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Essay / Political Critique of Race Relations in Alice Walker...
The Color Purple as a Political Critique of Race RelationsIf the integrated family of Doris Baines and her adopted African grandson exposes the missionary model of integration in Africa as Based on a false kinship that actually denies the legitimacy of kinship across racial lines, the relationship between Miss Sophia and her white charge, Miss Eleanor Jane, serves an analogous function for the American South. Sophia, of course, joins the mayor's household as a housekeeper under more overtly racist conditions. that Doris Baines' adoption of her Akwee family: Because she answers "no" (76) to Miss Millie's request to come work for her as a maid, Sophia is brutally beaten by the mayor and six policemen and is then imprisoned. Forced to do the prison laundry and pushed to the brink of madness, Sophia eventually becomes Miss Millie's servant to escape from prison. Sophia's violent confrontation with the white officers obviously brings issues of race and class to the forefront, as noted even by critics who find these issues marginalized elsewhere in The Color Purple. But it is not only through Sophia's dramatic public battles with white men that her story dramatizes issues of race and class. His domestic relationship with Miss Eleanor Jane and other members of the mayor's family offers a more nuanced and expansive critique of racial integration, although it has often been overlooked. (11) Like Doris Baines and her black grandson, Sophia and Miss Eleanor Jane seem to have genuine familial feelings for each other. Since Sophia "practically...raises" (222) Miss Eleanor Jane and is the only nice person...... middle of paper......nold, 1993. 85-96.Sekora, John. “Is the slave narrative a kind of autobiography? Studies in autobiography. Ed. James Olney. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. 99-111. Shelton, Frank W. “Alienation and Integration in Alice Walker’s The ColorPurple.” CLA Journal 28 (1985): 382-92.Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Explanation and culture: Marginalia. » Humanities and Society 2 (1974): 201-21. Stade, George. “Women's fiction and male characters”. Partisan Review 52 (1985): 264-70. Tate, Claudia. Domestic allegories of political desire: the black heroine's text at the turn of the century. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Conceptions: The Cultural Work of American Fiction. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. Walker, Alice. The color purple. New York: Harcourt, 1982.