The Color Purple: Gender Roles

   While Alice Walker is writing The Color Purple, it is very evident in many of the characters had switched traditional gender roles, much like in The Hunger Games, we read earlier in the semester. Although it is probably not the main theme of the novel, it is interesting to me. Especially being in a Womens Writers class, this idea throughout the book was really highlighted for me, and that is why I will be discussing it in the post.
   More so in the time that the novel was written, but also somewhat in society today, there are many different roles that go along with femininity and masculinity. For example, Celie (in the beginning of the novel more) is the traditional woman. She let her father take advantage of her for fear of being beaten or being ashamed. She cooked and cleaned for her husband she did not love, and let him beat her because that was what she was supposed to do. Then, she did the field work for her husband because he was too lazy and took care of children that were not hers. Some of these ideas are still in our culture today, like the wife should cook and clean and some women are too ashamed to speak about being abused. In the novel however, some characters do possess masculine traits, such as being strong, taking control, and having sexual freedom.
   The character that displays more masculine traits is Sofia. Being the wife of Harpo, she is supposed to comply to everything he does, including beating her when she is not behaving herself like she should. Although, Sofia does not take it. She gets sick of her husband when he tries to control her. She says "He doesn't want a wife, he wants a dog" (Walker, 64). When she realizes that this is what he wants, she does not want to be around. She then actually leaves him and takes her children with. In this era, this is not a common occurence. This shows the power and confidence in herself, which can be looked at as a masculin trait. Another masculine trait of hers is her strongness and willingness to fight. She is openly able to fight with Squeak when she is confronted, but it is completely different when she goes after the Mayor and his wife. Even though slavery is abolished, racisim is still very prevelent. Even if it wasn't, it would not be a good idea to get in a fight with the Mayor of a town. In spit of this, "Sofia knock the man down" in Celie's words, because they thought of her as a slave (Walker, 85). Her toughness is another masculine trait.
   Another female in the novel with "masculine" traits, is Shug Avery. When we are introduced to her in the novel she is a promiscuous. independent woman. In that she is different then other females of the novel. Not being married allowed her to be looked down upon, but Shug did not care, she loved her life. Unlike many women of the time she also does not care for her own children. She talks of them like they are nothing to her saying "My kids with they grandma... she could stand the kids" (Walker, 50). This is a more masculine trait to have, especially in this time, because usually the father was gone working while the mother watched after the kids. Lastly, the other part i noticed about her that is very masculine is that she controls the finances in her relationship with Grady. Celie mentions that Shug has so much money that she does not even know what to do with it, and Grady "spend Shug's money like he made it himself' (Walker, 114). The woman being the sole provider of the family is uncommon and very much masculine in nature. All of these reasons are reasons why I think Walker makes Shug such a prominent character in the novel.
   Due to these characters, and other characters having their normal gender roles swapped for the opposite sex, I think that Walker did it for a specific reason. I think that Walker is trying to show the power of women. She is trying to show that they do not need to be dominated by men and can live lives for themselves. She highlights the power of women through relationships, and because of this is think the author is a real feminist writer and this was a good pick to read in a womens writing class.