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Celie's Wedding a textual analysis and interpretation by Marina Guimares |
Celie's Wedding
The students requested me to read Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple. So a paper had to be written on it. I publish Marina Guimares's paper (see below) because she has ideally inferred her interpretation from a close analysis of the text, which is evident in her precise quotations and text references. Her answers to assignment 1 (comprehension) and 4 (comment) are not published here because I wish the reader to focus on the link between close reading and interpretation. I have found that students more often than not experience severe difficulty in this field.
Taking a text in the African American variant of English in a foreign language course (grundkurs) may be controversial, so I invite the reader's opinion which may be published on this site, subject to the author's consent.
The students had to write on the following excerpt from the novel:
Dear God,
(…) Nettie never give up. Next thing I know Miss Beasley at our house trying to talk to Pa. She say long as she been a teacher she never know nobody want to learn bad as Nettie and me. But when Pa call me out and she see how tight my dress is, she stop talking and go.
5 Nettie still don't understand. I don't neither. All us notice is I'm all the time sick and fat.
I feel bad sometime Nettie done pass me in learnin. But look like nothing she say can git in my brain and stay. She try to tell me something bout the ground not being flat. I just say, Yeah, like I know it. I never tell her how flat it look to me.
Mr. _____ come finally one day looking all drug out. The woman he had helping him done quit. His 10 mammy done said No More.
He say, Let me see her again.
Pa call me. Celie, he say. Like it wasn't nothing. Mr.____ want another look at you.
I go stand in the door. The sun shine in my eyes. He's still up on his horse. He look me up and down.
Pa rattle his newspaper. Move up, he won't bite, he say.
15 I go closer to the steps, but not too close cause I'm a little scared of his horse.
Turn round, Pa say.
I turn round. One of my little brothers come up. I think it was Lucious. He fat and playful, all the time munching on something.
He say, What you doing that for?
20 Pa say, Your sister thinkin bout marriage.
Didn't mean nothing to him. He pull my dresstail and ast can he have some blackberry jam out the safe.
I say, Yeah.
She good with children, Pa say, rattling his paper open more. Never heard her say a hard word to 25 nary one of them. Just give 'em everything they ast for, is the only problem.
Mr. _____ say, That cow still coming?
He say, Her cow.
30 Dear God,
I spend my wedding day running from the oldest boy. He twelve. His mama died in his arms and he don't want to hear nothing bout no new one. He pick up a rock and laid my head open. The blood run all down tween my breasts. His daddy say Don't do that! But that's all he say. He got four children, instead of three, two boys and two girls. The girls hair ain't been comb since their mammy died. I tell 35 him I'll just have to shave it off. Start fresh. He say bad luck to cut a woman hair. So after I bandage my head best I can and cook dinner (...) I start trying to untangle hair. They only six and eight and they cry. They scream. They cuse me of murder. By ten o'clock I'm done. They cry theirselves to sleep. But I don't cry. I lay there thinking bout Nettie while he on top of me, wonder if she safe. And then I think bout Shug Avery. I know what he doing to me he done to Shug Avery and maybe she like it. I 40 put my arm around him.
The assignment:
1. E Klsr 1 - 25 Sept. 2002 - 2h - Alice Walker: The Color Purple. CUP, 7th printing 1999; extract pp.12f.
Comprehension
1. Divide the extract into three sections and summarise them in
not more than three sentences each.
Analysis
2. Characterise the attitudes of Pa and Mr ____ to Celie.
3. How does Celie get on with her situation as a mother and
wife?
Comment (answer only one of
the questions)
4a. Taking the children's perspective, how do you feel about
them?
4b. Can you understand the reason Celie gives for putting her arm
around Mr _____ while he is having sex with her?
4c. The novel has become famous as a women's novel since it was
published in 1983. Do you think it is worth reading as such still
today? Good luck!
Celie's Wedding
a textual analysis
and interpretation by Marina
Guimares
2. Characterise the attitudes of Pa and Mr ____ to Celie.
In that situation when Mr _____ comes to have a second look at Celie, she seems to be the only one who feels not involved. While her father is occupied with his newspaper and Mr _____ is regarding her from his horse, she is standing there like an object.
Her father's attitude shows that Celie is something inferior with which he can do as he pleases. He almost orders Celie to turn round or to go closer: "Move up"; (l.14) "Turn round". (l.16) She cannot take her own decisions.
It becomes clear that for her father this form of negotiation is nothing important. He shows himself indifferent by rattling his newspaper as the reader can detect in the sentences: "Pa rattle his newspaper"; (l.14) "Pa say, rattling his paper open more." (l.24) Celie also notices it and writes two times: "Like it wasn't nothing"; (l.12) "Didn't mean nothing to him.". (l.21) This behaviour demonstrates also that he has no parental feelings for his daughter. A daughter is merely a woman and a woman has only an instrumental value, she is like a machine.
In the sentence: "Your sister thinking bout marriage," (l.20) Pa is making fun of Celie by using this irony. It is a humiliating situation for Celie. He has taken that decision &endash; not she.
Mr _____ seems to have the same behaviour towards women. Only when his mother leaves his house and left him with the housework, he decides to have a second look at Celie. Therefore he chooses Celie, only driven by his despair ("Mr _____ come finally one day looking all drug out." [l.9]). We can conclude that he needs merely a "household machine" and therefore any woman is good enough.
He is also interested in her appearance and not in her personality. This behaviour shows that he is not interested in having conversations with her. He wants her only to sleep with him and to do the housework. Therefore, he looks at her to find out if she is attractive enough for his sex with her.
3. How does Celie get on with her situation as a mother and wife?
Celie's situation as a mother and wife is not much different from her previous situation. After her mother died, she has also had to be like her mother.
She does all her duties, obeys perfectly. She never rebels. Even when Mr ______'s son "laid her head open with a rock," (cf. l. 33) she does not feel angry. It is very striking that she shows no emotions. She seems like a rock or a tree, which you can hit and which has no pain: "But I don't cry," (l.38) she says, and she describes Mr ______'s having sexual intercourse with her as "he on top of me." (l.38) This phrase reveals that she is not participating, she is only lying there and has no feelings. She is even thinking about Nettie.
In the last two sentences, Celie's emotional ignorance is shown. She thinks about Shug Avery and if "maybe she like it." (l.39) Celie does not know what a really personal sexual relationship is. Although she was raped by her father, she is in her knowledge like a virgin. Therefore she tries to copy Shug Avery's behaviour and "put [her] arm around him." (ll.39f.) In her opinion this must be the behaviour of a wife.