Symbolic Sexism in The Color Purple - Essay Example

Robert Warmack Dr. Barker ENG 496 Symbolic Sexism in The Color Purple For centuries, women have been relegated to an inferior status in society as a result of their gender alone. Because they are woman, it was assumed they were incapable of learning, incapable of making logical decisions, incapable of defending themselves and incapable of managing their own sexuality. This was true regardless of the woman’s race, but was applied to the woman of color in slightly different terms than what we are most familiar with in literature. Rather than thinking of the ancient Greek Penelope, whiling away her days with never-ending weaving, or Shakespeare’s Desdemona, wandering aimlessly through her palace trying to puzzle out what’s troubling her dear husband, the woman of color was expected to play the woman as well as the servant. Her servant status did not only include the duties of the home, as it did for white women of lower class, but also the duties of the fields and the livestock. She was considered the most versatile workhorse, plaything and servant available. It was a role that only become more complex following the age of American slavery, when the woman of color was not just a servant or a woman, but a sexual tool to be used at will by whichever man has current rights to her. The question of the modern age, then, can be put in terms of who has control of the woman’s sexuality, the woman or the man who ‘owns’ her. This struggle over who has control of the woman’s sexuality is one of the primary themes that runs through Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple. As Celie develops from an oppressed black woman of the South to a liberated woman of the modern age, the elements of symbolic sexism are exposed both within the novel and the film, although this expression is somewhat different in the novel than in the film. Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple (1982), investigates the black American woman’s experience of double oppression, first as a black person and then, more significantly, as a woman, elements that are present to different degrees within the film version (1985). The main character, Celie, is presented as a black woman heavily oppressed, trained early to be subservient and completely conventional in her ideas as a result. Her experience of life has taught her that one is either submissive and accepting of the abuse or one is beaten to death if defiance is shown. Through epistolary segments, the maturation process of Celie is revealed in letters to God until Celie can’t accept Him as a protective figure anymore. This occurs at about the time Celie discovers her sister Nettie is still alive, as are her two children, which were not the children of a natural-born father and thus the product of incest. With these massive discoveries in mind, Celie can no longer accept the possibility that a kindly white man is looking out for her best interests and she begins to write to Nettie instead. These letters indicate Celie’s changing ideas and strengthening resolve to reclaim her sexuality and femininity as something to be treasured and something only she should control. Influenced by the appearance of strong women within her world, such as her step-son’s wife and especially the ‘wild-woman’ Shug, Celie is able to find inner strength and value she never suspected. By the end of the novel, Walker’s Celie has become a confident, powerful and successful business woman growing old in the love of her family and defining her own boundaries. In making the transition from novel to film, though, there is a significant loss of fundamental message as changes made for the shift in media and Hollywood interpretation weaken the female characters and sympathize with the male characters to the point where women ultimately relinquish the power and strength gained by the characters in the novel, still illustrated through the traditional symbolic sexism that places women at the mercy of, or at least still anxious to satisfy, the whims of men. Celie seems about to accept Mr. again as her husband, Shug becomes a happily married woman (married to a man who doesn’t beat her) and Sophia is a wreck of a human being happy to simply find a soft place to land. Squeak, meanwhile, has launched into her own career and disappeared from the scene. Nettie and her traditional family structure with husband and Celie’s two children, return in the final scene to complete the image of traditional domestic tranquility. Within the book, Celie’s progression occurs in a much more obvious progression than the subtle movement of the character seen in the film adaptation as a direct result of the translation from literature to film. Celie begins the novel in poverty of spirit and opportunity. As a young black girl living on a 1930s cotton farm in the South, she is isolated from the rest of her community and immediately placed on the bottom rung of society in that she is black and she is female. This means she is oppressed by the white people as well as oppressed by the black men. At 14 years old, her mother is already worn out from life and soon dies while Celie becomes her father’s new sexual and emotional outlet, a mere object upon which he can vent. While her emotions of guilt, shame and despair as the two children he fathers on her are taken away “to be with God” are revealed in her nearly illiterate diary, these feelings never come close to being considered by those around her. “Not only was Celie’s initiation into sexual experience in the form of rape committed by her stepfather, but  sex continued  to be a means of oppression in marriage as well, and  family life the site of  further dehumanizing experiences” (Ajtay-Horvath, 2008). All of these elements are present in the film with the single exception of the nearly illiterate diary. It is impossible to understand from the information available in the film, that Celie directs her thoughts to God alone as the only one who might understand her particular pain. Comparing Celie and the female protagonist of another novel, critic Cheung points out “their needs for self-expression are obvious; they hang onto sanity by writing; they defend themselves with words; they discover their potential – sound themselves out – through articulation” (1988: 162). The fact that Celie chooses to express her thoughts in the form of letters illustrates that she is intending to reach out into the world rather than trying to hide her thoughts away as might be suggested by the use of a diary. This in itself is a passive form of resistance to her situation in that it implies the more ‘masculine’ traits of involvement with the outside rather than the ‘feminine’ nature to remain secluded within the home. Instead of demonstrating this important element of writing as the first step toward claiming the intellectual properties required for self-determination and self-ownership, the film version of Celie seems to have little or no outlet for these types of thoughts and her intention to reach outside is subverted. She is at once more isolated and constrained than the character in the book and less able to convey her maturation to the audience. Celie’s situation in life doesn’t seem as if it will ever change much when she is forced to marry a widower who is at least as abusive and domineering as her father had been. In both the book and the film, this idea is reinforced by a belief that these men are both physically much larger than Celie and certainly both are much older. In the film, this impression is given through casting as well as filming. Danny Glover, who played Albert, is physically taller than Whoopi Goldberg, who played Celie. In addition, Whoopi Goldberg spent a good deal of the film with her shoulders rounded and her back slightly stooped to further illustrate her level of extreme submission to the man who called her wife. Filming feeds into the impression through such ‘tricks’ as camera angles. “When Celie (Whoopi Goldberg) first approaches her new husband’s house, which will be a place of pain and humiliation, there is a low-angle shot from her point of view. The camera booms forward, at a low angle, directly at the house and children lined up in front of it … this almost violent movement is an important preparatory device” (Kolker, :296). Other symbolic scenes are included in the film that reinforce Celie’s suppression under Mr. such as the weekly shave out on the porch she is required to give him and the violent welcome home she receives when one of the children throw a rock that strikes her head upon her first appearance there. Despite this impression given in the film, the book actually indicates that both Mr. and his son Harpo are small men, too wiry and womanly for Shug and not sufficiently muscular to overpower someone like Sophia on physical traits alone. While Celie was held in place by constant beatings and expectations that proper submission would ensure greatly likelihood of survival, her daughter-in-law demonstrated another approach to life. Harpo is seemingly a carbon copy of his father with a little less confidence in his particular strengths. He demonstrates his manhood in determining to marry the girl who’s pregnant with his child regardless of his father’s opinion, which is highlighted to a greater degree in the film than the book. As a boy growing up in his father’s house with Celie as a step-mother, Harpo is every bit as mean-spirited and abusive as his father, refusing to help Celie with anything and constantly attempting to aggravate her. However, when Mr. begins disappearing to town or refusing to work as he sinks into his own private despair, Harpo is the only one to help Celie in the fields in order to keep the house running. This, in combination with his enthusiasm about Sophia, a woman vastly different from the submissive Celie, suggests there is some feeling in him somewhere and that he longs for change. Despite the abuse he’s rained on her, “Celie is sensitive to the fact that Harpo is nearly as big and strong as his daddy, yet, contradictorily, ‘weak in will.’ Her voice is tender as she describes Harpo’s sad and thoughtful eyes” (“The Color Purple”, 2008). While Harpo proves he is not his father by marrying the woman his father disapproved of, something Mr. wasn’t able to do himself, he also attempts to take on the role of his father, acting in the way he has observed his father to do by attempting to beat Sophia into the same sort of submission Celie demonstrates. “This is not even Harpo’s style, but he tries it and ends up getting beat himself” (Jamaar, 2008). In the end, though, Harpo manages to force his way into a new line of business in opening up his own Jook Joint, which becomes successful thanks to the appearance of Shug once she’s nursed back to health by Celie, and he manages to figure out a way to reunite himself with the woman he still loves despite the separations they’ve undergone. With only the simple substitution of which man had the right to abuse her and which house and children she would be required to care for, Celie’s life had the possibility of staying the same for the rest of her life except for her step-son’s choice of a bride. Harpo, despite his father’s objections, decides to marry Sofia, a woman who constantly fights with her husband rather than allow anyone to try beating on her ever again. The proper submissive behavior expected of women sickens her because of the way in which women were seen to place themselves within this situation. She tells Celie, “to tell the truth, you remind me of my mama. She under my daddy thumb. Naw, she under my daddy foot. Anything he say, goes. She never say nothing back. She never stand up for herself” (Walker, 1985: 43). In contrast, Sophia never bends, an aspect of her personality that eventually leads to her downfall. “Because she answers ‘hell no’ to Miss Millie’s request that she come to work for her as a maid, Sophia is brutally beaten by the mayor and six policeman and is then imprisoned … Sophia’s violent confrontation with the white officers obviously foregrounds issues of race and class” (Selzer, 1999: 6). Sophia’s fight is not between herself and another women or even herself and her husband, but is between herself and several members of the male police force, making it seem as if the harsh punishment she receives is due to her failure to submit to the will of men. It is no less than what Celie might have expected to have occurred in response to defiance, but she is kept from falling fully back into submissiveness by the unexpected arrival of Shug. With Harpo’s wife’s ideas of Celie’s passiveness rankling in her soul and Sofia’s example before her, Celie receives an unexpected boost from her husband’s lover, Shug. Shug has been a successful singer before she came to live with the family and this independence fascinates Celie, who had never considered that a woman might truly be able to make her own decisions. Through Shug, Celie learns that her sister has been alive for all these years, that she has been happy and that she has found the two children Celie lost when she herself was still a child. A significant difference between the film and the novel involves the lesbian affair Celie has with Shug. Through this relationship, Celie learns both that she is capable of being loved and that she can have the power and strength to leave her abusive husband if she desires. At the dinner table one night, she tells him, “You a lowdown dog is what’s wrong, I say. It’s time to leave you and enter Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need” (207). However, this relationship is only mildly suggested in the film. At the same time, Shug is portrayed in the film as struggling with internal pain of her own in attempting to reconcile herself with her father. Her continued dependence on her father’s acceptance to relieve her pain reduces Shug’s effectiveness in teaching Celie that men are not necessary for a black woman to be happy. To some degree, Celie has found this inner strength through her own comparison between Shug and Harpo’s second woman, Squeak. Squeak is an external example of the type of submissive behavior expected of women by men that Celie herself has practiced. Watching how this behavior in Squeak tends to increase the level of abuse she suffers helps Celie to understand how other people have always seen her. Coming as it does in conjunction with Shug’s appearance and example of a highly desirable and completely ‘un-womanly’ individual, Celie can’t help but conclude that no one will recognize her value if she doesn’t recognize it herself and refuse to subdue it under the will of anyone else. Squeak has lost her name to her relationship with Harpo, which, since he is still married to Sophia, is only informal at best. Despite the many things expected of her, that she will raise the children, take care of the house and always be available for Harpo, plus the beatings she is likely getting as a means of ‘keeping her in line’ as Albert suggests, Squeak loses her name to the relationship and becomes little more than an object to the family as they discuss what to do about Sophia in jail. Despite Squeak’s fears about going to the judge, her protests are ignored and she is sent dressed ‘like a white woman’ only to return beaten and raped, but mission accomplished in suggesting that Sophia would be more miserable as a white woman’s maid than sitting in jail. In subsequent action in the book, Celie leaves the state, starts her own business and becomes very successful. One her own and with her own success to support her, Celie decides to reunite with her husband, who has dramatically reformed, and takes up an equal or perhaps slightly superior position to him within the home they share. Renewed connection with her sister has revealed that Nettie, in Africa, became both aunt and step-mother to Celie’s lost children and, by the end of the novel, will bring them back to America to know their mother. Finally, Celie is able to settle down in a home of her own to enjoy her success and her family. This is not the case in the film. Celie’s success on her own is only hinted at, in much the same way her love affair with Shug is only hinted at. Nettie does bring the children home in a beautiful scene at the end of the book, but Celie is living in her father’s old house that has been left to her by a widowed step-mother who felt it was only right and Albert, Celie’s ex-husband, stands isolated in a field across the road with his horse, watching the reunion as his only repayment for his efforts in bringing them together. The nature of the book enables readers to understand Celie’s inner thoughts and impressions as she writes to first God and then Nettie. This enables the audience to see Celie’s world as Celie sees it and gives the audience a chance to trace her progression as a character from passively accepting her cruel oppression to actively standing up for her own rights as a human being and achieving happiness. The medium of film prevents this concept from being conveyed both because of time constraints and for reasons of entertainment. Celie’s writing becomes sewing on a quilt that suggests her reflective spirit, but not the thoughts going through her mind. Other changes, such as the weakening of Shug and the elimination of the lesbian affair between Shug and Celie prevent the film audience from realizing just how Celie took so much strength and courage out of Shug’s example while the elimination of details of Celie’s life on her own prevents the film audience from understanding just what kind of position of strength Celie achieved in the end. Her glance at Albert in the field across the road at the end implies that she still owes him a chance to apologize rather than portraying her as taking it upon herself to return and care for this broken man out of the kindness of her heart. In the end, the book that portrays the transition of a highly oppressed woman of color into a strong and beautiful individual of the world is made into a film that illustrates the stronger yet still subservient position of women in popular culture. Works Cited Ajtay-Horvath, Magda. “Lost and Found Identity in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.” Hungary: College of Nyiregyhaza, 2008. November 15, 2008 Cheung, King-Kok. “Don’t Tell’: Imposed Silences in The Color Purple and The Woman Warrior.” PMLA. Vol. 103, N. 2, (March 1988): 162-174. The Color Purple. Dir. Stephen Spielberg. Perf. Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Margaret Avery. Amblin Entertainment, 1985. Jamaar. “A Christian Brother’s Take on the Color Purple.” Part 6. Can we Talk Real-igious and not Religious? November 15, 2008 Kolker, Robert Phillip. A Cinema of Loneliness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Available through Google Books at http://books.google.com/books?id=AdyNbhlu2MsC&pg=PA296&lpg=PA296&dq=color+purple+film+angles&source=web&ots=MbYZcDlhBI&sig=y8MFmKThJkQiXr7_ly-xJtlbJvA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result Selzer, Linda. “Race and Domesticity in ‘The Color Purple’.” African American Review. (Spring 1995). BNet. November 15, 2008 Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1982. Read More