Gender Representation in Alice Walker’s Selected Novels

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Gender Representation in Alice Walker’s SelectedNovels

Wan Roselezam Wan Yahya, Maryam Aminian and Emily Abd Rahman

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE HUMANITIES http://www.Humanities-Journal.com First published in 2010 in Champaign, Illinois, USA by Common Ground Publishing LLC www.CommonGroundPublishing.com. © 2010 (individual papers), the author(s) © 2010 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations, quotations, diagrams, tables and maps. All rights reserved. Apart from fair use for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (Australia), no part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact <[email protected]>. ISSN: 1447-9508 Publisher Site: http://www.Humanities-Journal.com THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE HUMANITIES is peer-reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance and highest significance is published. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGCreator multichannel typesetting system http://www.commongroundpublishing.com/software/

GenderRepresentation inAliceWalker’s SelectedNovelsWan Roselezam Wan Yahya, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor,MalaysiaMaryam Aminian, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, MalaysiaEmily Abd Rahman, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract: This study investigates Alice Walker’s fictions by focusing on gender representation portrayedin her three novels The Color Purple, The Third Life of Grange Copeland and Possessing the Secretof Joy to find out whether gender is culturally or physically centered; whether gender establisherssuch as tradition and racism contribute towards gender differentiation; and whether gender is a rigidbelief with stable or changeable nature. The projection of Walker’s characters reveals that gender ispsychologically and culturally determined rather than physically. It varies from one ethnic or race toanother. Gender is found to be a form of rigid belief of unstable nature which causes women’s identitiesto be reconstructed in an oppressive manner. The practice of genital mutilation by the Olinkan traditionseeks to enforce gender differentiation through drawing distinctive lines between genders and definesthem in their own terms rejecting the biological nature of gender construction. Overexploited, inhu-manely treated, and dispossessed from their lands by the white masters, Black men such as Mr_,Grange, and Brownfield exercise power and redefine themselves by reduplicating the same oppressionon their women and create imaginary illusory identities for themselves. Black women such as Celie,Squeak, Mem and Tashi are rendered as helpless and emaciated through their husband’s atrocities.These suppressed, silent, and dependent women are the ideal characteristics dictated by the tradition,where as, transgressive women are labeled as a whore like Josie and Shug or crazy like Sofia. Theseideal images absorbed as a result of Celie’s and Squeak’s ignorance; Mem’s excessive affection andsympathy; and Tashi’s blind honor to her tribe are all shattered as soon as they recognized theiridealized status as nothing but a plot against them.

Keywords: Gender, Feminism, Infibulation, Racism

Introduction

ALICEWALKER’SWORKS have been analyzed from many different perspectivesranging from black feminism, lesbian feminism, Marxist feminism, post feminism,and queer theory to gender. Of great importance is the issue of tradition and racismwhich paves the way for gender construction in Walker’s three novels, which has

been somewhat neglected by most critics. For example, Gönül Pultar’s “Issues of Genderin Alice Walker’s The Color Purple” (2007) which provides the reader with some aspectsof gender characteristics illustrated in The Color Purple, however, left Walker’s other worksuntouched. In addition, despite the fact that women’s subjugation is discussed in TiffanyErtman’s “Unveiling the Underlying Concepts of Cultural Oppression in Alice Walker’sPossessing the Secret of Joy”(2002), it does not include analysis on how gender archetypesare sustained in black society.

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Similarly, Marvin Thomas’s “ “Preachin’ the Blues”: Bessie Smith’s secular religion andAlice Walker’s The Color Purple” (1994) and Mainimo’s “Black Female Writers’ Perspectiveon Religion: Alice Walker and Calixthe Beyala” (2002) both mirror the idea of religion yetthey fail to explore rituals and tradition prevalent in Walker’s works in perpetuating ‘en-gendering’ in Walker’s Possessing the Secret (1970). In the case of racial discrimination“The Free Mind: Alice Walker’s The Third Life Of Grange Copeland and the Drive forFreedom from Oppression” (Siegel Crenshaw) and “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality,Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color” (Kimberlé W. Crenshaw) provehelpful yet they lack the analytical scrutiny of racism and its impact in forming gender inWalker’s works.

Thus, this present paper is going to focus on gender concerns to: explore how patriarchyestablishes power and gender differentiation by imprinting its traces on the bodies of otherpeople (inscribing gender on body); expose the double oppression faced by black women(double oppression); and delineate how black women inflict violence on other black womenas a compensation for what patriarchy has inflicted upon them (women as perpetrators ofpatriarchy). This study includes discussion on three of Walker’s novels encompassing TheColor Purple (1982), The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1992) and Possessing the Secretof Joy (1970). 1

Studies on GenderUniversally human beings are divided into two categories, men and women, the former areascribed some normal masculine attributes such as “active, dominating, adventurous, rational,creative” and the latter some feminine attributes like “passive, acquiescent, timid, emotionaland conventional” (Abrams, 1985: 235). In addition, according to Welter in Carby, the male-centered definition of woman, that is, true womanhood, is based generally on male interpret-ation (those by a husband, brother, or father) and could be attained through four cardinalvirtues including piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity (1987: 23). As cultural hege-mony is illustrated by men so the society assigns primacy and value to males, upholdingmasculine traits rather than female ones. They elevate maleness to superior and normal stancewhile they define femaleness as inferior and abnormal.

Men define themselves relatively through comparing and contrasting themselves with theother sex, women. Men compensated for a relatively fragile sense of masculinity by ensuringthat, in the real world power stays in the hands of gender differences, by seeking to intensifythem, through keeping the boundaries between what is supposed feminine and what is sup-posed masculine “clear and distinct” (Eisenstein, 1983:96). In line with this argument,Chodorow in Eisenstein, pointed out that in families, it is generally the father, more than themother, who “sextype[s]”children and expects gender appropriate behavior from them (1983:97). Therefore, woman is not an essence, as Ruthven outlines in Feminist Literary Studies:An Introduction, “but a construct in the domain of patriarchal culture, a dispersed subject,historically variable, socially feminized as a site on which masculine meanings got spokenand his desires enacted” (1990:45).

Unfixed and incoherent, gender refers to something other than biology and essentialismsince every society encourages distinct behaviors, approved as male and female. These traits

1 The Color Purple (henceforth The Color), The Third Life of Grange Copeland (henceforth, The Third) and Pos-sessing the Secret of Joy (henceforth Possessing).

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may differ from one society to another; consequently, what is considered accepted as maletraits in a community may be devalued and considered as female traits in the other one, sogender is a socially acquired constructed behavior rather than an essentially determined one.In Postfeminism Feminism, cultural theory and cultural forms Ann Brooks adds, “gender isperformative, it is an effect of performance and is constituted in performance” (1997:22).To put it in another way Mary Evans (2001) argues “Woman is not made by her hormonesor instincts, they are modified by the way her body is treated by the others (22). Additionally,as Evans observes, “Gender [is] as a content with sex as a container” and the content is liableto change where as the container stay unchanged (2001:290).

Emphasizing on the unfixed nature of gender and exclaiming that there is not an innaterelationship between gender and sex, Butler, in Brooks writes, “the anatomy of the performeris…distinct from the gender of the performer, and both of these are distinct from the genderof the performance” (1997:193), and gender definition, Nancy Bauer(2001) adds, is “notrooted in some general universal acceptable criteria, not having any established implicationsprior to our thought, varying from one social system to the other…” (39).

The division of qualities and tasks between sexes are culturally bounded. These tasks aresocially and naturally used so repetitiously which are carved in our minds as the pure truth.For instance, some tasks are ascribed to females such as looking after child, doing routinehouse chores, even working outside and tending field like in Celie’s case in The Color Purple,but other works like hunting, doing outside works are positively identified as male careers.Tasks assigned to genders whether as feminine or masculine vary from one society to anothersociety, but any disruption of gender tasks in a given society is controlled through reprim-anding and ridiculing (Evans, 2001: 288-9); for instance, Mr_ was ridiculed in his societyfor sewing.

Arguing about gender’s fluidity and relational aspect, proven by its differentiation fromone country to another and from one period to another, Eisenstein in her book ContemporaryFeminist Thought (1983) states being a female doesn’t mean females are similar worldwidely, so American woman is different from the African woman; while both are differentfrom Chinese women. Emphasizing on the arbitrariness of gender construction, she addsthere were cultures, for example, in which men were deemed peace-loving, while womenwere deemed warlike (8).

In gender-based definitions woman is illustrated as man’s object and property. Luce Irigarayin her book This Sex Which Is Not One condemns patriarchal conduct that “woman, is tradi-tionally a use-value for man, an exchange value among men; in other words, a commodity”(1985:31). Celie, illustrated as less than a human being (“she ugly …But she ain’t no strangerto hard work”) is bartered along with her cow. Mr_, dubious about marrying her is convincedby Pa’s suggestion “that she can take that cow she raised” (The Color 9) and Alponso whois considered as her real father takes control over her physics: “You gonna do what yourmammy wouldn’t” (The Color 1) as well as her destiny by selling her off to Mr_. Likewisein Possessing Olinkan women are nothing by themselves because they are recognized astheir fathers’, brothers’ or uncles’ commodity.

Gender can also interpolate by pressures such as stereotyping, compensation, and collision(Watkin, 2001:62). The aforementioned elements are fully perceived through firstly, Celie’ssubjugation, preparing her as an ideal stereotyped wife. Lacking physical beauty, Celie isdescribed by Pa to Mr_ “as you can do everything just like you want to and she ain’t gonnamake you feed it or clothe it” (The Color 9) and adds “she good with children …never heard

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her say a hard word to any one of them” (The Color 12). Secondly, being called “Sister Celie”in compensation for her services to church by the priest, Celie is interpolated by the society’snorm. Society in general, as Evans notes, “tells her [woman] lie by praising her love, affection,devotion, passivity and then concealing the fact that neither husband nor the children areinclined to take all charges she should bear on her shoulders” (37). Finally, Tashi’s circum-cision as the result of her mother and tsunga’s collision demonstrates the other way throughwhich society’s set of ideas and beliefs work.

Gender Representation in Walker’s Novels

Inscribing Gender on BodyPatriarchy establishes power and gender differentiation by imprinting its traces on the bodiesof other people. In The Color, Possessing and The Third, these marks, in Wendy Wall’sword includes “wife-beating, facial scarification, and genital mutilation” (1988). Carvingcultural social norms and codes are effectively illustrated in genital mutilation, comprehens-ively introduced in Possessing. Originating centuries ago, infibulation or female genitalmutilation (FGM) is employed as a controlling means to submit power to men, to keep womenin powerless stance in order to deny female full identities. Walker explains, mutilation, datingback to Pharaoh’s era, practiced in East African countries, including Somalia and Sudan, isa process in which as Wolff illustrates the vulva is removed and the vaginal opening is sewnup tightly, “leaving small opening for urine and menstruation” (Wolff, 1998), leading topainful intercourse and childbirth. The procedure is done for encoding femaleness, increasingmale gratification and controlling women’s virginity and faithfulness since women undergoingthis procedure will more often than not experience painful sex than pleasurable one. Observingtraditional preexisting sublime sacred ritual to distinguish gender, African people keep theirwomen under control and stabilize their gender or as Nettie mentioned in The Color Purple“female initiation rites and bites of bloody cutting” (115) dulls women’s sexual pleasure,eliminates animus and solidifies the language of their bodies.

According to Olinkan belief which culminates in FGM practice, Earth is feminine and“its sexual organs is anthill and its clitoris a termite hill ….At God’s approach the termitehill rose up, barring the passage and displaying it’s masculinity….[but] he cut down thetermite hill and had intercourse with the excised earth…” (The Color 173). So as GeorgeOlakunle (2001) explains in “Alice Walker’s “Africa: Globalization and the Province ofFiction”, mutilation is a means by which society dictates what the female body should beby excising the clitoris– what are perceived masculine in the female genitalia and similar tothe penis. Contemplating about the tradition, Tashi recalls “Everyone knew that if a womanwas not circumcised her unclean parts would grow so long they’d soon touch her thighs;she’d become masculine and arouse herself. No man could enter her …” (Possessing 121).By practicing FGM ritual the Olinkan people seek to emasculate women as Pierre echoes:

human being from the first was endowed with two souls of different sex, …. In the manthe female soul was located in the prepuce; in the woman the male soul was in theclitoris . . . [so] the man is circumcised to rid him of his femininity; the woman is excisedto rid her of her masculinity. In other words, he said, a very long time ago, men found

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it necessary to permanently lock people in the category of their obvious sex. (Possessing175-6)

Therefore, vagina lips and clitoris should be cut off to kill the male instinct in the woman.In “The Black Woman’s Selfhood in Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy” Demirtürk(1995) explains, African believes by cutting apart clitoris, deemed masculine, they both de-activate women’s masculine spirit and desensitize female sexual desires, which make herthe object of desire for man, who will never be able to have full orgasm.

In “‘Like the Pupil of an Eye’: Sexual Blinding of Women in Alice Walker’s Works”Sally Wolff (1998) notes:

Without the clitoris and other sexual organs, a woman can never see herself reflectedin the healthy, intact body of another. Her sexual vision is impaired, and only the mostdevoted lover will be sexually “seen”.

So being circumcised and left incomplete, Tashi transforms to physically and psychologicallysilent girl that patriarchy prefers. Adam in his first meeting after FGM practice describesher “Her eyes no longer sparkled with anticipation. They were as flat as eyes that have beenpainted” (Possessing 43) or Olivia observes that “that her soul had been dealt a mortal blowwas plain to anyone who dared look into her eyes” (Possessing 66) she has transformed froma cheerful, impish girl to a “passive…. Slow …. Studied” one (Possessing 66). Tashi re-sembles new dolls, given to girls, with the vapid face “and no vagina at all” (Possessing202).

This practice is perpetuated by ignorance, rewarding, and punishment. The ritual is con-sidered so sacred that women neither ask question about it, nor were provided with answers,nor could speak about it. Their blind approvals of this practice is illustrated in what Tashiclaimed “every one believed it [genitals’ elongation], even though no one had ever seenit….And yet elders… acted as if everyone had witnessed this evil” (Possessing 121). Addi-tionally, this ritual was perpetuated through carrot and stick approach. Girls, undergoing theritual are rewarded in return for their subordination and surrender of their sexual autonomiesby being courted by Olinkan men while those Olinkan women, not undergoing the ritual andviolating the social standard, are penalized by being discarded by society, and not beingasked for marriage.

This procedure is considered as writing culture on body or to put it in another word nature.By referring to natural body and manipulated body Walker refers to two significant binaryoppositions reverberated in her works– nature and culture. Any disruption in nature repres-ented in Tashi’s mutilated body, transcribed by culture, is followed by some abnormal con-sequences: painful sexual intercourse “Each time he [Adam] touched me I bled” (Possessing60); birth of a retarded boy “The obstetrician broke two instruments trying to make anopening large enough for Benny’s head” (57), and women’s’ depression “My mother[M’lissa’s mother] was a sad woman….I never saw her smile” (Posessing 219).

Emphasizing on this aspect that gender codes are culturally constructed and prescriptive,M’lissa speaking with Tashi verifies “You had been made into a woman” (Possessing 246)or in other case Amy, American woman, who is circumcised because of touching herself,cried out “I was controlled all my life …by my mother’s invisible hand” to resemble my

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mother’s circumcised maiden whose “slavish spirit” and “gentleness of spirit” – what patri-archy values as femaleness – she wished for me (Possessing 188-9).

This tradition is maintained in male dominated African tribes presented in imaginary tribecalled Olinka. Having converted to Christianity Tashi’s mutilation seemed unnecessary butgrowing up in Olinka and brain washed by their ideologies she underwent FGM to feel closeto her people and gain respect. Exposed to patriarchal values concerning mutilation in herchildhood in a code format as Raye discusses, “In a culture in which it is mandatory thatevery single female be systematically desexed, there would have to be some coded, mytho-logical reason for it, used secretly among the village elders” (Possessing 233), Tashi comesto believe in her uncleanliness, finds circumcision as a fundamental way to “be accepted asreal woman” (Possessing 122). Remembering the elder’s conversation she has overheard asa child, referring to genital “God like it tight” (Possessing 238), she inferred the ideologyhas been transferred through some myths –sustained in elders’ minds– to the unconsciousof Olinkan women, particularly to Tashi’s. Her construction at the hands of patriarchal mythsis distinctively illuminated in the following quotation:

Number one: she did not see God’s axe.Number two: No, she was blind.Number three: God struck the blow that made her Queen.Number four: Beautiful enough for him to fuck. (Possessing 238)

Being exposed to this myth accounts for her recurring dream that Tashi narrated to her psy-chiatrist:

There is a tower….And there are millions of things moving about me in thedark…They’ve broken my wings! …. they’re forcing something in one end of me, andfrom the other they are busy pulling something out. (Possessing 26-7).

This dream which is ultimately demystified by her step son, Pierre, who identified her as abroken wing queen of her dreams, imprisoned in a dark tower, “stuffed with food at one end… having your eggs, millions of them, constantly removed at the other” (Possessing 233).

Exposing Double OppressionBlack women suffer double oppression. On the one hand, they should fight back the whitepatriarchal notion and on the other hand with patriarchal black culture, which is the duplicationof the white culture. Walker unveils the predicament of the double negative in Americathrough Pa, and Mr_ in The Color, Olinkan in Possessing and Brownfield and Grange inThe Third who reenact the white master’s conducts on their familial women.

In “Issues of Gender in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple” Gönül Pultar (2007), discussesWalker shows through The Color Purple that her female characters have to fight both thepatriarchal order of the white, tending to subordinate them as black women and the patriarchalcultural order of the black society which is a reenactment of that of the whites which “mustbe contained, controlled and ultimately transformed”. Referring to double oppression in“Alice Walker Is a Free Woman” (1983), Walker notes, “Of course, the [whites] oppressus; they oppress the world….But we also oppress each other and we oppress ourselves” (14).

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Alice Walker views oppression as an essentially masculine activity which originates fromthe males’ desire to rule over females. In American society, Blacks like Brownfield andGrange or in Africa colonized people like the Olinkans lack power in the society, therefore,they exercise their authority over their wives and daughters. Black men assume superiorityover Black women and Black children. Walker explains “[b]ecause their whole thing is tobe manly. Not only to be men but to be white men. Their whole number is to be white men”(1983:13). Christophe(1999) speaking about double oppression in “The Color Purple: AnExistential Novel” adds, whether it is in America or in Africa the result of male tyrannicaltreat is the female’s oppression, which in time shows its impact on the whole family, thecondition of which deteriorates rather than improves, at the expanse of male recapturingtheir masculinity (102) and that is why Christophe, remarks, “in the novel, man is thepremium mobile, the one by whom and through whom evil enters the world” (1999:101).

Devoid of power, Mr_, Harpo as well as Grange and Brownfield portray their needs tosubjugate others – women, particularly their wives and daughters – to improve their individu-ality that was crushed by the white society. Their vapid identities are redefined in governingtheir own families. This notion is clearly illuminated when M’lissa states “it is only becausea woman is made into a woman that a man becomes a man” (Possessing 246), illustratinghow necessary a woman is to man’s self definition and how he struggles to resist this conceptby continual attempts to exclude and dominate woman.

Controlled and mastered by their husbands, women go through the secondary enslavementrepresented in being beaten, subjugated, governed mentally and physically and bartered off.The very first prominent example of these battered women is Celie. Celie, calling her husbandMr_ and confirming him with “yessir” (The Color 47), commemorates those slaves whocalled the whites land owners. This master and slave relationship is indicated in his tyrannicaland totalitarian treatment, delineated more clearly in Celie’s qoutation “he never do anywork around the place” (The Color 49) but orders “…git on back to the field” (The Color28). Throughout the novel Celie is beaten to be reminded of her own place as a woman andher husband’s property in order to provide him with superior interpretation acquired by histreatment to Celie.

The way the Blacks treat each other especially their treatment toward Black women isinspired by the whites’ culture. Having inherited his father’s property, belonging to hisgrandfather – the white owner – Mr_ might have inherited the values of the whites’ culture.Inspired by these values, paralleled with slavery, he legalizes oppressing women. Thus,dispossessed of his real individuality he rewrites his erased masculinity by realizing hisidentity through dictating his own terms to his wife. Celie’s life is interpreted and controlledby him to the extent that she cannot choose the color of her clothes – it is what Mr_ wants.Moreover, like his former owner, the white masters, Mr_ justifies beating Celie as somethingnatural by claiming “[c]ause she my wife” (The Color 23), referring to his possession overher and his right to do whatever he likes on his property.

In another instance Walker’s novel Possesing reflects oppression exercised on women byportraying infibulation, practiced in Olinka. Dispossessed of their traditions and values,Olinkan villagers brought M’Lissa to the camp to perform infibulations. They needed tsungato construct a traditional Olinkan place from which they could fight back colonialism. Sothey sent for tsunga by whom Tashi was infibulated to “give the community a new symbolof purpose. [Tashi] Which I became, I say, dumbstruck. [M’Lissa] Which you became”(Possessing 244). Tashi’s mutilation and suppression were supposed to be the beginning of

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their new village. Tashi learned that the men of the camp wanted her there so they couldenforce their traditions. Olinka’s resistance against colonist is constituted by oppressing thevery members of their society upon whom double oppression were imposed, firstly by col-onist and secondly by their own husbands, brothers and the society at large.

Being frustrated, men have the tendency to possess or dominate others which is rootednot so much in masculinity, but as in the distorted conception of ownership as they are dis-possessed by whites. In The Third, Brownfield who was humiliated and dehumanized bysharecropper’s life style, finds resolution in replicating oppression and violence on his fam-ilies and mistreating his wife and daughters. He denies his wife and daughter’s selves tocome true. Mem expresses her desire for a house and a better life for their children but islater silenced by her husband’s violence. Being humiliated by the white society and definedas the weak in comparison to Mem, Brownfield begins annihilating her physically by keepingher plump or pregnant and spiritually by beating and mistreating her, embarrassing her inpublic and finally shooting off her face which in Ruth Weston’s(1999) word denotes “ effacingher identity” (The Third 154).

Similarly, in Walker’s The Third, Josie’s father who is rendered powerless in society inturn exercised power on her by humiliating beating and inflicting violence on the membersof his family. His oppressive behaviour is displayed aggressively upon her pregnant daughterwho laid on the floor and her father “forbade anyone to pick her up…. [and] pressed his footinto her shoulder” (The Third 76). Josie, like Walker’s other female characters, is constantlysexually abused, misused, and abandoned by men.

Womens’ universal ordained destiny of double oppression from mutilation to beingbartered, beaten, killed and sold as slave is expressed intelligently in Walker’s naming Mem,rooted in “French la meme meaning the same” (Weston, 1999: 154), confirming the conceptthat all women, including African American and other nationalities are represented by Memand have the same destiny as Mem. Like their ancestors, women are being separated fromtheir children; like Celie whose children were sold off while, in turn, she should raise Mr_’schildren; and Sofia who should look after mayor’s children while her children were nurturedby her sister Odessa; and like Tashi whose children were deformed and killed because ofFGM. Having followed the whites’ models, penniless Pa married Celie’s mother and playeda role as Celie’s true father in order to retain what belongs to Celie and Nettie after theirmother’s death. He barters Celie to Mr_ as he barters with the whites “you got to give ‘emsomething. Either your money, your land, your woman, or your ass” (The Color 155). Likea slave owner, having convincingly enumerated his chattel’s properties to Mr_ “you can doeverything just like you want to and she ain’t gonna make you feed it or clothe it” (TheColor 9), Pa persuaded Mr_ to take her apparently as a housewife but virtually as a houseworkand sexual slave. The same destiny is waiting for Olinkan girls. Not undergoing FGM, beingrecognized as inappropriate female figure, lacking female standards posed by society, theuncircumcised girls were sold “to trader because they no longer fit into village life” (TheColor 166). Additionally, the universality of oppression is emphasized by Nettie’s juxtaposingAfrican and American nations and the impact of the latter on the former one. Comparingthe white’s and black’s oppression, Nettie claims like the white people “at home who don’twant colored people to learn” (The Color 162), duplicating the white’s culture, Olinkans“don’t believe in educating girls” in order to keep the women subordinated throughout theirlives.

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Women as Perpetrators of PatriarchyAbrams notes, “[w]omen themselves are taught, in the process of their being socialized, tointernalize the reigning patriarchal ideology” (1985:235). Women, suffering from socialstandards, thus, inflict violence on the other women as a compensation for what patriarchyhas inflicted upon them. Patriarchy, afflicting oppression turns them to perpetuate the samediscipline upon the other oppressed by the very same force rather than stimulating them toreact to its familiar hierarchical systems. Women intentionally or unintentionally employedthe same hardships, inspired by patriarchal values and devoted themselves to a philosophy,propagating women’s love and affection are to be directed toward men. As an example inThe Color, Shug employing cruelties on her fellows, relates her separation from other womento Celie:

I was so surprise when I heard [Albert] was going to marry Annie Julia…. I was somean, and so wild, Lord. I used to go round saying, I don’t care who he married to, I’mgonna… [have relation ship with] him…I went to school with Annie Julia…. She waspretty…. I liked her myself. Why I hurt her so? ….I treated you so mean….And allbecause Albert married you. (126-27)

What separate the women in the novel from other women are patriarchal values. What preventsmen and women in the novel from interacting in constructive ways are also patriarchal values.Left legally unmarried and humiliated by Mr_’s father and brothers, she practiced patriarchalway and vented her frustrations on poor Julia by robbing her of her legal husband, leadingher to have boyfriend by whom she was killed. Also, having internalized hatred toward herpeers, seen Celie at the threshold of Mr_’s house disapprovingly, Shug claimed “You sureis ugly” (The Color 48). Also, echoing the same belief, Mr_ speaking to Celie about women’streatment to each other, directed by patriarchy, claims “[s]ome women would have just loveto hear they man say he beat his wife cause she wasn’t them. Shug was like that about AnnieJulia” (The Color 277). Yet, as time passed, having found out Mr_ has beaten and misusedhis wife, separated two sisters and confiscated their letters, Shug renounced patriarchal stancesuggested to her and adopted womanist values, concerning loving women.

Catherine Colton (1999) in her article “Alice Walker’s Womanist Magic: The ConjureWoman as Rhetor” adds, “[w]omen siding with men over women is one of the values ofpatriarchy” (42) which seems so natural and that any disruption from it was considered un-natural. Refering to Shug and Celie’s relation, Mr_ speaking to Celie claims “Shug spokeright up for you …. She say Albert, you been mistreating somebody I love. I couldn’t believeit ….I tried to laugh it off, but she meant what she said” (The Color 277). On the other hand,the very same exploited Celie, lacking Sofia’s physical and mental strength in confrontingwith her husband, finding an opportunity to employ power over the other, reenacted whatparticularly her father and husband have indoctrinated in her by echoing Mr_’s advice toHarpo about Sofia “You have to let ‘em [wives] know who got the upper hand. Nothing cando that better than a good sound beating” (The Color 37) and advising him “Beat her” (38)because that was the only solution Mr_ had exercised on his wife to subjugate her.

Similarly, in Possessing the Secret of Joy patriarchal values grant values on women, ob-serving his instructions and turning them to a puppet, more often than not, acting againstthemselves and their peers. For instance, M’lissa praised Mother Lissa as “a national

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monument” “an Ikon” by the Olinkan government “for her unfailing adherence to the ancientcostumes” (Possessing 149). She was taken out of her filthy hut to a new home and photo-graphed– in one of her pictures there was a “white halo around her deep brown head” (150)and visited mostly by women whom she had circumcised. Surprisingly, M’lissa calls herself“torturers of children” (Possessing 226) for conforming to the Olinkan values and adds thatit is women’s fault who verify the values governing their bodies and return to her to be sewnup. She claims “after giving birth, they [women] come back to the tsunga to be resewn,tighter than before. Because if it is loose he won’t receive enough pleasure” (Possessing223-24).

This is patriarchy which defines everything and those are women who put them intopractice and perpetuate them. For instance, when initiating Tashi, being consumed by maleideology that woman’s organ is dirty, M’Lissa called the surgery “not wound but as a healing”(Possessing 63). Remembering what the elders had told about tsunga:

Number four: tsunga though herself a woman…Number one:…Helps God …Number four: God is wise. That is why He created the tsunga. (Possessing 236)

Tashi concluded “tsunga was to traditional elders merely a [exploited] witch they couldcontrol, an extension of their dominating power” (Possessing 277) by whom they couldemploy power over exploited women like herself.

Exploited mothers, affected by poisonous social codes, let society practice the torturingritual – so called for the benefit of their girls – on their little innocent ignorant girls who hadgreat confidence on their mothers. Their full extent of trust to them is displayed in whatRaye notes “they [Negro women] can never bring themselves to blame their mother” forwhat they had undergone (Possessing 19). Moreover, speaking to her son, referring to in-justices inflicted on women by women, Lisette emphasized “we are the perfect audience,mesmerized by our unconscious knowledge of what men, with collaboration of our mothers,do to us” (Possessing 139). This collaboration is vividly proved by what M’lissa, referringto Dura’s death tells Tashi “The death of your sister …was your stupid mother Nafa’s faultit was your mother [who] helped me hold your sister down” (Possessing 256). Followingblindly her society’s codes, Nafa thought the only way by which she could provide a pros-perous life was by letting her daughter undergo mutilation to be recognized marriageableby Olinkan men whereas she could not notify M’lissa had not married, and that she had livedanyway. Mothers – women generally – are the upholders of the oppressive tradition, aimingat daughters and women themselves, the notion of which is recounted to Tashi “I was con-trolled all my life …by my mother’s invisible hand” (Possessing 188). Being initiated “girls’,mothers, aunts, and older sisters” take “charge of cooking …cleaning the house” (62). Thisis termed as sisterhood which is supposed to empower women, but is working for the benefitof patriarchy. These women allied with their common enemies against their own sisters anddaughters.

ConclusionAlice Walker’s view about women and their characteristics are reverberated in her works.The question of gender and its construction and sustenance become Walker’s main focus.

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In her projection of characters, women’s and men’s genders are psychologically and culturallydetermined rather than physically. It is something that varies from one ethnic and race toanother. Consequently, with no stable implication, women’s identities can be reconstructedin their own favors.

Static gender roles are strengthened by tradition and racial oppression. However, sinceall these points prolonging gender definitions are not self sufficient and draw their meaningsfrom the other sources and are changing from time to time, they are not appropriate preserverof gender tradition. Rituals and tradition handed over from ancestors are not pure truth, andwe cannot rely on them since they were generated by human and they are not flawless. Be-lieving in the women’s fixed trends men stultify the concepts by rewriting their beliefs onfemale bodies, resulting in male’s preferred condition – female passivity, their suppressedsexual desire and literally their silenced voice. By practicing mutilation, the Olinkans seekto enforce gender differentiation through drawing distinctive lines which divides them intotwo distinct genders and defines them in their own terms and does not approve their genuinenature. In Olinka the tradition of FGM which is preserved by the tribe’s elders, and consideredas sacred that nobody can speak explicitly about it in public. However, this tradition startsshaking after Tashi killed her infibulator.

Walker insists on the intertwined nature of racism and sexism. The racial oppression whichis imposed on blacks and dictated by whites is the other factor illustrated distinctively inWalker’s three novels and is not reliable since it is relational and contributes in engenderingfemales. Gender to a great extent generated to keep males in the upper hand and grant themenough authority to do whatever they wish without being compelled to give any explanationsabout them. Interpreting female traits negatively and male ones positively provides themwith a good opportunity to rule over females.

The whites practice power by humiliating blacks, who in turn indoctrinated by the whites,practice the same violence on their immediate families particularly on their wives, daughters,sisters, and all female members of their societies. Deprived of their own rights, the blacksretaliated by beating, abusing belittling their daughters and wives. Celie and Tashi, Josieand Mem are constructed as submissive characters through their husband’s atrocities, drawnfrom white’s examples, who suffer at the hands of their fathers and husbands. Overexploited,treated inhumanely, and dispossessed from their lands, Blacks emulate the oppressive valuesof the whites as the only way they can – to some extent exerting power and filling theirhollowness. Stripped of their own values by whites, Mr_, Grange, Brownfield and Olinkanmen exercise power and redefine themselves by reduplicating the same oppression on theirwomen and create imaginary illusory identities for themselves.

To be a black woman means you are suffering from the non-ending cycle of suppressionsustained by the whites as well as black men. By sustaining oppression on the other someof these oppressed turn into oppressors and intentionally follow whites’ tradition. To havea control over women, men generate an ideal picture of women in which every one shouldcomply with it in order to be accepted in society. Suppressed, silent, submissive, and depend-ent are the characteristics ascribed to an ideal female as is presented in Celie, Squeak, Mem,and Tashi after FGM. On the other hand, the repudiated females who are condemned andrefuted by society are labeled as a whore like Josie and Shug or crazy like Sofia. These idealimages absorbed as the result of Celie’s and Squeak’ ignorance, Mem ‘s too much affectionand sympathy, and Tashi’s blind honor to her tribe leading to their submission to patriarchy

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are shattered as soon as they recognized their idealized status as nothing but a plot againstthem.

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About the AuthorsDr. Wan Roselezam Wan YahyaWan Roselezam Wan Yahya is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the Faculty ofModern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia. She is involved in sev-eral researches dealing with literature & culture, psychoanalysis & literature, literature inESL, and diasporic literature.

Maryam AminianMaryam Aminian received her B.A and M.A in English Literature from Azad university,Tehran. She is currently a postgraduate researcher at the Faculty of Modern Languages andCommunication, Universiti Putra Malaysia pursuing her doctoral studies.

Emily Abd RahmanEmily Abd Rahman is a research student in the School of Arts, Languages and Literacies,Faculty of Education, University of Auckland. She is interested in the application of westerntheories to literary genres such as novels, drama and poetry.

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EDITORS

Tom Nairn, The Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Australia. Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Patrick Baert, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK. David Christian, San Diego State University, San Diego, USA. Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Joan Copjec, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA. Alice Craven, American University of Paris, Paris, France. Michel Demyen, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada. Elizabeth DePoy, University of Maine, Orono, USA Mick Dodson, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Oliver Feltham, American University of Paris, Paris, France. Clyde R. Forsberg Jr., Oxford College/Aletheia University, Tamsui, Taiwan. Stephen French Gilson, University of Maine, Orono, USA. Hafedh Halila, Institut Supérieur des Langues de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia. Souad Halila, University of Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia. Hassan Hanafi Hassanien, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. Ted Honderich, University College, London, UK. Paul James, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Moncef Jazzar, Institut Supérieur des Langues de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia. Eleni Karantzola, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece. Krishan Kumar, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA. Ayat Labadi, Institut Supérieur des Langues de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia. Marion Ledwig, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA. Greg Levine, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Harry R. Lewis, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA. Fethi Mansouri, Institute for Citizenship & Globalization, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. Juliet Mitchell, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK. Nahid Mozaffari, New York, USA. Nikos Papastergiadis, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. Robert Pascoe, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. Scott Schaffer, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Stanford University, Stanford, USA. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University, New York, USA. Bassam Tibi, University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany and Cornell University, Ithaca, USA. Giorgos Tsiakalos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece. Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA. Cheryl A. Wells, University of Wyoming, Laramie, USA. Zhang Zhiqiang, Nanjing University, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China. Chris Ziguras, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

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Gender Representation in Alice Walker’s Selected Novels

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