There are many racial components in this novel that are easy to point out. These take place in the American South and also in Africa. It starts with the way that all the black men and women are treated at the start of the book. The main character’s real father was a successful store owner who was black. This man was hanged for a reason that is known only as him being a successful black man. All the characters that we are introduced to in this book by Celie are exploited by the fact that they are black. Sophia is beat up and jailed for her refusal to want to work for a white women. Of course she stood up for herself and the white element tried to tell her where her place was. There is also an intra racial theme that starts at the beginning of the book that is hard to actually believe. But to me it would make sense after awhile, because if the people tell you something over and over you would start to believe and accept it. This is shown by the acceptance of what happen to Sophia by her peers. Albert shows this with his denial that Celie could do anything well because she is a black, poor, ugly woman. If there was not any self disapproval among these people than that Albert’s black comment would not be prevalent. All the black characters in the book with the exception of Shug are poor and have a bad educational back round. It does not describe these characters as stupid just not well educated. This is inflicted by people selling them on how it is wrong to educate a black person. The feminism components are more main stream than the racial issues. The women at the start of the story are expected to cook, clean, and lay down when told to. They are beaten when they do not obey their husband or man. The men act as if Women are there to serve the man. Celie is forced to have sex with her step father and her husband because she is not strong enough to say no to Albert or her step father. “He just climb on top of me and do his business” says Celie. As if the women are there just to open her legs and let the man do what he wants to do. The real first theme of feminism is the act of Nettie to not give in and let Mr.__ have his way with her. In this act it showed him that he was not going to be able to take from a woman. That is a change because he had always gotten what he wanted because Celie was just too scared to stand up to him. As the story moves along Sophia is... ... middle of paper ... ...making pants for women. A great deal of this novel looks at Africa and the narrative changes. I believe that this change was important to show that there was a parallel of the components, the fact that the tribes were exploited as well as the people in the American south. The village was trampled by the white man because they believe that they were superior and the Africans had no right to stay where they were. The novel was a very good depiction of what life was like for the African American men and women for this time. I believe that years of the treatment conditioned the peoples to act as they did out of habit. All it takes is one idea or one stand to change and that is what happens for each character in the book. I believe that Walker did a great job in capturing the time and I agree with her view on racism and feminism. I would love to believe that none of this could have happened but I know that this sort of social action was the just the spark that women and African Americans needed to start to level the playing field. There were so many brave people that are not fictional that went through the same things that should be applauded for trying in the first place. by j. katz
constant comparison and view of blacks vs. whites in the novel. “ To show too much intelligence
The stories that the author told were very insightful to what life was like for an African American living in the south during this time period. First the author pointed out how differently blacks and whites lived. She stated “They owned the whole damn town. The majority of whites had it made in the shade. Living on easy street, they inhabited grand houses ranging from turn-of-the-century clapboards to historics”(pg 35). The blacks in the town didn’t live in these grand homes, they worked in them. Even in today’s time I can drive around, and look at the differences between the living conditions in the areas that are dominated by whites, and the areas that are dominated by blacks. Racial inequalities are still very prevalent In today’s society.
The story also focuses in on Ruth Younger the wife of Walter Lee, it shows the place she holds in the house and the position she holds to her husband. Walter looks at Ruth as though he is her superior; he only goes to her for help when he wants to sweet talk his mama into giving him the money. Mama on the other hand holds power over her son and doesn’t allow him to treat her or any women like the way he tries to with Ruth. Women in this story show progress in women equality, but when reading you can tell there isn’t much hope and support in their fight. For example Beneatha is going to college to become a doctor and she is often doubted in succeeding all due to the fact that she is black African American woman, her going to college in general was odd in most people’s eyes at the time “a waste of money” they would say, at least that’s what her brother would say. Another example where Beneatha is degraded is when she’s with her boyfriend George Murchison whom merely just looks at her as arm
In the novel, the author proposes that the African American female slave’s need to overcome three obstacles was what unavoidably separated her from the rest of society; she was black, female, and a slave, in a white male dominating society. The novel “locates black women at the intersection of racial and sexual ideologies and politics (12).” White begins by illustrating the Europeans’ two major stereotypes o...
1) The major theme of the book is respectability. In the 1950 's Rosa Parks became the symbol for black female resistance in the
She creates an ideology about how black girls face barriers that undermine their well-being. They are completely ignored by national initiatives, unlike white females who have an upper hand because of power and privilege, simply because of their whiteness. In America, people of power should help young girls of color, overcome discrimination and sexism against them through the use of national initiatives. They need to focus more or equally on initiatives for girls of color rather than just for boys or global programs like ‘Let Girls
The feminist movement sought to gain rights for women. Many feminist during the early nineteenth century fought for the abolition of slavery around the world. The slave narrative became a powerful feminist tool in the nineteenth century. Black and white women are fictionalized and objectified in the slave narrative. White women are idealized as pure, angelic, and chaste while black woman are idealized as exotic and contained an uncontrollable, savage sexuality. Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl, brought the sexual oppression of captive black women into the public and political arena.
Although none of the novels were wrote in conjunction, each has a link towards the other regarding abuse, both sexual and spousal, as well as class oppression and the manual labor that was a necessity for survival among black women. By examining present society, one can observe the systems of oppressions that have changed for the better as well as those that continue to devastate the lives of many women today.
The play, A Raisin in the Sun, has a very strong view of feminism in the 1960’s. The way that the females are portrayed and talked to in this play is not only an example of how the relationship between a man and a woman in society is unequal, but reflects a particular patriarchal ideology. Throughout this play, as the characters strive to achieve their dreams, the relationships that we see can be seen as feminist and as sexual stereotypes. Feminism is a perspective that views gender as one of the most important bases of the structure and organization of the social world. Feminists argue that in most known societies this structure has granted women lower status and value, more limited access to valuable resources, and less autonomy and opportunity to make choices over their lives than it has granted men.
From a feminist perspective, the movie supports the ideology of patriarchy. The power relationship that men put on women portrays men to be superior to women. The first woman appearing in the movie is voiceless and powerless and this emphasis the power struggle. She is abandoned in someone’s house and doesn’t even have the time to speak her mind. The low number of female characters in the movie also shows this power relationship. In all there are three women in the movie and two of them are given a name. Now even there, these two women...
In the past, white women had been in a considerable part of slavery. White women are one of the many reasons why slavery happened. Slavery would not had arised if white women did not do anything to support it. Since women were separated by their races and skin color, neither the slave women nor the white women showed any feminism to each other. Feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. In the past, the only people that did not have equal rights were the slaves. This was another reason why there were not strong advocates of feminism. Since white women had more rights than their slaves that they were fine with not having the same rights as their husband’s. Octavia Butler’s Kindred shows how women supported
Women have battled for centuries to be equivalent to men. In “The Color Purple," Alice Walker illustrates the theme of women’s heartache, racist acts, and complications of a day to day woman. The Color Purple took place during a demeaning era to not only African American women but African Americans in general were treated inhumane. African American women submitted themselves to controlling men due to the belief of that’s how it should be. During this time, women were used for manual and sexual labor. They were referred as one’s property, hardly spoken of or treated like human-beings. Women faced lack of self-love and identity therefore the definition of love was clouded.
Change is the law of life. A person goes through different stages of life, and at every stage there is transformation in the personality of the person. This new individual is entirely different from the previous one. For this change, different circumstances and events are responsible. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane are two texts of feminism in which we find the theme of evolution among the life of the characters like Celie and Nazneen who, happened to highlight the oppression of women in universal phenomenon irrespective of caste, creed, culture and nation. My paper is an attempt to study these two characters and see how their personality is evolved because of the different circumstances of life.
In the book, women have been given the ability to amass power and threaten the authoritarianism of men. On the other hand, the story revolves around the era of civil right. People are oppressed and threatened because of what they believe during this period. It is in the same process that the woman transforms into the victim and oppressed. It is through violence that the women undergo repression from men. In the same moment, it can be identified that the black community starts fighting for equality in the black community that became patriarchal (Shreerekha et al. 34). Throughout the
As stated by Emerson, beauty cannot be found unless carried within one’s self first. In the novel by Alice Walker, “The Color Purple”, Celie finds out that beauty is not real unless it is first found within, so that that beauty felt can reflect for others to see. [Celie went through traumatic struggles before she ever felt beautiful starting with the treatment of influential men in her life. Although she felt more connection with women in her life, her early encounters with Shug greatly accounted for her self worth at the time. However, Celie could not be beautiful to others unless she found beauty within herself, for herself.]