Color of Purple is a Novel by Alice Walker, published in 1982. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 1983. A feminist novel about an abused and uneducated black woman’s struggle for empowerment, the novel was praised for the depth of its female characters and for its eloquent use of black English vernacular. African-American people have had to climb over many obstacles to get to their position today. First, was the selling of their people into slavery. Then, they endured slavery itself, being treated like an animal.
After slavery was abolished, Colored people still had to deal with racial discrimination and hatred. If this sounds rough, black women had it worse. African-American women had to deal with all the previously mentioned things, but they were women too! Females were oppressed almost as bad as the blacks. White women were not able to vote until the 1920. Therefore colored women had a double edged sword, they had to fight for freedom, but not be to dominate as to effect the men. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is a good example of colored women’s plight.
Three obstacles black women had to overcome to be able to express themselves were Racism, the lack of education, and the stereo-type that women are inferior. Sophia is Harpo’s wife and a very strong character. She does not let anyone beat her or slap her. After the mayor of the town slaps her she attacks him and is sent to jail. In order to survive, she is forced to become the maid and servant for the mayor. Later she moves back in with Harpo and finally works for Celie in the general store. Black women were known as “the mule of the world”, before, in the 1930s, where this novel takes place.
Sofia, one of the fictions characters presented by Alice Walker on her novel The Color Purple is portrayed as a strong woman, one of the “mules of the world”, but, even though she is insulted, beaten and underestimated, she is willing to change the system and change the image of black woman that American black and white man possess. She is an honorary mule that wants to change the system, but in change, society breaks her. Sofia, a radical woman, is willing to give her life away to her being treated equally to the rest of the world.
She wants to see this happening, and fights for it, pays hard, but never experiences this equality happening. First, she is discriminated by Harpo, who is taught by Mr. ______, and believes or is forced to believe that men are superior, that women exist on this world to serve the males, and to have babies. And not only that, they serve the use of being beaten, when something troubles the men, or just because they are woman and their wives. “Harpo ast his daddy why he beat me.
Mr. _______ say, because she my wife. Plus, she stubborn. ” (pg. 23). Mr. _____, says this to convince his son that women serve no use in this planet other than to work, have babies, and be beaten. Harpo, following his father’s example and Celie’s advice for Harpo to make Sofia mind, goes on to beat Sofia. Sofia’s response is unexpected. Harpo thought that Sofia was going to act as Celie did with Mr. _____. Yet this strong woman, beat Harpo, who is a weak character. Harpo continues to try to make Sofia mind about his superiority, but she does not want to undergo all these problems any more, and decides to leave Harpo and seek for a better life.
This is a true and big example of her fight for equality, or superiority of the female gender in the world. As Harpo does not understand that a couple can live happily without violence, Sofia runs away. Another example of Sofia trying to overcome, and change the system of prosecution to the black race is her dispute with Miss Millie and the Mayor of the southern town of Georgia. This occurred, when Miss Millie, the Mayor’s wife, asks Sofia to be her maid. Sofia, at first controlling herself, takes it as an insult, but when asked again, she felt even more insulted, and hit the Mayor.
All these children, say the mayor’s wife, digging in her pocketbook. Cute as little buttons, though, she say. She stop, put her hand on one of the children head. Say, and such strong white teef. Sofia and the prizefighter don’t say nothing. Wait for her to pass. Mayor wait too, stand back and tap his foot, watch her with a little smile. Now Millie, he say. Always going on over colored.
Miss Millie finger the children some more, finally look at Sofia and the prizefighter. She eye Sofia wristwatch. She say to Sofia, All you children so clean, she say, would you like to work for me, be my maid Sofia say, Hell no. She say, What you say ? Sofia say, I say, Hell no. Mayor look at Sofia, push his wife out the way. Stick out his chest. Girl, what you say to Miss Millie ? Sofia say, I say, Hell no. He slap her. No need to say no more, Mr. ______ say. You know what happen if somebody slap Sofia. ” (pg. 90) The incident quoted above clearly shows the mentality of white people toward blacks that existed at the time. There is symbolism on this quote, and it is the white teeth imagery. When someone buys a horse, he/she looks at the teeth, and comments on its strength and color.
But not when you meet a person. This is the kind of mentality and situations that Sofia does not accept, and wants to change. She stands up for herself, as with Harpo, but in this case, she ends up loosing. Another example of the discriminative mentality possessed by whites is when Miss Millie is driving Sofia to her house, to see her family. “Well, say Sofia, I was so use to sitting up there next to her teaching her how to drive, that I just naturally clammed into the front seat. She stood outside on her side the car clearing her throat.
Finally she say, Sofia, with a little laugh, This is the South. Yes ma’am, I say. She clear her throat, laugh some more. Look where you sitting, she say. I’m sitting where I always sit, I say. That’s the problem, she say. Have you ever seen a white person and a colored sitting side by side in a car, when one of em wasn’t showing the other one how to drive it or clean it ? ” (pg. 109). This is the kind of mentality possessed by whites in the 1930s, time of the book. Blacks and whites could not be seen treated as equal, as what was happening with Sofia and Miss Millie.
The proof that shows that blacks are not necessarily inferior, but equal or superior is shown when Sofia teaches Miss Millie to drive. All these examples show how Sofia demonstrates that blacks, nor women are less efficient than the rest of the world, the same or even more. Sofia is a fighter, one who fights for her rights of equality as a woman and as a black. She, as a feminist and proponent of radical equality wants to change the system, but society ends up breaking her, showing the little power of influence that a black woman has on the world.
