WOMEN’S HARDSHIPS IN THE COLOR
PURPLE (1982)

Women Submissiveness

The history of the world in general and that of America in particular is marked by gender inequality. Women faced many inequalities they were denied the right to vote, forbidden to speak in public or attend public convention. Indeed the theme of patriarchal oppression was the dominant one in The Color Purple, breaking the cycle of domestic violence men who are violent towards women have generally been ostracized by society. The feminist movement was instigated by women who were determined to stand up and challenge the adverse ways that men treated women. By defying the domestic social norms of their families, women effectively blurred the line between established male and female gender roles, forever changing the way men perceived and treated women. Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple explores the idea that domestic violence is a trait that is passed on from generation to generation and can be unlearned. Alphonso is the stepfather of the main character Celie. He marries Celie’s mother after her father dies. He rapes Celie when she is fourteen years old because Celie’s mother is ill and will not sleep with him. He makes it clear that she must keep silent about the incident. « You better not never tell nobody God. It’d kill your 9 mummy. »3 Albert is Celie husband. He does not marry her out of love. He just wants a mother to look after his children and a wife to look after the house. In addition, Alice Walker and Jane Eyre fight together against the oppression and violence that women are living around their society. In Wide Sargasso Sea Jane Eyre explores the bad living conditions that Antoinette was living with her family. Antoinette, as a young girl lived at Coulibri Estate with her widow mother Anette and her sickly young brother Pierre. Shortly afterwards, when their house has been set on fire, Antoinette begins to suffer. She lost her brother Pierre who died in the fire and her mother also became mad because of the death of Pierre. Antoinette is alone, she was betrayed by her friend Tea and her husband who exploited her in England. Violence, sexism, sexual abuse, oppression and racism are issues that run right through Alice Walker’s, The Color Purple From the outset we learn of the appaling plight of Celie, the protagonist, who is perpectually abused by Pa. Pa has no respect for Celie or her mother and cares nothing about emotions. He also rapes Nettie, Celie’s sister. Pa is devoid of any kind of spiritual dimension. He perceives women and girls as « chattel »; as vessels to satisfy his primitive lust. Celie’s mother dies knowing that her husband has been abusing her daughters. Before she died she asked Celie who was the father of Celie’s baby. Celie replied « GOD ». But of course, her mother knew. Celie is beaten and raped by Pa consistently. She has given birth to two children as a result of his abuse yet. She is only a minor herself. Celie also tries to protect her young sister, Nettie, from further sexual abuse. There is an offer of marriage from Mr. Johnson who Celie knows only as Mr…. He wants to marry the young Nettie but Pa will not allow it and suggests that MR Johnson takes Celie (the ugly one’) as a wife instead. She is treated as a sort of pass the parcel. Before the 19th century in America, women faced many inequalities they were denied the right to vote, forbidden to speak in public or attend public convention. In addition, they were not allowed to own a property, whatever they own when they are child it is for their father and once be married it is for their husband. They were no lawyers before 1870, no judges or jurors to speak of until the twentieth century. Woman of course, took the witness stand; and they contributed their share to the great roster of suffering victims. Woman in large numbers were robbed, murdered and raped. Such precarious conditions are the result of woman’s long absence in the American educational system. Society marginalizes them, and females were not let to be useful and 3 Walker, Alice, The Color Purple. New York. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1982, P: 25. 10 participated to the well –being and reconstruction of society. The latter strongly believed that womanhood is to stay at home doing the domestic chores, making babies, and being submissive. In Love and Trouble (1984) by the same place but are linked together by their vulnerability by to life. Eminent writer Alice Walker is a collection of thirty short stories that reflect the life of African American women who are not living in females are portrayed as victims, greatly manipulated by their husband, lovers, white society, or their own depleted self-esteem. Walker particularly shows how oppressive forces such as racism and sexism affect woman in pollute black community. So throughout all the thirteen short stories we can see how women are really suffering in that society. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is an excellent account of the life of poor black women who must suffer not only social ostracism due to gender and skin color but also women who suffer greatly at the hands of black men. This is true in terms of infidelity, physical and verbal abuse, and sexual abuse. The Color Purple revolves around the life of Celie, a young black woman growing up in the poverty ridden south. In order to find herself and gain independence, Celie must deal with manner of abuse, including misogyny, racism and poverty. When she is a young girl of just 14, Celie is sexually assaulted by a man she believes is her father.

 Women as Victims of a Patriarchal Society

First of all, an attempt to define the notion of patriarchy is necessary. Actually, patriarchal describes a general structure in which men have power over women. So, a patriarchal society consists of a male dominated power structure throughout organized society and in individual relationships. As defined above, in a patriarchal society all the powers are held by men. This means that women are just left with subordinate positions, therefore they have to submit to men’s rules. So, men hold full authority over women, children and property. 9 Gangl, Kaitlin. Women making progress: A Study of Wide Sargasso Sea as a response to Jane Eyre.  Furthermore they tend to bear in mind some prejudices which position women always in lower and dependent conditions. So in this context of male domination, women were not allowed to express their human and intellectual qualities through writing. They were in short victims of their female being. In this respect, women who aspired to writing careers such as Jean Rhys, Jamaica Kincaid (Elaine Potter Richardson), and George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)….were obliged to hide their real identy by adopting men’s pseudonyms. In doing so, they could publish their works and by the way express their feeling, their grief in that oppressing patriarchal society. In this sense, Jean Rhys herself is a victim of the patriarchal society. This victimization is somehow reflected in her works through her female protagonists. In Wide Sargasso Sea particularly, Antoinette and her mother undergo that male-dominated society through different angles. Both get married to men whose only interest was to reap their inheritance. Both end up being considered and locked away as madwomen. The case of Antoinette is particularly striking and pitiful. Through her character, Rhys depicts the hopeless condition reserved to women during the Victorian era. Actually, like all the English Victorian women, Antoinette is victim of the customs and laws that deprived an heiress of all her inheritance once she gets married. First, let’s remind that in that male-dominated society, a daughter was allowed to be heiress meaning to be in a position to inherit her father’s property, only when she had no brothers. If they happened to have brothers, they became useless girls or at least their only way out was to get married to a wealthy man. Being aware of the condition reserved to women, mothers treated their sons much better than they did with their daughters. Because men were the legitimate heir, they were most of the time given much affection to the detriment of girls. Men had power and this aspect is displayed in the Cosway’s family. Annette devotes all her time taking care of Pierre, Antoinette’s younger brother. That is why she totally neglects and ignores Antoinette who indeed is less important than Pierre in the eyes of the society. In that sense Antoinette feels discriminated and marginalized. Furthermore she goes further thinking that her mother does not love her at all. Because Annette is aware of the supremacy of men in her society, she does her best to cure and protect her disabled son. She first calls for a doctor to heal him and later when the house is set on fire, she risks her life to rescue her treasure meaning her son. Antoinette relates the scene in these words: « Then there was another smell, of burned hair, 16 and i looked and my mother was in the room carrying Pierre. It was her loose hair that had burned and was smelling like that. »10 . Annette would rather die for her son to survive. She does not instinctively try to save Antoinette, but rather Pierre. That is one of the reason why she goes mad later when Pierre dies on their escape way. She goes mad because she no longer has an heir who will secure their inheritance. She gets desoriented and lost. In the history of England, similar situations took place when king Henry VIII, who failed to have a male heir, decided to marry a second wife. This went against the Roman Catholic principals. Therefore, he decided to break all the links with Rome. This brought about the separation of England and the Roman Church, thus witnessing the birth of the Church of England. And King Henry VIII declared himself Head of the Church of England. In this sense, one can figure out the luck and the importance of having at all cost a male heir during the Victorian patriarchal time. Moreover Antoinette’s case in worse than her mother’s in the sense that she is not only victim of the English law, but she is also victim of a plan set up by Mr. Mason, Rochester and his father. In fact, this was not uncommon at that time since women were brought up only for marriage. In fact, Rochester travels all the way long from England to the Caribbean in the purpose of reaping the inheritance of a former slave owner’s daughter. Indeed, the trip is worth it in so far as it enables hom to assure his life and thus support himself. Rochester himself is victim of the severe common law of patrilineal inheritance that granted all land to the eldest son. According to that law, lands, titles and money were inherited by the eldest son. So, younger sons like Rochester were only left with the possibility to marry an heiress in order to support themselves. And Rochester does not fail to do so since he acts according to his father’s plan meaning to marry a Creole heiress and inherit by the way her property. He admits himself on his way to their honeymoon at Granbois when he ponders about the condition in which he has been ‘sold’ to her: « Dear father, the thirty thousand pounds have been paid to me without question or condition »1111 . Indeed, thirty pounds, that is the dowry Antoinette pays to her husband. This money enables Rochester to become independent from his father and brother and saves him as well from financial disgrace. 

 Impact of Education

During the Victorian period, people had different conceptions as far as education is concerned. Actually, education was not equally granted among genders and social classes. Unlike nowadays, at that time a lady’s education was generally taken at home through the service of a governess or parents themselves; that is where she was taught some languages like French, Italian and Latin…and was also trained in how to dance, draw and sing. In fact, the purpose of these accomplishments was to attract single noblemen in search of good wives and thus please them. They were educated and brought up to become good wives as marriage was their only career. However, some girls from the higher classes gradually integrated externel schools. So, little by little, they came up to realize that they could be as intelligent and competent as men were since they are able to rival in relevant ideas with latter. That selfrealization somewhat leads to another self-consciousness which was the fact that they could contribute to the social and economic development of their society and therefore become independent. 21 Nevertheless, it is important after all to point out that there was also educational discrimination among English women themselves according to the social classes one belonged to. In fact, lower class girls were informally educated in domestic skills as their sole vocation was limited to be servants whereas middle and high classes’ones had the opportunity to go to school. However, they were first taught some accomplishments like music, how to do sums and be good housekeepers able to make a budget. Their interest and acceptance for further studies amplified through time. So, English and Caribbean women generally suffered from educational discrimination during the British Victorian patriarchal era. But these existed discrimination of education also among women themselves depending on the given social classes they belonged to. Indeed the general of education for women as seen at time of Wide Sargasso Sea largely due to the attitudes men held towards women. They were either ridiculed or idealized. Actually, at that time, a few women benefited from academic education since they were not intented to become intellectuals or occupy professional jobs but rather to become good wives and good mothers too. In this respect, few schools among which nunneries were openned for girls to be trained how to read and write. Following the example of Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea, the convents took in a few girls from rich and noble families as boarders. They became the place where girls were nurtured and educated by careful nuns. For instance, poor Antoinette is given some milk and much attention when she first arrives at the convent crying after being harassed on the way by two boys. The nuns go and speak to her: what is the matter? What are you crying about? What has happened to you? These comforting words somewhat reassure Antoinette and gives her self-confident now on. She is willing now to confide in the nuns and relieve by the way her pain. So for Antoinette, the convent becomes a sort of refuge from the hostile outside world. There, she is educated and taught many things among which how to behave as a good woman destined for marriage and how to a good Christian….As Antoinette relates referring to one of their trainer nuns Mother St Justine : « She shuts the book with a clap and talks about pushing down the cuticles of our nails when we wash our hands. Cleanliness, good manners and kindness to God’s poor (….) when you insult or injure the unfortunate or the unhappy, you insult Christ himself and he will not forget, for they are his chosen ones »16 . From this passage, we can clearly see the balance between academic and social education imposed on women during the Victorian period. As said earlier, they were supposed to be   good women in their future life. In addition, being boarders in the convent, they were inculcated with religious values. This situation indeed makes them become mature persons able to distinguish what is good from what is bad and most importantly to behave themselves. Furthermore, with the sudden spread of girls’ access to school especially in England which was possible thanks to feminist large compaign of the right to equality in education, women gradually became aware of the opportunities that can emanate from receiving academic education. They considered that when given the change, women could be as intelligent as men at school and therefore escape dependence on men. In this regard, they gradually managed to wipe off the bad label that naturally their brains were smaller, which had long been applied to them. Therefore, more and more families found it necessary to put their daughters at school. So, although they were still discriminated at school, in 1870 and 1880, a new Acts of Parliaments made elementary education compulsory. And by 1891, for the first time all gilrs had the right to a free elementary education until they reached the age of twelve. But still fewer efforts were made to ensure that girls attended school regularly. For instance, if a child in the family was sick, or a mother had a new baby, a schoolgirl was often expected to help out at home. And still, girls were discriminated on subjects they did in classroom as Anne Mountfield in her book entitled Women in History: Women and Education points it out: « Needlework was compulsory for the girls. They did sewing and housecraft while the boys learned carpentry in the workshops. In some schools needlework for girls was timetabled against arithmetic for boys »  . From this quotation, one can learn that a lesser treatment was assigned to girls in so far as the general opinion still considered that girls’ mind was less capable of mastering subjects such like mathematics, astronomy, technology….they believe that girls were less capable of prolonged mental efforts than boys. Then gradually through years, things started changing and girls’ competences being displayed espacially when given the same opportunities and as much time as men.