Purple Lady a Lost Lady

Purple Lady A Lost Lady & the Color Purple The Color Purple and A Lost Lady are two books about women, written by women. As a result, these two seminal works have a distinct feminine appeal.

That is they explore the plight of women during an age when women were considered, for lack of a better expression, "second class citizens" and they are written in a way that reflects a keen understanding of the struggle women have faced, and in many cases continue to face, to gain social justice and universal respect. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the protagonists (Mrs.

Forrester is more of the object of the main character's affection) in The Color Purple and A Lost Lady to explore how these women are both trapped by their gender and limited by their social station. In The Color Purple, the main character Celie has lived her whole life under the iron fist of despicable men. First her stepfather, who rapes her and physically abuses her, and then her husband, Mr. Johnson, who also mistreats her in much of the same way.

Celie details her abuse in her daily letters to God. She writes, "He beat me today cause he say I winked at a boy in church. I may have got somethin in my eye but I didn't wink. I don't even look at mens. That's the truth. I look at women, tho, cause I'm not scared of them. Maybe cause my mama cuss me you think I kept mad at her. But I ain't. I felt sorry for mama. Trying to believe his story kilt her" (Walker 5).

This is a great passage because it discloses not only the physical abuse Celie has endured, but also the mental and emotional abuse that she, as well as her mother, has been exposed to. In that passage, both forms of abuses, mental and emotional, are manifested in several ways. For starters, Celie's tone is blunt and matter-of-fact. She's not hysterical, i.e.

"he beat me!" Instead, she languidly recounts why her stepfather beat her that day, which suggests she's become inured to physical abuse and raises the question, if he beat you today for allegedly winking at a boy, what did he beat you yesterday for? The reader can assume that someone who is mentally and emotionally stable would not be numb and almost indifferent to physical violence. Moreover, Celie's admission that she's afraid to look at 'mens' is telling.

She's afraid to look at men because she has been brought up to see the world as belonging to men. Through all her maltreatment, Celie has come to believe that she is just an object to these men, that she is something to be possessed, owned, and exploited -- like chattel.

And lastly, Celie's note about her mother's demise shows how maddening it is to accept a reality where women are objectified, "Trying to believe his story kilt her." That is to say, trying to accept an alternate reality filled with lies like, "hey, Celie you winked at that boy" or to believe that one's gender is inferior to another's, is what caused Celie's mom to lose her grip on reality (it's also what caused Winston Smith to submit to big brother).

In short, it's mentally and emotionally taxing to grow up believing physical abuse is warranted, objectification of women is normal, and whatever a man says happened, happened. Thankfully, in later chapters, Celie slowly starts to become disabused of these ideas. In A Lost Lady Mrs. Marian Forrester is an aristocrat. And, therefore, she is not subjected to some of the personal atrocities that Celie is subjected to (i.e., Mrs. Forrester's babies are stolen from her and presumably murdered by her stepfather). Nevertheless, like Celie, Mrs.

Forrester lives in an era where men objectify women. Like Celie, she is something to be possessed. "If she merely bowed to you, merely looked at you, it constituted a personal relation. Something about her took hold of one in a flash; one became acutely conscious of her, of her fragility and grace, of her mouth which could say so much without words; of her eyes, lively, laughing, intimate, nearly always a little mocking" -- this is how the Neil Herbert describes Mrs. Forrester (Cather 38).

From the description, it's clear that she is something to behold, that she has an impact on one's conscious. But, the reader will also notice the words that are used to articulate her essence, "fragility," "grace," the sensual quality of her eyes and mouth, "intimate," are often used to express traditional feminine stereotypes (women are weaker then men, women should submit to men, women should be dominated by men, etc.). The reader can assume that Neil's attraction to Mrs. Forrester is based off of her feminine mystique.

But implicit in that mystique is an element of vulnerability ("fragility") that reinforces the notion that men should possess women. As with Celie, Mrs. Forrester has grown to accept the "this is a man's world" disposition. And like Celie, she believes that submitting to men is the way in.