TCP + FG: Critical Interpretations Flashcards
How does the psychoanalytic criticism view The Colour Purple
Sexuality and Relationships:
* Walker, who has identified as bisexual, may use Celie’s journey to confront societal norms
Family Dynamics and Repressed Memories:
* Celie’s traumatic experiences with her father and the fragmented memories in the novel may echo Walker’s own family complexities
Shug Avery as a Symbolic Figure:
* Shug Avery, represents freedom and rebellion against societal norms.Shug’s character can be seen as a projection of Walker’s own desires for liberation and self-discovery
Trinya: “Alice Walker is interested in America, rather than Africa. Africa had been important only as a…
“referent and a counter-world to America’s negative Black images”
Willis: “the ability to raise questions, to objectify contradictions…
“is only possible when Celie begins writing her letters”
Radical Feminist view of Walker’s redaction of male names
- Walker redacts male names + tragedy is mirrored by the Black community as treatment carried out on women by men - allows Celie to open up about her sexuality
- Even God oppresses women so Celie’s sexuality allows her to revolt + publicly rebel against social norms- “not being tied to what God looks like, frees us”
Hook on why Sofia doesn’t recieve a happy ending
- Sofia’s unable to receive a happy ending as she doesn’t give into patriarchal norms + so remains oppressed
Worthington: “Walker force us to become a member of an oppressed race…
“as we struggle to hear the rhythm and sway of Celie’s mind moving”
Flint: “Although the novel dramatises the oppression of women by men, of blacks by whites…
“it also… celebrates the beauty to be found in everyday things.”
Bleiman: “In The Color Purple, the standard English third person narrative voice…
“has been entirely displaced by black voices.”
Walker: “To suppress Celie’s voice…
“is to complete the murder of her.”
Graham: “In setting up her successful ‘Folkspants’ business Celie is…
“liberating women from the tyranny of conventional dress codes”
Graham: “Celie’s ‘happy ending’ is seen as part of a larger freedom;
“Black Africa and Black America are united in the reunion of her family”
Playle: “a novel about Celie’s coming into being…
“of realising her own existence and developing her own identity”
Gates: “Celie, in her letters…
“writes herself into being”
McDowell: “exposing black women’s subordination within the nuclear family…
“and placing utterance outside the father’s preserve and control”
Critics viewpoint on why TCP isn’t realistic
- Celie and Shug only succeed by accepting a capitalist heterosexual society giving into the “American Dream”
- Opposing other literary works that condemn this like F. Scott Fitzgeard’s “The Great Gatsby”, revealing how American society is ultimately worthless
Rae: The Colour Purple shows that “you can’t divorce yourself…
“from hope otherwise there’s nothing less”
Reis: “Duffy creates a kind of democratic forum for the…
“unrepresented’ and the ‘unvoiced’ in society.”
Onyett: “Duffy’s own proclamation of the ‘good news’ as she sees it…
“the possible dawning of a new world for women.”
Boland: “Challenges and alters power relationships by…
“making women both the subject and object of love poems”
Critic: “Feminine Gospels is striking in its pervasive use of the third person. The tone is more public and oratorical…
“than personal in the longer poems, modulating towards the lyrical, interiorized and
prayerful in the last poems in the book.”
Gilbert and Gubar: Women who assert themselves…
“are presented as monstrous”
Simone de Beauvoir- “Not about women taking…
“power but destroying notion of power”
“for the time in which the novel was set”
Harris: “The portrayal of Celie was unrealistic…
“the miracle of human possibilities”
Steinham: “The Color Purple symbolises…
“scrutinise violence and pathologies within the family”
Jaggi: “pathbreaking in its willingness to…
“to be a black female and like the best celebrations, it is an honest one
Ngozi Adchie: “the colour purple is a lush celebration of all that it means to be female…
“shows the difficulties that patriarchy presents to both men and women.”
Jones: “she moves beyond a straight forwardly feminist poetry and…
“so these poems were about trying to find truth about particularly female issues, but doing it within tall stories.”
Duffy: “What I was trying to do was use the idea of gospel truth: in a sense the gospels are a tall story told as truth…
“real world that gives her words weight”
Charlotte Mendelssohn: “it’s the sadness of the…
