Political Critique of Race Relations in Alice Walkers Color Purple Ess

The Color violet as Political judge of Race Relations If the integrated family of Doris Baines and her adopted African grandson exposes the missionary contour of integration in Africa as one based on a false kinship that in fact denies the legitimacy of kinship bonds crosswise racial lines, the relationship between girlfriend Sophia and her white charge, dribble Eleanor Jane, serves an like function for the American South. Sophia, of course, joins the mayors household as a maid chthonic conditions more overtly racist than Doris Bainess adoption of her Akwee family Because she answers hell no (76) to Miss Millies request that she come to work for her as a maid, Sophia is brutally defeat by the mayor and six policeman and is then imprisoned. Forced to do the jails laundry and driven to the brink of madness, Sophia finally becomes Miss Millies maid in order to escape prison. Sophias violent confrontation with the white officers obviously foregrounds issues of function and cla ss, as even critics who find these issues marginalized elsewhere in The Color Purple wipe out noted. But it is not only through Sophias dramatic semipublic battles with white men that her story dramatizes issues of race and class. Her domestic relationship with Miss Eleanor Jane and the other members of the mayors family offers a more finely nuanced and extended critique of racial integration, albeit one that has often been overlooked.(11) Like Doris Baines and her black grandson, Sophia and Miss Eleanor Jane appear to have some genuine family feelings for one another. Since Sophia practically . . . raises (222) Miss Eleanor Jane and is the one forgiving person... ...nold, 1993. 85-96. Sekora, John. Is the Slave Narrative a Species of Autobiography? Studies in Autobiography. Ed. James Olney. reinvigorated York Oxford UP, 1988. 99-111. Shelton, Frank W. Alienation and Integration in Alice Walkers The Color Purple. CLA Journal 28 (1985) 382-92. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Ex planation and Culture Marginalia. Humanities and Society 2 (1974) 201-21. Stade, George. Womanist Fiction and manful Characters. Partisan Review 52 (1985) 264-70. Tate, Claudia. Domestic Allegories of Political Desire The dismal Heroines Text at the Turn of the Century. New York Oxford UP, 1992. Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs The Cultural domesticate of American Fiction. New York Oxford UP, 1985. Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York Harcourt, 1982.