Named
and Namelessness: Alice Walker’s Pattern of Surnames in The Color Purple By: Charles
J. Heglar
The main
point of this scholarly article is to explain why Alice Walker decided to keep
most of the men nameless for the majority of the book. Charles says that the
reason Walker did this was, “to draw attention to her examination of male
dominance; on the other hand, in the few cases when she supplies a surname for
a character, Walker indicates an alternative to such domination.” (Charles pg.
1) According to Charles, Walker withholds the men’s surnames in order to
diminish their patriarchal authority. By the end of the book, Albert is referred
to by his first name once he makes his transformation, humanizing him. Samuel
is referred to by his first name quicker than Albert because his concept of God
becomes less Eurocentric while in Africa with Nettie. When looking at the
women, which is where most of the article focuses on, they are given surnames
to establish an alternative to male domination. When looking at Shug Avery and
Sofia Butler, they are given surnames because they are able to break away from
the imposed stereotypes given to them by society and be models for others, like
Celie. Lastly, when looking at a character introduced briefly early on in the
book, Miss Addie Beasley, she is given a surname because of her influence on
Nettie wanting to become an educated woman. Although Beasley couldn’t help
Celie once she found out she was pregnant, she helps one of the major
characters in the book.
I found
this article and perspective on the namelessness of the male figures very
interesting. We talked in class on our thoughts and opinions on why Albert wasn’t
named by Celie and the majority of us thought it was to give Albert power, not
to take his power and authority away. I can say I was one who thought the
namelessness, was, in fact, to give the men power. I was intrigued by this
article and the viewpoints Charles has on this aspect of the story. His
thoughts on the surnames of the women though I think I agree with because it
makes sense that the two most influential people to Celie and the most
influential person to Nettie are the ones who have surnames. They are the only
women in the story that really challenge the typical roles and behaviors of
women of this time period.
When looking
at Sparknotes, the author did not do a general analysis on the book as a whole,
they broke it up into the different letters sent. So I am going to choose to
look at the letters at the very end of the book where Celie is in her final
letters with Nettie and is dealing with life without Shug, who ran off with a man
a third of her age. The author of Sparknotes analyzes this part of the book by
thinking that, in her final letters, Celie is able to show how much she has
developed since the beginning of the book. She is able to analyze her own
feelings, which she was not able to do effectively at the beginning of the
story. The author feels that since Walker keeps the element of writing a key
component in Celie’s growth and redemption, she is underlying the very
importance of literacy in African-Americans. Since there is a difference in the
writing levels between Nettie and Celie, Celie still gains much out of her writing.
Walker wanted this to be noticed to show that writing is important and
educational levels should not be used as a barrier between people, but used as
something to bring them closer together.
I do
agree with this author on the fact that, through writing, Celie is able to show
just how much she has grown and how much she has learned throughout her life. Even
though she is not as smart or as educated as her sister, I feel that Celie did
get more out of writing than Nettie. I feel that Nettie used it simply to get
in touch with Celie, yet Celie used to as a way to let her feelings out that
she couldn’t necessarily tell other people, or she was told she couldn’t tell
other people. Celie used writing as an escape, not just to keep in touch with
Nettie, since she didn’t start addressing her letters to Nettie until the end
of the book, where in the beginning she addressed them to God.
These two
websites and articles are VERY different and in many ways. The website analysis
was more general and covered a lot more topics. The scholarly article focused
on one thought and one theme, if you will, in the book. I found the scholarly
article to be the strongest, most interesting and most engaging simply because
Charles went into more detail on why he analyzed that part of the book the way
he did. I found his article to be very intriguing and I actual sat down and
read the whole thing. (That says a lot!) I feel like Sparknotes is very removed
from the analysis and Charles article was more involved. Sparknotes’ analysis didn’t
challenge the interpretation I already made, but Charles did, in fact, challenge
how I viewed the reason why the men were nameless. It definitely made me look
at the book in a new light, and think more abstractly about that part of the
book. After thinking about it, I don’t know if I agree with, by not naming the
men, it takes away their power, simply given the time period. But I do respect
his analysis. I never took notice that the three women who challenge the patriarchal
“norm” are given surnames and after reading Charles’ article, I do agree with
his statement that it takes away from the male dominance.
