Theme of Tranformation in The Colour Purple and The Yellow Wallpaper

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‘Transformation is a central idea in the prose texts you have studied in Literature and Gender.’ Do you agree? Discuss with reference to The Colour Purple and one other prose text from Literature and Gender.

Transformation, a complete change, is a common thread in literature. Both male and female writers have explored this theme developing the characters, plot and suspense within a piece of written work. Female authors such as Alice Walker and Charlotte Perkins Gilman investigate transformation in their work with very different outcomes for the main characters.

Published in 1982, The Colour Purple written by Alice Walker focuses on the story of Celie. The contempory epistolary form the reader is introduced to a fourteen year old girl, on the edge of adolescence who has endured a childhood of loss, deprivation and abuse. The novel focuses on letter or ‘epistles’ exchanged between characters (Goodman and Digby, 1996, page156). In this instance Celie writes to God, unable to share her troubles with any living person, threatening ‘Tell nobody but God’, (page 3), Pa’s authority forces Celie into secrecy held by a speechless fear of mother discovering the abuse taken place by her father.

        

Celie's transition from adolescence to adulthood the character associates biblical God with the men she knows. The trauma of the abuse endured by Celie causes further heartache as a grown woman. As such the oppressive view of men is developed in particular with the father figure in the novel. Celie begins to wonder if her father murdered her daughter who mysteriously vanished, beginning to associate God the Father with the murderer of her child. Celie replies ‘God took it’ (page 4) when her mother questions the whereabouts of the child. It is interesting to note the correlation Celie makes of God with fear and violence, mirroring her feelings of her father and that of her future husband. The style of letters from Celie’s adolescence are characterised by short choppy sentences, with halting rhythms and physical descriptions in an ongoing present that are told in a matter of fact tone. Walkers’ style of writing mirrors the traumatised emotional state of Celie, her role in the family home is of maid and protector of younger sister Nettie against Alphonso’s sexual advances.

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The relinquishment of Celie from Pa’s abuse reinforces the negative male views within The Colour Purple. Pa presents Celie as less than a woman, almost selling her like cattle and thus treating her like an animal. It is not only Celie who suffers this contempt as Pa’s nameless new wife is referred as ‘a fresh one’ (page 9). All women are compared as slaves or animals, therefore not having a standing in society. African American women faced a triple oppression during this period; a theory recognised by Socialist Feminist Cora Kaplin as race, class and gender influence the ...

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