Female friendships, sapphic love and a moral dilemma - The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Review)

 A/N: This review contains mild spoilers for The Color Purple by Alice Walker. This is your spoiler warning. 

Reading feminist literature has been quite the journey for me and my three brain-cells. Every book has posed a new moral dilemma and questionable  annotations- more on the moral dilemma later. My goal for the year when I started this series was to read one book each by Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Zora Neal Hurston and Olivia E. Butler. Women known for being advocates of the Civil Rights Movement in the US, known for their intersectional feminist ideas and beautiful literature.  

(That’s why I call it Women of Words. This is in fact, the most uninspiring origin story ever.)

With three out of five in my repertoire, it’s been going good so far. So let’s talk about The Color Purple, Alice Walker’s most well-known, Pulitzer-prize winning book that I absolutely enjoyed reading. This is an epistolary novel written from the perspective of Celie as she lives through incredibly sexist and racist times in the American South. They start out as letters to God and evolve into letters to her sister, Nettie as she discovers love, happiness and spiritual healing in her bleak life.

It starts with Celie at fourteen- already a victim of her father’s perverse actions, a teen mother whose babies were taken away and motherless. She’s eventually married off to Mr.— , a widower with children. She’s mistreated and abused by her husband and his children. When her younger sister runs away from home to escape their abusive father, Celie’s husband hits on her. And Nettie is asked to leave when his advances are rejected, which breaks Celie’s heart as they soon lose contact.

I know it sounds masochistic for me to have enjoyed this book but this is where the story actually starts. Here we meet Harpo who is Celie’s oldest stepson who falls in love and marries Sofia and oh my god. I loved Sofia. She was the most badass woman ever. She strives for an equal relationship with her husband and while violence is never the answer, she answers every slap with a fist. She’s big and strong and capable. She’s admirable and questions societal and patriarchal expectations at every turn. And when her stupid husband decides that he will stop at nothing to have an obedient maid over a wife who actually loves him, she leaves him for someone else. (Her story does take a very sad turn so prepare to rage.)

We see Celie understand how relationships should be and what desire is. Then enters Shug Avery, the (in-) famous, stunning blues singer a.k.a the love of Mr.—’s life and Celie soon becomes enamored with her. As she nurses Shug back to health, she gently falls in love with her and vies for her attention. And it turns so gay, so quickly which I absolutely adored. Shug uses her charm to protect Celie from her husband’s crappy behavior. She’s also the reason that Celie finds out that her sister is in fact alive and her husband is the worst ever because he’s been hiding all the letters Nettie has been writing since she left. 

She leaves her husband and moves to Memphis with Shug and her new husband. She learns to be independent and rediscovers her faith in God. And it was quite the journey.

The book is well written with an interesting narrative voice. At times it felt more like an ode to Shug Avery than the life story of the protagonist Celie, but that did not detract from the story for me. I loved following Nettie’s journey as a missionary in Africa as she tried to bridge her identity with ancestral history and belief systems. All the women were distinct characters with personalities to be reckoned with. The book discussed racism, domestic violence and marital rape with blunt dialogue.

Here are some lines that show the essence of this book.

Well how you specs to make her mind? Wives is like children. You have to let ‘em know who got the upper hand. Nothing can do better than a good sounding beating.

(The way women are equated to children like they’re incapable of their own thoughts and ideas just infuriates me.)

I wash her body, it feel like I’m praying. My hands tremble and my breath short.

(Celie. Is. Gay.)

The worst part is I don’t think he notice. He got up there and enjoy himself just the same. No matter what I’m thinking. No matter what I feel. It just him. Heartfeeling don’t even seem to enter into it. 

(Marital molestation at its finest.)

A woman need a little fun, once in a while, she say.

A woman need to be at home, he say.

(Why. Tell me why.)

I don’t fight Sofia battle, he say. My job to love her and take her where she want to go.

(My book annotation says - lovely man)

Harpo, she say, do you really love me, or just my color?

Harpo say, I love you, Squeak. He kneel down and try to put his arms round her waist.

She stand up. My name Mary Agnes, she say.

(This was such a powerful scene.)

They have the nerve to try to make us think slavery fell through because of us, say Sofia. Like us didn’t have sense enough to handle it.

(Do you understand why I’m struggling with my morality? Look at this book.)

If you was my wife, she say, I’d cover you up with kisses stead of licks, and work hard for you too.

(Shug ❤️Celie)

The president talked a good bit about his efforts trying to develop the country and about his problems with the natives, who don’t want to work to help build the country up.

But he cleared his throat and said he only meant ‘native’ to Liberia. I did not see any of these ‘natives’ in his cabinet.

(THIS.)

There is always someone to look after the Olinka woman. A father. An uncle. A brother or nephew. Do not be offended, Sister Nettie, but our people pity women such as you who are cast out, we know not from where, into a world unknown to you, where you must struggle all alone.

(Freedom is pitiful. I guess they’d rather be viewed as their father’s/ brother’s/ uncle’s property.)

The men do not like it: who wants a wife who knows everything her husband knows? they fume. But the women have their ways, and they love their children, even their girls.

(Why is not wanting to educate women such a universal issue?)

How come the Bible just like everything else they make, all about them doing one thing and another, and all the coloured folks doing is gitting cursed?

(Shug Avery really said Jesus isn’t a white man.)

You a lowdown dog is what’s wrong, I say. It’s time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need.

(This is the best thing that Celie says. Ever. Period.)

Why any woman give a shit what people think is a mystery to me.

Well, say Grady, trying to bring light. A woman can’t git a man if peoples talk.

Shug look at me and us giggle. Then us laugh sure nuff. Then Squeak start to laugh. Then Sofia. All us laugh and laugh.

(The female friendships in this book brought me joy.)

A map of Africa: A guide to native indifference to the holy word.

(Hehehehe)

As a person who never got to study much about the history of slavery and segregation in school, reading about it through literature has become my way of filling the gaps in my knowledge of the world. 

Speaking of the world also brings me to the aforementioned moral dilemma. Simply put, can we as consumers of art separate the art from the artist - take away the writer from the written word they craft?

Is it okay to vouch for a book whose author has publicly expressed support for trans-exclusionary radical feminism and antisemitic literature? I read this book before I found out about the essay that Alice Walker shared in the recent past and I’m torn. While this book has an important place in African-American literature for obvious reasons, it also raises the question of whether recommending it also means supporting the writer’s questionable ideologies towards humanity.

A/N: I’ll let you know if I figure this one out. Until then, if you’re someone who can look at literature without caring about its creator’s personal opinions, then this book is an interesting reflection on how patriarchy and racism go hand in hand. Always. 

And if you’re someone who’d like to form their own opinion about Alice Walker by reading the essay, here's a link to her official blog.

Thank you for reading the twelfth installment in my ‘Women of Words’ series where I read feminist literature by a new feminist author each month. One of these days I’m going to get around to writing a review for I Know Why The Caged Birds Sing by Maya Angelou.

Until then, for the previous installment in this series, here’s my take on Under the Whispering door by TJ Klune.