to swing.
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Explanation and Analysis—Stained by Failure:
Kambili’s fear of failure and her yearning for her father’s approval are always on her mind. When she comes second in her class at school, she knows that Eugene is extremely disappointed:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I needed him to hug me close and say that to whom much is given, much is also expected. I needed him to smile at me, in that way that lit up his face, that warmed something inside me. But I had come second. I was stained by failure.
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Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—Walk In Sin:
The brutality of Eugene’s punishment for Kambili seeing Papa-Nnukwu is wildly disproportionate to the seriousness of her “crime.” Adichie uses tactile imagery and metaphor to illustrate the warped moral justification of Eugene pouring boiling water on his child’s feet:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I saw the moist steam before I saw the water. I watched the water leave the kettle, flowing almost in slow motion in an arc to my feet. The pain of contact was so pure, so scalding, I felt nothing for a second. And then I screamed.
'‘That is what you do to yourself when you walk into sin. You burn your feet,’ he said.
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Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Burning House:
Aunty Ifeoma’s use of idiom and metaphor in this passage convey the urgency of her warning to Beatrice and Kambili about the danger they face in Eugene’s house. After hearing that Beatrice has been beaten so badly she has miscarried her baby, Ifeoma says:
Unlock with LitCharts A+‘This cannot go on, nwunye m,’ Aunty Ifeoma said. ‘When a house is on fire, you run out before the roof collapses on your head.’
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