International Journal of English

and Literature (IJEL)

ISSN(P): 2249-6912; ISSN(E): 2249-8028
Vol. 5, Issue 6, Dec 2015, 35-40
TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

THE TUSSLE OF BLACK WOMEN A STUDY IN THE SELECT

NOVELS OF ALICE WALKER AND TONI MORRISON
R. RAJAKUMARI1 & V. GANESAN2
1

Assistant Professor, Dhanalakshmi College of Engineering, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

2

Assistant Professor A. M. Jain College Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the resistance of black women characters in the novels of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison.
Morrison and Walker deal with same themes of their social engagement in the creation of their fictional world. The
protagonists in the novels play an essential role in their development and in the societys development. As black
women, the protagonists in the novels are struggling through sequential difficulties. They struggle both as blacks
and as women in the society for survival. While they are discriminated against by racism, they are even lead to
undergo domestic violence and maltreatment at the hands of men in their life. Women were treated only as
Reproductive Machines. They are not considered as human being. They are rejected to express their individuality.
Their intelligence was neglected by the male characters throughout the novels. They were suppressed and abused.

their characters and their communities, showing us how being and becoming are intricately tied to the telling and
visualizing of ones story (life). At the end, these protagonists create an order out of chaos and reach their pinnacle.
KEYWORDS: The Tussle of Black Women A Study in the Select Novels of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison

Received: Oct 12, 2015; Accepted: Oct 20, 2015; Published: Oct 28; Paper Id.: IJELDEC20154

Original Article

Relations of incest are seen in most of their novels. Morrison and Walker are best to represent the transformations of

INTRODUCTION
African American literature, which has its origins in the 18th century, has helped African Americans to
find their voice in a country where laws were set against them. The position of African Americans in the dominant
society of the United States of America has not been an easy one. African Americans needed to find a new identity
in the New World and were considered an underclass for a long time. Women strive hard to assert their identity as
human beings. The major reason of suppression in the culture is being Black and Woman. Slavery has become a
regrettable issue of the past and still haunts the present. The mission to find their own voice was even more difficult
for African American women who became targets of numerous insults, both during and after slavery, and were
forced to be silent and to stand in the background for a long time. The blacks are dehumanized and degraded for the
trivial reason of their blackness. Yet the Negroes had survived centuries of inhuman treatment and retained their
humanity but at the same time prepared for the worst. The Blacks, somewhere in their fragile corners of their egos
often feel belittled and ill-treated; and they are constantly haunted by a nagging sense of self rejection. The Whites
controlled the lives and destiny of the Blacks entirely. The Black male was completely cowed before the Whites.
Being slaves, the Blacks are denied any forms of entertainment other than being the entertainers of the Whites,
physically and sexually. The Blacks are hardly considered human. This in turn, led to the Black male venting his

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R. Rajakumari & V. Ganesan

anger at the Black females of the society. The Black women suffered both at the hands of the Whites and their husband.
The Black male often turns physically and mentally violent towards the Black women and their children because of the
harsh treatment meted out to them from the Whites all the time. Women are treated and considered only as reproductive
machines. This can be understood through the characters in the novels of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Alice Walker
and Toni Morrison have used their writing as a platform to champion the causes of all women. They have maintained a
very vocal stance in their candid revelation of the silencing and marginalization of the ethnic woman within a postcolonial
society. Walker and Morrison are best able to represent the transformations of their characters and their communities.
Alice Walker is well noted for her prolific writings heralding the struggles of African American women. Walkers
works have been duly noted for their empowerment of the female voice. Accordingly, Walker is credited for her attempt to
reveal the three types of black women characters she felt were missing from literature in the United States
(Gates & Mckay 2425). Walker asserts that these are women who have been exploited physically and emotionally; women
who have been victimized by psychic violence, and women who are able to move past their oppressions to grasp a sense
of wholeness (Gates & Mckay 2425). Similarly, in the words of Gates Jr. and McKay, Morrison deals with issues related
to major social concerns, such as:
The interrelatedness of racism, class exploitation and sexism, domination and imperialism; the spirituality and
power of oral folk traditions and values; the mythic scope of the imagination; and the negotiation of slippery
boundaries, specially for members of oppressed groups, between personal desire and political urgencies. Her
work also articulates perennial human concerns and paradoxes: how are our concepts of the good, the beautiful
and the powerful related; what is goodness and evil; how does our sense of identity derive from community while
maintaining individual uniqueness? (Gates Jr. and McKay, 1977, p.2094)
The women are considered only as Reproductive Machines. They were oppressed and suppressed in this case.
Women had undergone lot of difficulties on the relations of incest. This has been clearly depicted in all the novels of Alice
Walker and Toni Morrison. The way they are treated like reproductive machines are best represented in their novels in the
women characters. The protagonist, Celie in the novel The Color Purple written by Alice Walker, is isolated and God is
the only person in her life. All the early letters are addressed to God and we find out that she has been betrayed and abused
by those who should have cared for her. Her natural father was murdered; her mother goes mad and dies. The least
attractive of the men is the stepfather, Alfonso who violates Celie at the age of fourteen, makes her pregnant twice. Pa
commits several forms of violence against Celie. Hes physically violent to her by raping her. He also causes emotional
damage by never showing any respect for her as a human being; he orders her around without ever saying anything kind to
her. He forces her to keep quiet about the way hes treating her. This can be noticed in the words of Celie:
He [Pa] never had a kine word to say to me. Just say You gonna do what your mammy wouldnt. First he put his
thing up gainst my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my
pussy. When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying You better shut up and git used to it.
But I dont never get used to it. And now I feels sick every time I be the one to cook. (4-5)
Her stepfather sets out to do the same to Nettie and she was prevented only by Celie's determination to offer
herself as a sacrifice to Albert instead of her sister. The Black Women were the entertainers of the Blacks, physically and
sexually. They treated them only as Reproductive Machines. Mary Agnes is a minor character - the woman Harpo takes up

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.4049

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

The Tussle of Black Women A Study in the Select Novels of Alice Walker and Toni Morriso

37

with after Sofia leaves him and who later goes off with Shug's ex-husband Grady to be a blues singer and drug dealer up
North. She endures the degradation of rape by her white "uncle" when she goes to him to help get Sofia released from jail
and shows that she, too, has a creative talent when it is discovered that she has a good blues singing voice.
In Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove, the protagonist of the novel, a poor black girl is a
troubled young girl with a hard life, whose parents are constantly fighting, both physically and verbally. Her father, Cholly,
is a drunk who was left with his aunt when he was young and ran away to find his father, who wanted nothing to do with
him. Both Pauline and Cholly eventually lost the love they once had for one another. Cholly comes home drunk one
afternoon and sees Pecola in the kitchen washing dishes. She reminds him for a moment of his wife, Pauline, and in a bit of
confusion and love, he rapes his daughter. He leaves her on the kitchen floor feeling ashamed and alone. His motives are
unclear and confusing, seemingly a combination of both love and hate. Cholly flees after the second time he rapes Pecola,
leaving her pregnant. In the end, Pecola's child is born prematurely and dies. The Men behave deplorably; acting in an
aggressive, often brutal way. They show little understanding of women, treating them as slaves, menial workers, sex
objects and Reproductive Machines. They seem also to have no solidarity, unlike the females, who band together to
support and console one another. The men in this novel seem to be incapable of bonding with one another and show little
evidence of communicating on anything other than a very basic, crude level. Pecolas body is sacrificed to Cholly for his
self-fulfillment. Women had been used by men and discarded when his satisfaction was secured. The Bluest Eye is based
on the lives of black women as it is written by a black woman. Toni Morrison has described the three things that have
greatly affected her life: being a child, being black, and being a girl. All the women characters are abused by both white
women and men and by black men.
Mary Helen Washingtons An Essay on Alice Walker seeks to explain the reasoning behind Walkers writings.
It also explains her vision of the multiple experiences of black women as a series of movements from women totally
victimized by society (39). As victims, Washington heralds the female characters in Walkers writings as using the
interior of their souls to deal with the universal problems of poverty, exploitation, and discrimination. Washingtons
discussion reveals a new reading of Walkers works, whereupon one studies directly the victimized African American
woman. The women in their novels were exploited both physically and emotionally. They were driven sometimes even to
madness. They were also the victims of physical violence and psychic violence. Lauren Berlants reading of The Color
Purple as expressed by Race Gender and Nation in The Color Purple analyzes Walkers depiction of the African
American woman and her attempt to depict the problem with patriarchal formation of nationalism and its ability to neglect
African American women. African American women are, once again, discussed in relation to their status below that of
white men, white women, and black men within the structures established by colonialism. Berlants article specifically
provides an example of Walkers characters and their ability to exemplify the struggle between the African American
woman and imperialism.
Josie's in Alice Walkers The Third Life of Grange Copeland, experiences of becoming pregnant at a young age
and being violently rejected by her father is the basis for some claims of her "minor" role as a victim. As a pregnant teen,
Josie experiences ultimate rejection from her father when she attempts to be forgiven and let back in his home.
The rejection is based on the vulnerability of her female biology and sexuality; in this experience she is a victim, but what
she does with this experience refutes that label. She has been punished by her father for the act that the men do and treat
the women as reproductive machines. Her father doesnt treat her as his daughter. He couldnt understand the

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R. Rajakumari & V. Ganesan

responsibilities of him. When she was physically and mentally injured he couldnt even harmonize with her for her
development. If he would have done his duty properly Josie wouldnt have become a prostitute later in the hands of Grange
and Brownfield. Josie lacks love and happiness: "She could grin with her face or laugh out of it or leer through it, but she
had forgotten the simple subtle mechanics of the smile" (Third Life 55).
Morrisons novel Sula, tells the story of Evas marriage to her husband Boy Boy will not last forever and has to
endure a miserable winter with three children and no money to provide for them. After Eva is abandoned by BoyBoy, she
takes drastic measures to ensure the survival of her three children and herself. Women struggle a lot to bring her children a
good life while men use women only as reproductive machines than anything else without showering love and affection.
After having sacrificed the last piece of land on relieving the constipated bowels of her baby son Plum, and contemplating
the misery she is in, she realizes that something has to be done:
She shook her head as though to juggle her brains around, then said aloud, Uh uh. Nooo. [] As the grateful
Plum slept, the silence allowed her to think. Two days later she left all of her children with Mrs. Suggs, saying she
would be back the next day (Sula 34).
Tashi in Possessing the secret of joy, who have undergone Female Genital Circumcision which was a tradition
in Africa struggles for survival. Walker illustrates the violence in this strong voiced character. Tashi grows up in a small
African village who initially escapes from the customary Clitorodectomy. Eventually, she is coerced into having the
operation and moves to United States of America with her husband Adam and assumes a new identity as Evenly Johnson.
This operation made her pain and anger, accumulating the suffering of the ages, bubble to the surface in a lingering
madness that therapy does not assuage and that finally culminates in the murder of the Tsunga. Dura, elder and favorite
sister of Tashi has died as a consequence of circumcision. She was bled to death because of the tradition. The physical
damages of the most severe form of FGC, infibulations, are explicitly described by walker through the character, Olivia.
Her final decision to undergo FGC shows her cultural self-determination and allegiance to the political cause of the
national liberation. As Tashi makes it clear, It is the cruelty of truth, speaking it, shouting it, that will save us now.
According to Tina Mcelroy Ansa, she not only has a scar between her legs, but one as deep on her psyche as well.
The circumcision has not only cut away her clitoris and the possibility of lovemaking that is not painful and humiliating. It
has eradicated her sense of self and her ability to feel. (Gates, Henry Louis 1993, 33).
Morrison has always been concerned about the unique positions of black women in American life and literature.
In Morrisons Sula, Friendship is the central force. It sustains the characters and gets them through some of the most
difficult times in their lives. But friendship is also complicated and difficult. It causes pain and heartache as friends develop
different understandings of what friendship actually means. Adult friendship can be decidedly more complicated than
childhood friendship in the novel. The girls are closely bonded in their childhood but are not really truthful with one
another in their adulthood. Even though they seem to need one another, they betray each other. Sula is delighted to come
back to Medallion after 10 years. Though Nel loves married life, she also loves Sulas presence. Sula made love with Jude,
Nels husband and succeeds in seducing him. Thus Jude leaves Nel. She can envision the future to be devoid of happiness
without Jude. Though Sula had sex with Jude, she treasures her friendship with Nel. To her sex is though pleasant and
frequent is unremarkable, unlike her remarkable friendship with Nel. Sula sleeps with Nels husband, breaking up the
marriage. Nels husband accepts her without thinking of his family. Sula has an independent life, proceeds in her own path
of freedom. In this course of freedom, she achieves nothing, yet destroyed herself but created a picture that she is a rare
Impact Factor (JCC): 4.4049

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

The Tussle of Black Women A Study in the Select Novels of Alice Walker and Toni Morriso

39

woman among the black woman community who have set of morals to follow to be a black woman. One sees failures of
loyalty as men leave their wives, family members and abandon each other. Things can also get confused and disrupted
when people don't operate from the same understanding of sex. The male characters use sex just for the physical
experience or as a means of dominating women.
Sethe in Toni Morrisons Beloved, slew her own daughter because she knew pretty well that to be a woman in
the times of slavery was a cardinal sin. She herself was subjected to this brutal assault. She was held down by two young
boys, one held her down while the other thieved her milk. Ella, an ex-slave, was similarly kept in a room and was
maltreated by the father and the son for several days. Baby Suggs, the mother-in-law of Sethe, had to barter herself in order
to ensure that her third born might not be auctioned away from her. Not just that, even Sethes own mother, as Nan told
her, was, along with her shipmates, constantly taken up by the crew. Sethe also had to surrender her body to an engraver in
order to engrave Beloved on the tomb of her dear daughter. Then, there are surmises in the community after Beloveds
advent that she is the same woman who was rumored to be imprisoned by a white man and who ran away when the white
man was found dead.
Alice Walker and Toni Morrison make the reader understand how the Black women who as woman and as Black
struggle for survival and undergo physical and psychological violence. Black women are deprived as black. They are
victims of a white patriarchal culture and victimized by black men. As black women, they are also victimized on racial,
sexual and class grounds by white men. They are the victims of both black patriarchy and white patriarchy.
Marginalization and Victimization are the perpetual suffering the protagonists undergo throughout the novels and they are
discriminated on the basis of race, religion, sex, class and caste. Walker and Toni Morrison reveal the major role that black
men and the White men play in the oppression of black women. They have produced works that contribute to the
transformation of society and address the cultural and spiritual needs of their community. They are much troubled about
their people and about the liberation. Hence, the black women writers cannot limit themselves to issues of femaleness but
they extend their vision to issues raised by their humanity. These are writers who are equally concerned and serious about
the issues of the people of their region, religion, race, gender and social status. Their works reflect the plight of their people
with the motif of relieving them from the oppressed state. The protagonists in the novels of them are in chaos in finding an
order.
REFERENCES
1.

Walker, Alice. The Third Life of Grange Copeland. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.1970. Print.

2.

___________. The Color Purple. New York: Pocket Books, 1983. Print.

3.

___________ . Possessing the Secret of Joy. New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. Print.

4.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Penguin Group, 1987. Print.

5.

___________. The Bluest Eye. New York: Penguin Group, 1994. Print

6.

___________. Sula. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1973. Print.

7.

Berlant, Lauren. Race, Gender, and Nation in The Color Purple. Critical Inquiry. 14.4 (1988): 831-859. JSTOR. 15 July
2009. Web. www.jstor.org

8.

Gates, Henry Louis and Nellie Y. McKay. Eds. The Norton Anthology of African American

9.

Literature. New York and London: Norton, 1977.

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R. Rajakumari & V. Ganesan

10. ___________. Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004. Print.
11. Walker Alice: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Eds. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and K. A. Appiah. New York: Amistad, 1993.
37-49. Print.
12. Washington, Mary Helen. An Essay on Alice Walker. Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Eds. Henry
Louis Gates Jr. and K. A. Appiah. New York: Amistad, 1993. 37-49. Print.

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.4049

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0