Universitatea Transilvania Brasov

Facultatea de Litere
Master: Cultura si Civilizatie in Spatiul American

POSTCOLONIAL FEATURES IN ALICE WALKER.S

THE COLOUR PURPLE

Alice Walker is one of the most important African-American female writers of the
contemporary period. Her great achievement The Color Purple, published in 1982, is a
typical postcolonial womanist novel, a manifesto of black womens struggle in a highly
complicated situation of the postcolonial world. The author presents her deep observation
and analysis of the fate of black women in the post colonial context in terms of racial,
cultural and gender issues. This novel not only describes the African-American womens
predicament, but also exposes the miserable life of African aboriginal women. In
addition, Alice Walker also puts forward some possible ways to change the situation of
black women. She appeals to black women to subvert west constrict and patriarchy with
womanist spirit and construct a harmonious life style for all the black people.
The Color Purple is a postmodern novel due to its aesthetic manipulation of voice and
discourse in order to disrupt form within. Walkers special use of language produces new
narrative strategies, discloses unheard stories of women, and transforms traditional
concepts of gender roles. The manipulation of language empowers the speaker while
failure in voicing causes silence and a lack of control. Much of the narratives in Walkers
novel are derived from her own personal experience as she grew up in the rural South as
an uneducated and abused child. The goal of her novel and of all her writing is to inspire
and motivate black women to stand up for their rights. Celie, the main character in The
Color Purple, undergoes an inner transformation, from a submissive, abused wife into a
confident and independent black woman. In the past, black women were described in
terms of negative and regressive stereotypes. Now, black women are themselves in the
front of reclaiming their rights, and the arena where their invisibility and
misrepresentation is played out is the novel. The act of writing down their experiences
and the act of reading their own literature are mutual acts of empowerment. In fact, black
women history is a history of self-empowerment in a fight against external forces trying
to silence their own voices. And this fight implies the struggle against racism and sexism,
against the patriarchal society. Black women in a white American society were
considered as mere objects during slavery and afterwards it took a long time to consider
them as equal. When the Feminist movement began, it did not include black women
because of their color. So, the first problem that the black women faced was that the
society denied the existence of non-white women in America (Hooks 1982:8).
The Color Purple is considered to be a womanist novel because of its emphasis on
African-American female experiences and relationships. Walker founded the term
womanistin her 1980 piece called Coming Apart. Her objective was to provide a
means for black women to define themselves and their experience without having to
depend on either the sexist views of men (of all races) or the racist views of white women
(Burrow, 83). A womanist loves herself, other women, womens experiences, and the
black community. Womanist ideals are weaved in throughout the storyline of the Color
Purple. Every woman in the story uses different forms of creativity, such as letter
writing, songs, or stitches to share their unique experiences as black females. By
;decentralizing patriarchy the story creates a more democratic kinship among the
characters. The women are friends and will do anything for one anotherand since they
giggle and gossip and nurse each others children, then they must be happy with things as
they are. (Walker, 167).The happy fairytale ending of The Color Purple is in stark

contrast to the novels disturbing start. This ending is possible because patriarchal
relationships were deconstructed and replaced with egalitarian relationship.
Also, black womens identity was denied because of the sexism. Slavery was considered
as a black male phenomenon which regarded black women as biological functionaries
whose destinies are rendered ephemeral to lay their eggs and die (Stetson 1982:62).
One of the many alternatives opted by the African-American women to build up their
own identity has been the literary production. Black women have found in writing a place
of their own and through which they can fulfill their ambition and express their emotions.
Alice Walker, as a renowned womanist, uses her writing to speak about womens rights
and equality.
In The Colour Purple, Alice Walker brings out the especial Blackness of the novel. It
may be called a painterly novel, casting its narratives in terms of spectrum of colors in
black womens lives. The novel is written in two voices. One is addressed to God, i.e.
Celie, the main narrators nave addressed or prayers to God, and the other is Netties
voice, Celies sister, through her letters from Olinka. This aspect of the narrative brings to
the fore the theme of repression of the voice, and the breaking of the silence. Both, Celie
and Nettie in a way break their silence in their addresses. There is a comparison between
God and Albert, Celies husband, who plays God being male: the White God ;who
silences the Blacks stories and the Black Male, who silences the Black womens voice;s.
The epistolary style in Walkers novel recreates the mode used by slaves to denounce
their s;ituation. It is also an approach used traditionally by women to enter into the
literary field. The Color Purple is structured as a series of letters addressed firstly to
God, and t;hen to Celies sister. Celie has to bear the exploitation of black woman by
black men (Stuart 1988:61), and her story is the story of black women empowered to
reject the role of passive victim and become active agent in her own life, through her
relationship with the women: sister, lover, daughter-in-law, and friends.The black women
struggle every day against discrimination: color, gender, illiteracy, violence, insecurity,
lack of equal opportunities. Celie is an example of an African-American woman exerting
her right of self-defining. She represents any black womans experience but, above all,
her own. Her voice stands for a whole community but, at the same time, she also claims
her right of speaking as an individual voice.
The conscious use of language in The Color Purple conveys political messages. Celies
Black English, though challenging at the first sight, proves to be rules-governed language
in that there is consistency in phonology, morphology, and syntax. Rich in
characteristically black usages, Walkers conventional style enlivens the reading
experience of the novel. Although for the general publics benefit, Walker has made some
modification to the dialect; her primary concern is to preserve the black cultural heritage
and to challenge the superiority of Standard language. Through her revolutionary
employment of the epistolary novel, a genre traditionally used to discipline women,
Walker makes the silent women heard. Celie and Nettie are empowered by letter writing;
in doing so, they acquire not only their own voice, but also their subjectivity. Walker also

creates a double-voiced narrative by contrasting Netties formal language with Celies

vernacular.
Celie and Nettie are the novels focal characters. The sisters inability to communicate
highlights the difficulties involved in the processes of reading and writing for women
who are silenced by patriarchal power. Patriarchy is a social system where men hold
power and are the authority figures over women and children. The novel starts out
displaying the dominance of patriarchal ideals, but the characters tear down these
structures to create a more egalitarian community among one another. Through her
letters, Celie is able to tell someone in her own words about the abuse she is subjected
to, thus gradually increasing her confidence to speak up. The letters are laconic, blunt,
and poetic, but they are not written to communicate as much to express what the soul
cannot hold within (C. Wall, 153). Netties letters highlight the difficulties of
communication between men and women, black and white, not only in America, but also
in Africa, and thus expand the novels scope. In terms of communications, Netties letters
describe the exchange between African men and women, between the Olikas and the
American missionaries, and between herself and Corrine, who is indifferent to the truth
about Adam and Olivia;s origins (Kaplan 131).
Through her letter to God, and subsequently to Nettie, Celie creates a language that on
the side of convention. Seen by critics as a modernist text, The Color Purple manifest
itself as an artistic production in which language is essential to the shaping of a vision
(Tucker 82). The colloquial black vernacular becomes Celies personal language, and
through it, she gains strength and independence to eventually break free from marital
suppression.
The dominant, white, feudal social structure of the south is transferred to the novel.
Despite social segregation, most of the sexual abuse and violence toward women in the
novel is executed by black men, not white people. Eva Lennox Birch claims that the evil
present in the novel comes from the accumulation of attitudes inculcated over centuries
of ritualized oppression which is inevitable consequence of an act of colonization,
whether it be of a nation, a race or a sex (223). By setting up an opposition between male
and female wisdom, Walker highlights the influence of patriarchy on her male characters.
Whereas female wisdom furthers love and magic, male wisdom claims the natural
inferiority and the need to keep them under control (Byerman, 60).
Yvonne Johnson has suggested that [t]he patriarchal system itself enslaves and degrades
women, for it institutionalizes and valorizes the subject-object dichotomy (85). Celie
enters the novel as the ultimate object, controlled by her father and subsequently, by her
husband. The latter, under his fathers influence, who has denied him the possibility of
true love by opposing the relationship with Shug Avery, has a desperate need to reestablish his power, and he does it in a brutal way.
In order to subvert the stereotypical representation of husband and wife illustrated by
Mr.____ and Celie, Walker displays reversal of gender roles in the characterization of
Harpo and Sophia. Harpo is strong in body but weak at will, whereas Sophia is muscular

and determined. The couples job preferences are contrary to the traditional job division
between genders. Unlike Celie, Sophia refused to be controlled by her husband. She talks
back and fights with Harpo when he resorts, as his father does, to violence. An urge to
assume control of Sophia drives Harpo to gluttony. Caught in the linguistic system that
constructs arbitrarity gender roles, Harpo can neither value his feminine qualities nor
respect sophias masculine characteristics. On the other hand, Prizefighter, Sophias new
man, give different interpretations to the male role. Although he is a big man, Prizefighter
uses nonviolence and imposes no limitation on Sophia. He develops a version of
masculinity that is in stark contrast to Harpos.
Even though the reversal of genres can subvert the prescribed gender roles, it causes still
another polarity between man and woman. Walker actually advocates an androgynous
blend of traditionally male and female characteristics in her creation of the character
Shug. She is presented as a woman of masculine deeds, as well as feminine charms. Celie
admires her for she is the most beautiful woman I ever saw (6). Mr_____ notices that
Shug acts more manly than most men (269). He also comments that Sophia and Shug
not like men.but they not like women either. (269).
Elliot Butler-Evans deems Shug to be the embodiment of feminist existential freedom.
She frees Celie from her linguistic constraints on both sexuality and religion. She also
teaches Celie to appreciate her body and initiates her sexual pleasure. The lesbian
relationship between Shug and Celie entails a lesbian reading of the text; however,
Shugs sexual pluralism allows the reader to have more interpretations. One of them can
be that Celies relationship with Shug is a part of a larger growth and development that
she needs to undergo.
Besides her contribution to Celies awakening in sexuality, Shug also assists in
deconstructing Celies imaginary addressee- a silent God. In letter 73, Celie informs her
sister Nettie that she doesnt write to God any more, but to her. The shift of her addressee
from God to Nettie suggests, on one hand, her longing for a real connection with Nettie,
but, on the other hand, her distrust in God. At Celies delineation of God as an old white
man, Shug explains that Celies God is the white mens construction. She also tells Celie
that God is everywhere even in the color purple in the field (196). In doing so, Shug
deconstructs Gods patriarchal image and teaches Celie to praise Him by enjoying nature.
The issue of gender role is pivotal in the novel. Alice Walker uses dramatic effects to
highlight the differences between her male and female characters, as well as their
different feminine and masculine qualities. Critics have accused Walker of painting a
negative picture of the unknown figure, the black man, who plays a major part in the
novel, playing the roles of villain, husband, friend and lover. Walker has argued that
parallel to Celies development, there is also Mr._____, or Alberts development. In a
cathartic process of dissolution, Albert goes from the tyrant to a domestic person,
embracing traditional feminine needle art and work. Walker has further claimed that both
Celie and Albert suffer from an illness that derives from the experiences that early
shaped their personalities, and from their culturally derived roles. In reversing these
roles, Walker creates a utopian family structure.

The Color Purple inverts the established categories of masculine and feminine. We
learn that to Celie men are synonymous with pain and torture, and that to her most times
mens look pretty much alike. (16). She tries to enjoy sex with Albert, simply because
Shug tells her that she just love it. However, at times Celie compares Shug to men and
herself to men when at one point she has got her eyes glued to Shugs bosom and feel
my nipples harden under my dress. Also, when giving Shug a bath, Celie compares her
feelings to a mans: I thought I had turned into a man. I wash her bodyMy hands
tremble and my breath short. (47). Walker is playing with the masculine/feminine by
deconstructing and challenging the psychological and behavioral traits most typically
associated with one sex. In developing a sense of self, Celies sexuality becomes one of
the prominent features of the novel. Sexuality is both a powerful tool and a deliberatory
device.
Celies sexual relationship with Shug challenges patriarchal heteronormative relationship.
Shug and Celie share more than just friendship, they also share a sexual relationship with
one another. Shug awakes Celies sexuality that had been taken away from her when she
was repeatedly raped at a young age by her alleged father. In the historical time period of
The Color Purple lesbian relationships were not very common. Celies development
into a self-confident lesbian woman and fully responsible moral agent enables her to
confront the sexism of the black men in her extended family (Kamitsuka, 60). Two
female caring for and loving each other as equal is a direct challenge to patriarchal
structure of the black family, and contributes to the characters transformation into an
equal communal family at the novels end.
The polarity between masculinity and feminity causes the divisions of gender roles; that
is why Walker experiments with the reversal of gender, sexual pluralism and lesbianism,
and eventually proposes a blend of masculinity for both men and women. Since for black
people, race is closely related to gender, Walker also attempts to deconstruct the
white/black binary opposition, to subvert the hierarchal gender structure which is further
complicated by skin color and tone.
;
Because The Color Purple deals with black men and women, the dichotomy between
males and females cannot be fully responsible for gender conflict. One factor that
essentially contributes to the social relations in the novel is racial oppression, like the
lynching of Celies biological father. Also Miss Millie, the mayors wife. Is taking
advantage of her high position in social hierarchy when she asks Sophia to be her maid,
on the grounds that she is white and Sophia is black. However, racial suppression
becomes secondary to sexual exploitation and marital abuse. The main factor of
suppression is mens power over women through Alberts power over Celie, and mens
divine power to name and kill. A. Christophe holds that the novels most daring and
enduring quality is its rejection of racial emotionalism, and its emphasis on Celies
existential fight for recognition.

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ButlerEvans, Elliott.(1989) Race, Gender, and Desire: Narrative Strategies in the

Fiction of Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker, Philadelphia: Temple
UP, 1989.
Butler, C. B.(1991), The Color Purple ControversyBlack Woman Spectatorship,
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Kaplan, C. (1996), The Erotics of Talk: Women's Writing and Feminist Paradigms,
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