Stating the obvious, the conflict of Purple Hibiscus is Papa vs. Children. Even when he is punishing them so harshly, he has always told his children that "everything I do for you, I do for you own good" (Adichie 196), brain-washing them and blocking any method of them having person thoughts. Papa's regular ritual of letting his children have a "love sip" (Adichie 8) was also brainwash as narrator states that, "I knew that when the tea burned my tongue, it burned Papa's love for me" (Adichie 8). The author uses the benefit of first person point-of-view to emphasize that there is nothing the narrator can do but to be recognized by Papa. She "wanted to make Papa proud, to do as well as he had done. [She] needed him to touch the back of [her] neck and tell [her] that [she] was fulfilling God's purpose" (Adichie 39). The author reveals the narrator's inner thoughts to the readers so that the readers understand how desperate the narrator is, under inescapable control of dad.
As it for word choice, Adichie used the color 'red' to emphasize the seriousness of the story and severity of Papa. Red is commonly known to symbolize danger, fire, blood, anger, and communism. This symbol of red is demonstrated in the theme of Papa's domestic violence. Papa was wearing "his red silk pajamas" (Adichie 41) when he found out that Kambili has came in second in class and called on her to punish her. When Papa has figured out that Papa-Nnukwu was staying in the same house as Kambili and Jaja, the children imagined "the rage in his red-tinged eyes" (Adichie 182) even before anything. When Mama hesitated to go meet with the priest, Papa beat her, leading her to have another miscarriage with "blood on the floor" (Adichie 33). Additionally, when Papa found his children having to keep a picture of Papa-Nnukwu, he was "wearing his wine-red pajamas that lent a slightly red shimmer to his eyes" (Adichie 209); this is when Kambili was almost beaten to death. Most of the times, author uses the color 'red' to foreshadow a future violence caused by Papa.