Fictional Men: (De)constructing a Military Hero—Military Masculinity, National Identity and Bipolar Disorder in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

Despite extensive criticisms of masculinities in Africa, mainly within sociology, critical men’s studies, masculinity studies, feminism and anthropology, there is little compelling research on the intersection between military masculinity, constructions of manliness and psychological traits in African literature. Comprehensive and multilayered reviews of Chimamanda Adichie’s work from a broad spectrum of socio-politics, religion, history and psychology have insufficiently underscored Papa Eugene Achike, a father-figure’s bipolar disorder embodying conventional masculine and military traits. Therefore, this study explores masculinity in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus (2004) as a dynamic and fluidic portrait of male identities and psychosocial processes constructed on military men’s contradictory experiences in Nigeria’s complex cultures, religions, socio-politics at the micro (home) and macro (nation) levels. Thus, this study hypothesised that many African men are essentially military and fulfil norms of the military institution being a vehicle to convey literary, psychological and masculine tenets and characteristics of Africans during the military and post-military regime. Eugene’s fanaticism, lack of a father figure and depression triggered his bipolar disorder (Type-1), hypomanic (Type-2), and manic and schizophrenic episodes. Also, Ade Coker’s death, authoritarian leadership, the civil war, alienation and deflated ego through military victimisation engender his manic depression and schizophrenic episodes triggering fatigue, weight loss, insomnia and hypersomnia, psychosis, sluggish psychomotor, low self-esteem and extreme guilt. Thus, his construed masculinity balances the military dictators’ domineering, vicious and insensitive traits. By diagnosing Eugene’s bipolar disorder, the study unearths his family member’s coping mechanisms, ranging from washing figurines to silences and eventual poisoning. The study concludes that Adichie manipulates the protagonist’s mental condition to rebel against colonial stereotypes and ideologies and criticise military dictatorship in Nigeria’s political history, mediating hybridised fatherhood and masculinity.