B.A. Thesis Chapter 3 Black women?s approach to emancipation
the way for a new free self. 3.1.2 The Role of Shug
Another woman who helps Celie in getting free is the blues singer Shug Avery. However, the female bonding that ties these two women is totally different from the one with Nettie or Sofia. In fact, if Nettie is considered as the hope that sustains Celie alive and Sofia the rebellious spirit that encourages Celie to fight, Shug is seen as the affectionate mother and sexual mentor for Celie. Shug Avery is at first a friend to Celie, eventually a lover, but has always a subtly guiding \influence that, like the mothers of Walker?s \evolve into an independent, self-actualized woman, no longer accepting the conditions that have enslaved her.
Celie first knows of Shug, the woman her husband truly loves, by a photograph. In her mind, Shug is the most beautiful woman she ever sees. She even says that Shug is prettier than ―my mama. After years of hearing about, thinking about and dreaming about the fantastic Shug, Celie first sees her when Albert takes her home. Actually, at that time, Shug is nearly sick to death. Then Celie has devoted her attention to nursing Shug until she recovers. Shug is touched by her tenderness and care, hence creating a Miss Celie?s song to express her gratitude to Celie. For the first time, Celie is aware of being respectable, ―first time somebody made something and name it after me.(Walker 65) This song
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also becomes a catalyst for the development of their lesbian relationship. In fact, the two women share a long embrace and end in a kiss, bonding their relationship. At the beginning of the novel, we can notice that Celie lacked in her life a female model who would help her to assert herself. However, through her observance of Shug and their interaction, Celie gets the strength she needs to restructure her “self”.
3.2 The Road of Emancipation 3.2.1 Physical and Sexual Freedom
Celie has been the subject of repeated rapes and beatings; therefore, she has no desire to get to know her body. The only concept that Celie has of her own body is that she is ugly. To protect herself, she has had to eradicate her body as well as her soul. However, in order to emancipate, a woman should know herself not only emotionally but also physically. The importance of regaining the control of one?s own body for asserting one?s self is outlined by Daniel Ross in these terms: One of the primary projects of modern feminism has been to restore women's bodies. Because the female body is the most exploited target of male aggression, women have learned to fear or even hate their bodies. Consequently, women often think of their bodies as torn or fragmented, a pattern evident in Walker?s Celie. “To confront the body is to confront not only an individual's abuse but also the abuse of women's bodies throughout
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history, as the external symbol of women's enslavement, this abuse represents for women a reminder of her degradation and her consignment to an inferior status”. (Ross 70)
With Shug?s encouragement, Celie views her own sexual organ in a mirror for the first time and shouts: It mine. It was the first time that she develops an interest to her body and enjoys its beauty. Seeing her own body in the mirror opens the door for possibilities to accept herself, and with her newfound identity, Celie is able to break free from male domination and join a community of women for support. By listening to Celie?s problems and stories, Shug enabled Celie to open up emotionally and release the pressure and pain that had muted her throughout both childhood and adulthood. As she writes in one of her letters, “My life stop when I left home, I think. But then I think again. It stop with Mr. Johnson maybe, but start up again with Shug.” (Walker 85) Her friendship with Shug becomes a lifetime union and accompanies Celie throughout her struggles with both Mr. Johnson as well as with the remembrances of her childhood hardships.
When Shug returns to Mr. Johnson?s house with her new husband Grady, Shug and Celie develop a more stabilizing, intimate bond. Because she is cold sleeping alone in the absent Grady?s bed, Shug sleeps with Celie, and like two school girls, they talk about their sexual experiences. Shug is shocked by Celie?s history of sexual abuse. Like a
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mother, Shug envelops Celie in her arms, trying to comfort her, to make up for her past. For the first time in the novel, Celie is uninhibited enough to respond naturally through tears. As she tells her awful tale, she confides that no one ever loved her, but Shug reassures Celie that “I [Shug] love you, Miss Celie. And then she haul off and kiss me on the mouth.”(Walker 97) 3.2.2 Spiritual Freedom
Virginia Woolf says in her essay A Room of One‘s Own that ―a woman wants component of self-definition. In fact, throughout the novel, the naive and childlike Celie?s faith is subjected to many changes and revisions as the novel progresses. In the beginning, Celie has been conditioned to believe in God according to the white interpretations of the bible. For her, God is a white and old “like some white man work at the bank…big and old and tall and gray bearded and white. He wear robes and go barefooted.”(Walker 165) In addition, Celie is definitely obedient to Him. She accomplishes what God tells her to do but never what she wants to do. When she suffers from her stepfather?s sexual abuse and physical violence, she is not able to tell anybody; because God says to “honor father and mother no matter what”. (Walker 39) She has allowed herself to be a slave to this God, expecting him to help her through life proclaiming always “with God help”.
Ironically, the fact of keeping silent and always remaining obedient
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are the two painful experiences that Celie suffered most from while living with her father and husband. Unfortunately, for Celie, this white God in whom she has had so much faith seems to act with her the same way. He represents men and seems to be the soul of the patriarchal society that longer oppressed her. The fact that the Christian God is fashioned as a white male becomes completely unpleasant to Celie; she must get rid of this patriarchal God in her mind so as to achieve spiritual independence. This happens gradually, with Nettie?s letters which show her that Jesus was more like her than a white man “with hair like lamb?s wool”, not “white” at all. Then her changing perceptions of God are completed by Shug Avery?s interpretations of God and His purpose. Shug rejects the narrow Church and its false perceptions, preferring to have a personal religion in which God figures “Not as a she or a he but a It”. She shares this revelation with Celie - the Gospel according to Shug - in order to worship, a person should “lay back and just admire stuff. Be happy”. Shug (and later Celie) admires the natural world and its beauty, in all its richness and variety, including sexuality. Shug?s concept of God makes Celie realize that the most important thing in life is love, admiration and enjoyment of the beauty and happiness in life. “Now that my eyes opening, I feels like a fool…..Still, it is like Shug say, you have to git man off your eyeball before you can see anything at all”. (Walker 168) Thus Celie casts away the patriarchal God and turns her spirit to love
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