The novel, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, begins with an ominous voice, “You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy”, foretelling the violence to erupt in the life of the young protagonist, Celie. Set in rural South of Georgia in the early 1930s, the novel tells the story of a poor, uneducated black girl who is raped by her stepfather and later by her husband, suffering heart-wrenching physical and emotional abuses by the men of her life. Almost all the female characters in the novel are subjugated by men and forced to live within rigid gender and race-based social constructs, a stark reminder of women’s oppression by a patriarchal ideology. The marginalization of women being relegated to a secondary role is a great concern for feminism which seeks to establish equality between men and women (Guerin 196). Crenshaw, a leading scholar of critical race theory, explains the intersectionality of gender, race and other identity categories “as intrinsically negative frameworks in which social power works to exclude or marginalize those that are different” (Crenshaw 1242). The intersection between gender and race raises the awareness of double discrimination suffered by “women of color”, in particular African-American women having to bear witness to violent social injustices.
Feminist scholars specializing in African-American women’s history acknowledge the role of race within feminism and its connection with gender, sexuality and class (Higginbotham 252). Walker coined the term “womanism” in 1983 to define another shade of feminism representing other women’s perspectives and voices (Walker). Through the different lenses of feminism, violence is used to suppress women that are different from the social norms, constructed by the white male patriarchy.
1. Celie fits the stereotype of a powerless African-American woman with no voice in a male-dominated society because of her gender, race and class.
Mr X__, her husband, reminds her of her undesirable status, “you black, you pore, you ugly, you are a woman” (Walker 206). From a male-dominated view, this is her identity, a less than desirable human being with no redemptive value. She is the “second sex”, characterized by men as the “other” who is “not born a woman but becomes a woman”, a famous line by De Beauvoir, a leading feminist. Celie’s only role is to serve the interests of her husband, a widower, who needs her to raise his three children, and to satisfy his own sexual needs. To maintain his dominance, her husband regularly beats her “cause she my wife” (Walker 22). This highlights Celie’s role as an object, a property owned by her husband.
With no voice of her own, she writes letters to God detailing her painful existence in her folksy black language, full of spelling and grammatical errors. Her language reveals her lack of education, root cause of poverty, making her susceptible to abuse. Celie, with her extreme passivity and acceptance of her abused status as a woman for most of the novel, would be seen as helping suppressing the causes of feminism.Celie has all the ingredients for a lifetime of physical, emotional, sexual and racial abuses in a patriarchal world.2. Celie’s letters
to God reflect the beginning of her self-discovery and of her fight against the traumatic abuses by the male-dominated society. In her safe space to confide in an imaginary God, she tells him of her daily violent experiences of rape, beating and verbal abuse.
In desperation, she tells God “this life soon be over” (Walker 42). Her trust in the almighty God leads her to resign herself to a spiritual death with no hope. Paradoxically her God is similar to her earthy, threatening father as he “threaten lightening, floods and earthquakes” (Walker 197). It is a metaphor of a God who also demands total submission from Celie otherwise she would be punished. She starts to realize her almighty God embodies male dominance and does not help her. Celie overcomes her dependence on an imaginary being and turns to her earthy sister, Nettie, with an emphatic statement “I don’t write to God no more.
I write to you” (Walker 192). Celie’s letters to Nettie become longer with more excitement and eloquence, a sign of her personal growth and self-discovery. From a feminist point of view, Celie has become a positive voice through female empowerment in her understanding of the social injustices in her life.
3. Sofia, another significant black female character, and vastly different from Celie in character and outlook, aggressively fights back against the feminine stereotype only to be silenced by the white patriarchal system. Sofia, Harpo’s wife and Mr__’s daughter-in-law, is a black female warrior using aggression against male subjugation.
She urges Celie to fight back with violence: “You ought to bash Mr__ head open…Think about heaven later” (Walker 42).
Sofia says “All my life I had to fight” (Walker 40). Her bold answer “Hell no” to the white mayor’s wife when asked to be their family maid starts a chain of events that sees her land in jail (Walker 85). Sofia uses violence against violence. The submissive Celie sees this as a new, refreshing model of resistance against male oppression. Sofia’s revolt fails as her strength, although admired in the black community, is shunned by the white society. In the end she adopts Celie’s submissive attitude in order to survive, telling Celie “I act like I’m you” when “they ast me to do something” (Walker 88).
From a feminist perspective, Sofia’s surrender confirms the violent, systemic subordination of women by the patriarchal society. However, she also loses her fight due to cultural and institutional racism. Although Sofia is a strong fighter, she fails to fight against the abuse and traumatization of black women by the white patriarchal system.4. Shug, Mr_ ‘s ex-mistress and a successful professional blues singer, fights male oppression with her sex appeal, her open-minded sexuality and her own male qualities. She is daring and sexy, “wearing a gold dress that show her titties.
..” (Walker 80). Men’s eyes are “glued to her bosom” (Walker 81).
Shug uses her sexuality and sexual power to assert her control and power over men. She takes great pride in her appearance with elegant clothes highlighting the power over men with her femininity. Also her lesbian relationship with Celie
reflects her free spirit in exploring her own sexuality, refusing to adhere to conventional sexual norms. Interestingly, Celie notes Shug “talk and act sometimes like a man”, complimenting a woman about her looks (Walker 81). Shug understands the power of language by using a male language to enter their world, overcoming rigid gender roles. She combines her feminine sexuality, free spirit and male qualities to craft her own independence. Shug makes her own rules to go against the oppressive male patriarchy fitting Walker’s womanist lens.
5. Breaking away from the abusive patriarchy, Celie’s gain of a new female identity is a victory for all feminists. Female bonding with Shug, Sofia and Nettie empowers Celie to leave Mr__ and start a pants business. She is now “wearing the pants”, a metaphor of her breaking away from the patriarch and of her ability to make her own decisions.
She makes unisex pants in “every color and size under the sun” (Walker). The unisex pants liberate the users from gender specific roles. Instead of responding to male oppression with violence, she holds instead “a needle and not a razor” to become a free woman (Walker 147).