The Color Purple vs. The Joy Luck Club

The Color Purple is a biased, unbalanced view into the life of black women during the early to mid-nineteen hundreds. While it is obvious that a woman who in her own right is racist, chauvinist, and ignorant to the way that the world really works wrote the novel, it has been requested that the class write a paper on the story. Whilst this writer does not agree with this novel or anything that Alice Walker thinks or feels, obligingly this paper is been written. The Color Purple and the Joy Luck Club had many similarities, the most notably the presence of weak, ill bred, and quite frankly embarrassing male characters.

The most obvious example of one of these unfortunate male characters is of course Albert from the Color Purple. Throughout the novel, Albert is portrayed as an abusive agitator whose main concerns are money, sex, and making sure things are in their “place”.

“Dear God, Harpo ast his daddy why he beat me. Mr. ________ say, Cause she my wife.” (Walker, 23)

Only the most ignorant of men, even if they believed this would make that reply, fueling the fire that this author feels to have Alice Walker burned at the stake. Especially considering that Alice herself admitted that she does not think fondly of the male race. Albert, throughout the book, is in no way portrayed as a good man until the very end when his whole world comes crumbling down because Celie finally stood up for herself and left with Shug. This writer feels that this is indirectly saying that men are weak and can not function in life without a “strong Woman” to guide them. I will add personally that a woman does not make a man, actions and attitude make a man. That being said, Albert is not a good man, but he realizes this and changes his ways towards the end of the story which I feel deserves him a great deal of respect.

Having slandered Alice Walker like that, this writer cannot overlook the fact that Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club does not convey a flattering view on men. While all of her male characters are minors ones at best, each one conveys a different distinct shortcoming. Harold, Lena’s husband, is completely oblivious to his wife’s feelings making him self-centered. After viewing the list of expenses on the refrigerator Lena’s mother and her had a discus...

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... he had indeed been cheating on her. This fact only came out when he called her after the divorce asking for the house to start a new family. This revelation is not a proud day for men, fictional character or not.

In the end, the fact that men like all of these actually exists, cannot be disputed. However, focusing on the shortcomings of someone always puts them in a negative light. This writer could easily produce a novel featuring women who do much of the same thing or perhaps I could bash a certain religion, race, or how about talking trash about homosexuals? I do not do this because it gets us nowhere and in reality, it is wrong, everyone has shortcomings. Focusing on the positive of out civilization is the way to go. I feel that the chauvinism displayed by both of these authors is a detriment to the novelists who manage to take unbiased views on the world. While both of these novels are widely shared and respected throughout the literary world, perhaps it is time to stop looking so deep into books to analyze how the theme of colonialism affected Nettie on page two-twelve and look at the facts that are in bold face.