The women faced not only racial discrimination but also sexual oppression, which made their existence there generally arduous, painful, and sometimes dangerous. Both sexes struggled to define their family roles within the only context available, that of white society. But "traditional" white family roles often proved inappropriate, or difficult to apply, in the situations in which blacks found themselves. For instance, white society demanded that men act as family authority figures. Yet black men found their self-respect challenged and undercut by racism every day in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Without a stable sense of self-respect, authority proved elusive and the result was sometimes behavior that verged on tyranny. In The Color Purple, Celie's father and husband both illustrate this psychological phenomenon. Her father (later revealed as her stepfather) mistreats her and her sister, raping Celie repeatedly and fathering her two children before selling her to her husband, who also abuses her mentally and physically. Such behavior, though by no means universal, was not an isolated phenomenon. The black woman fell victim to abuses by both white assailants and black ones.
The sexual assault of black women was so prevalent... after slavery ended that outraged black women and men wrote articles...
This is a free page. This page contains 195 words. This
article contains 3,988 words (approx. 13 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our The Color Purple Access Pass.
