The epistolary form of the novel, the letters she writes to God, reveals that she is a woman so down and out that can only tell her troubles to God, due to lack of any living presence. These letters will provide a canvas on which she can openly explore who she is and many other subjects, painting herself into the surroundings in new ways. In addition, the letters exchanged between Celie and her sister emphasize the importance of communication between them; it is a sign of female solidarity. They also offer an insight into the role of writing for women more generally as the medium for empowerment. They are revealing of the female characters’ denied access to education and other forms of learning and communication. Still though, their insistence on using language represents their opposition to gender oppression.. What is noteworthy is that the language used by Celie in her letters is for the most part ungrammatical according to the traditional rules of grammar (‘Last spring, after little Lucious come’, ‘she say it too soon’ p.1, ‘he kilt it’ p.3). Thus Celie is established as an uneducated and ignorant girl, whose letters have more in common with the African oral tradition than with standard novels of the time. However, in this way, she is at the same time presented with an entirely personal voice; she passes her stories on to us in her own voice.
The fact that Celie is terribly afraid of men is clearly stated on page five: ‘Dear God, He beat me today cause he say I winked at a boy in church…I don’t even look at men…I look at women, tho, cause I’m not scared of them’. Walker has us, as readers, ‘read between the lines’ and through the social context of the novel see that the only reason why the beating is imposed on Celie is to remind her that she is her ‘father’s property’. In this sense, Celie is being punished for being a woman; she is punished by a black man, who takes out his rage on a woman who does not defend herself, nor understand her ‘multiple jeopardy’.
Later on ,Celie is presented as a product for sale to Mr___ by her father, who asks her to turn around so that the former can look at her, not so that he can hear her (‘Turn round’, Pa say’ p.11). Still, the negotiation is incomplete until the cow is completed in the ‘deal’. One of Mr___’s possessions, Celie, is destined to keep the house, and the other to produce food (‘Mr___ say, That cow still coming?’ p.11).
Celie never gives us her husband’s last name. She writes his name in her letters as Mr___. We know his first name is Albert, but Celie never uses that name for him and is only reminded of this name later on when Shug addresses him. This consistent elision on blanking out of his name denies the written report of their union. Evenmore, where Celie’s candid personal language usually illuminates her characters and her story, Albert is hidden behind a fog of blank space, reinforcing how alien he is to Celie. In this novel, Celie’s language is dominant. By using a blank line to signify her husband’s name, she establishes her relationship to him as one of subordination; he is the dominant male figure with whom she has no confidence to communicate.
Female alienation is also evident in the novel through the character of Sofia, according to whose confession ‘All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers...A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men.’ P.40). Now she also has to fight Harpo to assert her equality. Likewise, the Olinka tribe do not believe in educating their women and although there are no reports of abuse against women by men in Nettie’s letters, female subservience is unchallenged. Under such conditions, if they want to change the status quo, these women must stick together against male oppression. Thus, the theme of female solidarity emerges. In fact, there is a strong union of support among fellow females, and this bonding comes from a need to unbalance the male view of themselves that they have total authority over women in their society. Shug and Celie, too, come to love each other with a very strong love born from isolation and desire for something better.
‘Girl’ is a short story written by Jamaica Kincaid, published in 1978. The text is a string of microscopic images that are the cultural practices and moral principles that a Carribean woman is passing along to her young daughter, like Kincaid herself, who grew up in Antigua. The fact that she has chosen to write a short story presenting the only two characters in an isolated moment of time- the present –suggests perhaps that these women can only be sure of the present moment, since they don’t know where their social alienation will lead them.
There is no narrator as such, but the main voice of the Girl- indicated by italics- the voice of her mother, or of unspecified older female figures.
The text shows the hostility and family dissension that females suffer. The phrase ‘the slut you are so bent on becoming’ functions as a kind of poetic refrain and is repeated throughout the piece, implying the intrinsic nature associated with women, and from which her mother is trying to protect her through this series of lessons. Still though, each series of orders concludes with a follow-up question or negative statement in which the mother shows her disapproval toward her daughter (‘You mean to say that after all…the baker won’t let near the bread?’), or even in some points the mother won’t expect an answer from her daughter, as if she is only to listen without responding or reacting (‘Is it true that you sing bienna in Sunday school?’). The mother goes on to instruct her that she has to behave in a particular way in the presence of men ‘who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming’. Contrast with the opposite sex is also highlighted further down, when the Girl is instructed not to squat down to play marbles, as this ‘privilege’ is of male sex. The instructions on how to ‘make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child’ reveal that women may have to have intercourse against their will and then be required to throw their child away (story which reminds us of Celie). ‘This is how to love a man’: even though there are probably no clear rules on how to do such a thing, the mother implies here that it is the woman’s duty to try to be loved by her husband, and yet not being successful in it is an expected outcome.
Nevertheless, female solidarity-as in The Color Purple- is prevalent in ‘Girl’ too. The fact that the mother takes the time to train the daughter in the proper ways for a lady to act in this culture might be indicative of their standing ‘on the same side’. The existence of so many rules and moral principles also suggests that mother and daughter spend a lot of time together.
On balance, for Celie, as for the Girl, the telling of stories is a way of presenting self in opposition to a language, which is not your own, not part of your people’ s tradition. The use of language is to do with a breaking out from the gender oppression they undergo. However, the sense of hope and freedom from these bonds which is conveyed in Color Purple at the end of the novel, is absent in Kincaid’s short story, leaving the reader with a taste of sadness as the piece ends.
Bibliography:
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Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1992), Harcourt
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Lizbeth Goodman, Literature and Gender (1996), The Open University
