![]() ![]() ![]() The longest section in the book harkens back to before the Palm Sunday incident, when the family’s life is utterly controlled by Papa’s religious tenets. The reader will later learn that the postcolonial Nigerian government’s killing of his partner and silencing his newspaper coupled with Auny Ifeoma's liberating effect on the children, Kambili's first period, and Jaja's growth beyond the world that Papa can provide for him is the catalyst for this most harsh of beatings Papa will deliver and for which Mama will kill him. ![]() Mama has endured great hardship at the hand of the uncompromisingly cruel Papa, and this will be Papa's last attempt to control his family in the name of his God. The explosive action followed by silence is not new, but Kambili (the narrator, Jaja's sister) and Jaja have experienced newer, freer worlds outside this one, so their perspective of his violent episodes has changed. The title of this first section, “Breaking Gods,” implies a shattered spirituality, reflected in Mama’s (Beatrice Achike’s) broken figurines, and the fury with which Papa (Eugene Achike) throws his missal, God’s word, at Jaja (Chukwuka Achike), the son who rejects his father’s God. The novel begins with its climax, a violent domestic scene resulting from many months of frustration and change. ![]()
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