The responding critic shows that ‘If the reader is disturbed then it may be because reality is uncomfortable’. Alice Walker has written the novel about what she has heard, experienced or seen. But the only limitation is that Alice Walker has chosen characters that don’t represent every single man in the black community. It would be rather difficult to write a novel about all males in one community.
Another comment made by Tony Brown is that ‘men find it difficult to express positive emotions’. Referring to the novel we can see that most of the men in the novel resort to violence. When Harpo first enters the novel we find that he is not like the other men, ‘you ever hit her? Mr ____ ast. Harpo look down at his hands. Naw suh, he say low, embarrass? Even though his wife is a hard and upright character, whom Harpo loves he doesn’t know how to show his feelings towards her. Harpo ends up getting hit by Sofia if he tries to condemn Sofia to the stereotypical black woman in society. ‘Harpo his face a mess of bruises. His up cut one of his eyes shut like a fist’. At first doesn’t resort to hitting Sofia, he shuts up and keeps quite about the situation.
Harpo feels that he has to live up to what he sees. In order to gain respect and authority from other black men. The black men use harsh, strong, abusive language in order to ‘tame’ their wives. This confuses Harpo as he loves Sofia ‘I heard somebody crying. Harpo sitting on the step, crying like his heart gon broke’. He says to Celie ‘I want her to do what I say, like you do for Pa’. The situation between Harpo and Sofia ends with Sofia leaving home and Harpo in a position that he can’t do anything about it. Just because he didn’t have the courage to do what he felt was right. This shows us that Harpo is a weak character that gives his power to his wife.
In the novel there is an on going cycle of violence. Mr ___ hits Celie constantly. Just because he doesn’t know how to show his feelings towards her he acts selfishly hiding Nettie’s letters from her. The violence doesn’t only occur between two black people but extends between races. White men beat Celie’s father to death. He is beaten to death because he is a successful businessman and his business is running better than the white men and therefore the attack is accounted as a racial attack.
As the responding critic says ‘many black men have difficulty loving ‘ and ‘ brutality of a society panic stricken over black masculinity’. The only type of male that will survive in a black community is one who shows his strength and exploits his wife. If we have a look at the history of black men we find that even Malcolm X used violence in order to be heard. When the novel was written the audience (black people) were shocked by the brutality and violence in the novel.
Brown says that ‘nevertheless men can still keep women happy’. We can relate this to the theme of sisterhood in the novel. Women stay happy because they tend to stay with each other. This symbolically represents sisterhood in the novel. For example Celie and Sofia construct a quilt that reflects the black community. The bright colours represents the happy lives and the patch work and the fact that all the patches are connected means that everyone helps each other in the society. Celie gives the quilt to shug to welcome her into their sisterhood, to be one of the patches.
When Celie is having a hard time with Mr _____, Shug helps Celie keep positive thoughts. Celie helped Shug when everyone turned his or her heads on her and therefore Shug feels that she should return her a favour and from there their relationship grows, Shug giving Celie strength. Shug also helps Celie discover things about her body that she had never realised before. For instance her sex organs this helps Celie discover sexual pleasure, as sex has always been a thing that Celie has been abused alongside. This helps Celie strengthen her relationship with Mr ____. Therefore they are helping each other in turn. We also see this type of unbreakable bond between Sofia and her sisters. When Sofia is having trouble with Harpo, her sisters immediately come to help her out. Due to this she finds happiness again but with another man, buster the prizefighter.
Even though Walker shows that women can keep each other happy and stay happy with men, in the main Walker shows us that black men do seem inferior to women. By Celie ending her sexual relationship with Shug she has been able to become friends with Mr. ______, whom she starts to call Albert. He has taken up a shell collection and gets her to come back to his house to take a look. She is still surprised by how clean and neat he keeps everything. He tells her that he was just too much of a fool to notice her when she was his wife. Celie and Albert grow closer as they get to know each other as friends and Celie even teaches him how to sow.
Even though there are brutal men in the novel there are also positive characters i.e. Sam, who is a missionary and develops a relationship with Nettie whilst in Olinka and Adam. They positive character is also shown in the language and style of wording he uses. He uses a more professional approach to his accent than the other black men. He is soft spoken. He uses proper grammar that is known as the queens English. He uses the full work for example ‘do not’, instead of ‘don’t’ and ‘ is not’ instead of int. We find that Adam cares about the people around him ‘each day Adam presses us to leave for home. He can no longer bear living as we do’. Adam is aware of his surroundings where as men such as Mr ____ are only concerned about how they are see in the eyes of other men. Sam also has a very positive attitude he helps Nettie when she arrives at Olinka and treats her like family.
Men such as Mr____ and Harpo are capable of loving but they have to learn how to show their true feelings. We only see that they are capable of loving after the women leave them. We see that the loving side of Harpo. Celie asks him if he minds Sofia working and Harpo replies ‘what I’m gon mind for? He says. It seems to make her happy and I can take care of anything come up at home’. By the end of the novel Mr____ has become more aware of what is happening around him. He also becomes a caring person. Celie says ‘Mr___ done ast me to marry him again’. I feel that when black women stand up for themselves black men become more caring and forget about being brutal.
Brown comments that ‘the Color Purple is not a story against black men, it is a story about black women’. I feel the story is about women and the fight for their independence. It is also about the growth and characters like Nettie and Celie. We can see parallels in the way they speak. It shows their dialect and they both use phonetic spellings. This improves by the end of the novel. They both improve and stop using dialect in their letters and become more aware of the formal way of writing and speaking. This shows that along side the physical and mental growth of the women there is also a growth in their knowledge of the English language. But the only reason they realise they need to stand up for themselves is the brutality of men. Celie becomes a happy character by the end of the novel. Celie is now surrounded by a large group of people whom she loves. For her this is the greatest moment of her life, and thus she remarks that she feels younger than she has ever felt before. For Celie, having her family return and to finally be loved by other people is the equivalent of starting a new life. Thus the ending is really the beginning for Celie. I feel this change has come because Alice Walker her self has experienced the. She has been quoted as saying, ‘I’m as happy as a was as a child’.
After reading the novel I have been left with the feeling that there are equal right no matter what colour’ what sex you are. The ‘Color Purple is a novel about women rather men who have developed emotionally and mentally from the brutality of men. Which has helped men realise how they treated women so made them better people.
Bibliography
The Carolina Peacemaker (1986); Tony Brown
The Carolina Peacemaker (1986); Respondent
The Color Purple by Alice Walker; The Women’s Press.
The word count is 2,128