The Presentation of Female Power in Walker's The Color Purple and The Yellow Wallpaper by Gilman - Assignment Example

Running head: THE PRESENTATION OF FEMALE POWER The Presentation Of Female Power In Alice Walkers The Color Purple And The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman Radhika Nair M.K Spark Notes The Presentation Of Female Power In Alice Walkers The Color Purple And The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman This essay deals with the presentation of female power with regard to the two works, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. The Color Purple is an epistolary novel1. In this controversial novel, Walker depicts the struggles of the black women, belonging to the rural town of Georgia. Though there are many female characters in this novel, the center of attraction is the protagonist and narrator, Celie, who is a fourteen year old uneducated black girl, who is impregnated twice by her stepfather Alphonso, and who steals away her children. Alphonso’s character unfolds itself as a figure of male dominance, always beating up and having incest with Celie. Celie is the symbol of the suppressed black women community; who doesn’t dare to express herself. She prefers to remain voiceless and unseen to keep herself safe. The novel unfolds itself as letters written by Celie to God. She considers God as her sole listener and caretaker. She has a younger sister Nettie, who is pretty and intelligent. Nettie and Celie chances upon information about a Mr.___, who wants to marry Nettie. But Alphonso turns down the offer and instead gives Celie’s hand in marriage. Celie enters an unhappy married life. Mr.__ abuses her and she is treated as a mere object, without any emotions of her own. Her life remains unchanged till the entrance of Shug Avery, a blues singer. Shug Avery was Mr.__’s former lover. She is a woman of strong character, with a sharp tongue and fashionable ways. Celie is fascinated by Shug Avery’s photograph. The two become close when Mr.__, brings her home owing to her illness. Though at first, Shug Avery dismisses Celie by calling her ugly, gradually an intimacy develops between the two women. Sofia, who is Mr.__’s son, Harpo’s wife, is another character who represents the power of assertion. Both Shug Avery and Sofia helps Celie discover herself. “Walker emphasizes throughout the novel that the ability to express one’s thoughts and feelings is crucial to developing a sense of self.”( Moore, Brenna and Ward, Selena, Spark Note on The Color Purple, par.1) Shug helps Celie to create her own narrative through which she can reinterpret herself in a new way, which contradicts the old picture of her. Although Celie lets her whole story out to Shug, it is not until Shug and Celie discovers long lost Nettie’s letters from Mr.__’s trunk, that her narration gains its power with more knowledge of herself. Celie, recharged with this new power, curses Mr.__, for all the sufferings meted out to her by him. Attaining selfhood, strong female relationships, opposing suppression etc. are some of the themes of this novel. In this novel female relationships are presented in flying colours. The roles vary from mother, sexual partner, guide, sister, friend, the relationship between a teacher and a student etc. Here Sofia attributes her capacity to fight back, to the relationships which she maintained with her sisters. In Africa, the Olinka tribe practiced polygamy owing to the strong relationship between women. Celie is sexually fascinated with Shug Avery that both share the same bed. Shug calls Celie a virgin, because according to Shug, a woman loses her virginity, when she experiences orgasm. Shug helps Celie in attaining a sense of self. Celie considers Shug as her role model. Shug helps Celie redefine her way of thinking. Celie develops the skill of synthesizing her thoughts after Shug and herself, discovers Nettie’s letters. Celie emerges out to be a powerful female who is happy, independent and successful in her life. Sofia is also portrayed as a strong character, who back answers the Mayor’s wife and in turn slaps the Mayor and ends up in jail and serves as mayor’s wife’s maid, as part of the punishment. There is another factor, which contributes to Celie’s economic independence. It can be Nettie’s description of the Harlem. Coming to Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, the story presents the inner suffering of a married woman who suffers from depression and nervous breakdown. She is forbidden of any activity like writing or doing anything creative, by her husband who is also a doctor in the pretext that she may not get cured of her illness. Like Celie, in Walker’s The Color Purple, she is shunned of the ways to express herself, lest it may decrease her chances of curing. This short story has a personal touch, since it depicts a real life episode of the author. The story is full of first person narrative. The narrator becomes fascinated with a yellow wallpaper hanging on the bedroom wall and gradually she dismisses herself from the day- to-day activities. She identifies herself with the woman trapped in the wallpaper. She is able to see other women who creep behind their lives, which are in the domestic pattern. The horrific part of the story is that the narrator has to risk losing her, for gaining a better understanding of her. She has to sacrifice herself to attain a sense of self-realization. Finally she is completely split up from reality. She is freed of the chains of her marriage, her relations etc., to attain a sense of self like Celie in Walker’s The Color Purple. Her life appears to be untangled, and to attain freedom from that the narrator tore her apart. Her husband’s way of treating her illness proves wrong in that, he loses his wife in the process. He had a patriarchal feeling for her, giving less importance to her feelings and emotions, always dominating her. He has a clinical and rational mind that hardly matches with his wife’s sensitive nature. He fails to see the inner nature of his wife. He hardly notices the inner struggle she experiences. He only knows her superficially. Gilman uses this work to criticize the position of married women in high-class society. The narrator has no control over her life, the reason why she retreats to her fantasies. The treatment, which her husband chooses, literally makes her insane. Various similarities can be cited between The Color Purple and The Yellow Wallpaper. Both the protagonists lack self-expression in different ways. For Celie, it is imposed by the cruel society, which she lived. But with the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper, she finds herself unable to articulate herself, because of her illness. Though she is capable of expressing herself, her husband prevents herself from doing so, as part of the medication. In Walker’s The Color Purple, Celie’s stepfather and her husband pose as villains, not allowing herself to express her feelings. They treat her merely as an object. So she writes letters to god, in secret as the same way the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper hides her thoughts from her husband. In both of the works, male dominance is reflected. Another point of similarity lies in the fact that both of the protagonists finally find a sense of self and a way of self-expression. Both the women are struggling for independence in different ways. Yet another striking similarity is in the usage of colours. Both works of fiction have a colour associated with the title. Walker’s The Color Purple and Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper have similarities in the theme. In The Color Purple, Celie loses her self worth, but eventually saves her self through Shug Avery, whom she considers as her mentor. Shug Avery sometimes assumes the role of a mother, sometimes a sexual partner, sometimes a friend etc. Celie’s life attains a new meaning because of Shug Avery. Yet another similarity is the role of Celie’s stepfather, Alphonso in The Color Purple and John, who is the narrator’s husband and her doctor in The Yellow Wallpaper. Both of them symbolize male dominance in different ways. While Alphonso warns Celie to keep her mouth shut of his behaviour towards her, the right to express herself, is deliberately snatched from her. While in The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator’s husband prevents her from articulating her thoughts, out of his love for her. Both of the novels ends with the climax that the protagonists get themselves liberated from the factors, which held them back. While The Color Purple has a happy ending, The Yellow Wallpaper, ends in tragedy. Works Cited Moore, Brenna and Ward, Selena. Spark Note on The Color Purple. 30 Apr. 2006 . Barnes and Noble. Spark Notes, The Yellow Wallpaper. n.d. Read More