B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Double Oppression on the Black Women in The Color Purple
He just tucked his chin over the paper when he was talking, which reminded Celie of her stepfather. What Celie could do was to stand there and suffer all this silently, “I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you a tree .That?s how I know trees fear man” (Walker 1982, 23).Later, Mr. Johnson?s two sisters came to visit them. Both of them liked Celie and praised her highly. Kate, one of the two sisters, asked Mr. Johnson to buy some clothes for Celie. “?She need clothes?? he ask. He look at me. It likes he looking at the earth. It needs something? His eyes say” (Walker 1982, 21). In Mr. Johnson?s eyes, Celie is not even a human being but an “it”. Then Kate tried to ask Harpo to help Celie to do some work. “?Women work,? he says. ?What?? she says. ?Women work. I?m a man” (Walker 1982, 22). It was Mr. Johnson that apparently taught and permitted his son to say so. For all these things, Celie just accepted without resistance, or maybe she did not know how to fight.
Then Sofia came. Sofia is Harpo?s wife. She is totally different from Celie. She is brave and knows that she must fight for herself in a patriarchal society. She married Harpo though both her father and his father did not agree. Thus Sofia would never be obedient to Harpo, which made Harpo very upset though he loved her. Mr. Johnson told him to beat Sofia, “Wives is like children. You have to let?em know who got the upper hand. Nothing can do that better than a good sound beating” (Walker 1982, 37). It is not surprising for Mr. Johnson to say so. However,
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B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Double Oppression on the Black Women in The Color Purple
when Harpo asked Celie the same question, Celie?s answer was the same, though she admitted that she liked Sofia. “I like Sofia, but she doesn?t act like me at all. If she talking when Harpo and Mr. Johnson come in the room, she keep right on. If they ask her where something at, she say she don?t know. Keeping talking. I think about this when Harpo ast me what he ought to do her to make her mind. I think bout how every time I jump when Mr. Johnson call me, she look surprise. And like she pity me. Beat her. I say.” (Walker 1982, 38)The reason why Celie advised Harpo to beat Sofia was that Sofia acted so differently from her. She envied Sofia?s courage to fight against the men around. The strange thing lies in that instead of encouraging and imitating Sofia?s behaviors, Celie became the accomplice of Mr. Johnson and his son. It indicates that Celie?s suffering has tortured her spirit and changed her from the victim to the accessory of the patriarchal thought, which is the most terrible thing that the black men do to the black women. Celie?s suffering also damaged her mental feelings. Men mean nothing to her. In her letter to God, she said that most times men look pretty much alike to her (Walker 1982, 16). She always called her husband Mr. Johnson instead of his name, Albert. Moreover, Celie lost feelings not only to men but also to children. “Everybody say how good I is to Mr. Johnson children. I be good to them. But I don?t feel nothing for them. Patting Harpo back not even like patting a dog. It more like patting another piece of wood. Not a living tree, but a table, a
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B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Double Oppression on the Black Women in The Color Purple
chifferobe.” (Walker 1982, 31)Celie is not the only black woman who suffers oppression from black men, just one of them. Celie?s stepfather, and Harpo are not the only black men who make black women suffer, either. Sofia once told Celie that Celie reminded her of her mama, “She under my daddy foot. Anything he say, goes” (Walker 1982, 43). Sofia herself had to fight against her brothers, cousins and uncles all her life, though all of them were her relatives. She learned that “a girl ain?t safe in a family of men” (Walker 1982, 42).Now, she had to fight against her own husband, which made her very sad. She made it clear that “he [Harpo] don?t want a wife, he want a dog” (Walker 1982, 68). In addition, Squeak, Harpo?s second wife, acted obediently as Celie, but was raped by her own uncle when she tried to save Sofia from the prison later. All those experiences prove that the black women are not even human beings in the black men?s mind. They could rape, beat and abuse the black women as much as they like. Though there are such black women as Sofia who can fight for themselves, but they cannot change the black men, therefore, Sofia left Harpo. Large numbers of black women like Celie still lived the painful life day by day. However, that is not all the black women have to suffer.
2.2 As Black People: Racial Oppression from the White People
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B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Double Oppression on the Black Women in The Color Purple
As mentioned above, Sofia was brave and strong enough to fight for herself.She once told Celie, “I?ll kill him [Harpo] dead before I let him beat me” (Walker1982, 42). However, strong as Sofia is, she is still defeated when facing the white. Mrs. Millie, the mayor?s wife, wanted to have a car because “she said if colored could have cars then one for her was past due”(Walker 1982, 107). Her husband bought one for her but refused to teach her how to drive. As a woman, though white, she also submitted to her husband. However, the white women, like the black men, could be the oppressed or the oppressor. She asked Sofia to teach her. Nevertheless, after she could drive, she did not allow Sofia to sit in the front any more. She asked, “Have you ever seen a colored sitting side by side in a car when one of them wasn?t showing the other one how to drive it or clean it?” (Walker 1982, 109).Sofia even called herself a slave though The Emancipation Proclamation had been signed for more than one hundred year. “Don?t say slaving, Mama. Sofia say, Why not? They got me in a little storeroom up under the house, and just about warm in the winter time. I?m at they beck and call me night and all day. They won?t let me see my children. They won?t let me see no mens. Well, after five years they let me see you once a year. I?m a slave, she say. What would you call it? ”(Walker 1982, 108)As a black woman, Sofia not only faced the sexual but also racial discrimination.
In the novel, Sofia was not the only black woman who experienced
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B.A. Thesis Chapter 2 Double Oppression on the Black Women in The Color Purple
racial discrimination. In Nettie?s letters, she also wrote down her experiences. They went to New York by ship. On the ship, there were toilets, a restaurant and beds etc., but “only white people could ride in the beds and use the restaurant and they had different toilets from colored” (Walker 1982, 141). In Nettie?s case, it is her ethnic or racial situation rather than her gender experience that requires clarification, but as Hooks pointed out, “though racial discrimination and sexual discrimination could be told apart theoretically, they virtually could not be separated”. The black women were not the only victims of the white people; the black men, victims, too. Celie?s biological father was lynched because his store took all the black business from the white merchants. Her stepfather, bad as he was, was also a victim of the white people. He knew how to ingratiate himself with the white people to keep his business. He said: “The trouble with our people is as soon as they got out of slavery they didn?t want to give the white man nothing else. But the fact is, you got to give?em something. Either your money, your land, your woman or your ass. So what I did was just right off offer to give?em money. Before I ground a seed, I made sure this one and that one knowed one seed out of three was planted for him”. (Walker 1982, 188)He had already been polluted by the white society “because white men---whether in films or in persons---offered man as dominator, as killer, and always as hypocrite” (Walker 1983, 330). He learned the hypocrisy of the white people but lost
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