Gender Consciousness In The Color Purple

Gender consciousness – color purple

In this assignment I will be discussing the topic of gender consciousness in the novel the Color Purple by Alice Walker. I will be discussing the way in which the character of Sophia and Shug Avery in the Color Purple as black women become empowered and disempowered through their circumstances. I will also look at how Sophia and Shug Avery actions impact the character of Celie in terms of her progression.

The color purple is based during the 20th century before world war ll, it follows the life of African American women during that time were whites were superior to blacks and the was racial issues and differences between blacks and whites. The book is based or centred on the themes of racism and feminism

We can see from the quote that Sofia leans towards solving her problems with physical violence “All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles.” (Walker,2014,pg 39), All her life she fought, she grow up in a household full of men and she had to fight them every day so the only way she know how to solve problems is fight, not only verbally but also physically. Her violent way are also portrayed when she come to Harpo jukejoint and meets squeak, squeak gets jealous and aggressive when she sees Harpo with Sofia dancing and laughing, Sofia gets annoyed because she can’t stand the fact that squeak is letting a simple small thing like this beg her- “squeak say, not if he my man he cant. You hear that bitch, she say to Sofia” (Walker,2014,pg.) she gets very annoyed that squeaks relies so much on a man and she can’t be her own person, she gets so annoyed and provoked that she knocks squeak out – “… she ball up her fist, draw back, and knock two of squeak’s side teef out” (Walker,2014, pg79). Of course the two become friends and actually forgave each other at the end we see that when Sofia volunteers to look after squeak child, when she goes off and start her singing

During her time in prison she survived beatings but the challenge come when she come back from prison where she had to work for the mayor wife as ‘the help’: during that she lost herself, she lost her sense of strength and self-respect. It’s such a tongue-in-cheek that the very thing that made her the strong woman she is: which fighting and standing up for what she believes in was the very thing that bought her to her weakest point and disempowered her. She was literally forced to work as maid for a white woman, at that point she didn’t have the strength to fight or cause problems because she was so disempowered, she didn’t see the point of fighting anymore or of living anymore. Sofia was so weak that no one could recognise her anymore, she just submitted to whatever the while lady told her to do, I think she could even recognise herself anymore, she was so ashamed and revolted of what she has become that she didn’t see the point or the purpose of fighting and living