When I was offered to teach the course ENG 402 (Feminist Readings of Literature) in my department at Central Women’s University, I gleefully accepted it. I inherited the course from one of my senior colleagues and set out to redesign the course plan to suit my textual preferences. Since it is a senior level course and students are usually mature enough by the time they enroll in it, I decided to incorporate at least one or two texts that would challenge their intellectual ability to a considerable degree and enable them to negotiate with unpalatable truths of our society and the world at large. Upon deliberation, I chose to teach a sensitive, yet thought-provoking novel, titled The Color Purple by the African American author Alice Walker.
The epistolary novel revolves around a 14 year-old African American girl named Celie, whose traumatic childhood, followed by painful adulthood and the subsequent change of fortune is vividly captured in a true-to-life narrative arc. As a teenager she used to be raped by her father (to be revealed as step-father much later) regularly as her mother had been languishing in sick bed for a few years on end. She gave birth to two children, one girl and one son, one year apart from each other. Both the children were snatched away by the beast of a man, the father. She didn't know where the children ended up. Were they killed? Or were they sold? She had no clue but she believed her male child would survive simply because it was male.
Her mother used to curse Celie incessantly, perhaps, under the impression that she was a spoiled girl. The girl being overwhelmed and cowed by the all-pervasive power of her father in an absolutely patriarchal society could not reveal anything to her mother. She wrote everything to her God, probably in a journal, in broken English typical of her community and educational backgrounds. She didn't have a voice of her own. Utterly muzzled, she adopted a philosophy of passively accepting all forms of violence– physical, psychological, sexual– in order for survival. On the other hand, her younger sister Nettie showed a much bolder attitude. She talked back to their father (step-father in fact) with fortitude. She left the family home apprehensive of ensuing sexual assault by their father. In the meantime, Celie got married to a widower named Mr. Albert, who was Nettie’s boyfriend. He intended to marry Nettie, a pretty looking teenager but ended up marrying Celie on a practical ground. Their father could convince Mr. Albert, referred to as Mr. — almost the entire period that Celie would make a good wife. She could rear children, cook food, do housework, and was hard working– a perfect job description for a housewife. What is obnoxious is Mr. — checked out the entire body of Celie from the top of a horse as if she was a sacrificial animal. That he was looking down at Celie from a vantage point is symbolic as it clearly demonstrates the power structure in a patriarchal society.
Celie was always under the pall of men, initially her father and then her husband, and a daily dose of torture was what she embraced as her fate. When her stepson Harpo asked his father why he beat Celie, he unequivocally replied that it is normal for a man to beat his wife simply because she is his wife. Wives and children are alike and should be disciplined.
Such twisted logic lays bare the patriarchal predilections towards relegating women to a lower position always at the mercy of their male counterparts. And torturing as a punitive/disciplinary tool is pretty normal. The normalization of physical (and other sorts of) violence is a characteristic trait of patriarchy, an outrageously unjust system.
As Harpo, Celie’s stepson, went on to marry Sofia, he faced stiff disapproval from his father, Mr.--. The irony is Mr. — termed Sofia, already pregnant with Harpo’s child, as a slut mixing freely with Tom, Dick and Harry whereas he himself had an extramarital affair with Shug Avery, a blues singer.
This double standard runs deep into the psyche of a patriarchal society. Sofia, a free soul and brave-heart roared on the face of Mr. — that she was not dying to marry his son and she could go her own way with or without his son. Her fiery attitude bewildered him. Against all odds and much to the consternation of his father, Harpo finally married Sofia and brought her home. However, as an independent-minded Sofia disregarded patriarchal social convention by not allowing space to male members and listening to their orders, gestures that put Celie in absolute awe. Jealous of Sofia’s joy and freedom, Celie instigated Harpo to beat Sofia and give her a lesson. Harpo’s misadventure backfired as he was left bruised and wounded in the hand of his strongly built, free-spirited wife. As Sofia confronted Celie for her part in the plot, the latter confessed it all citing her deprived and devastated life from her early childhood being the driver of such jealousy. Sofia realized it all and found in Celie a match of her own mother, a perennial victim in a male-dominated setup.
Well, a lot more happened in the novel The Color Purple. Let me restrict my discussion to sexual violence. On more than one occasion, girls and women fell victim to rape in the hand of family members and relatives. Instances of marital rape were aplenty. This particular aspect, rape and sexual harassment by family members and relatives, was pretty gut-wrenching as my students can identify this menace prevailing in society. They try to come to terms with this unpalatable reality although collective silence is mostly the response from our society to such heinous occurrences. Recent events in Bangladesh as far as sexual violence by male members from the same bloodline is concerned, worry us for not a little measure. Two years ago, news of a niece’s rape by her own uncle at Cumilla’s Nangalkot hit headlines. What is more harrowing is how the culprit, Sohel, was granted bail reportedly as the 14-year old girl’s father was pressured by other family members to withdraw the case.
The girl gave birth to a child and a DNA test conclusively established the culpability of Sohel, the uncle. Upon bail, Sohel came back to his locality in a motorcade and was garlanded by his followers and parents, the Dhaka Tribune reported on September 20, 2020. I also watched the video of this public celebration of a criminal released on bail and could not digest such violation of the social value system. A few days back, a recently married young girl complained to her husband of her rape in the hand of her second elder brother Tofayel Ahmed Rasel month after month. As the husband, shell-shocked and broken down, tried to settle the matter with the family members of his wife, a false case was framed up against him with Laksham Police Station as per the Ajker Cumilla (August 04, 2022). These mind-numbing incidents point up the diabolical ordeal many girls and women in Bangladesh undergo. It is common sense that a lot of such incidents go unreported.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, a socio-cultural movement should be put up to challenge these obnoxious and egregious acts perpetrated under the patronage of patriarchy. Sometimes, the criminals exploit legal loopholes to get away with their monstrous crimes. Social prejudice and stigma pulverize the victims as they suffer silently. Even when they open their mouths, they get further humiliated in the dock of public opinion. Many of the victims resort to the extreme path of suicide to avoid further victim-shaming. To sensitize us to the multifaceted forms and ways of violence against women, we should bring forth these issues in our public discourse. Our syllabus should include texts pertaining to such matters.
Literature can play a tremendous role in mobilizing public opinion to combat the devil of patriarchy, which in its extreme form does not hesitate to crush women. Teaching The Color Purple by Alice Walker, although a difficult text to deal with in a Bangladeshi classroom full of culturally sensitive young adults, is my humble attempt to fight the monstrous system of patriarchy as far as violence against women is concerned.
The author teaches English at Central Women’s University
