How Identity Is Presented In TCP And Sula

Identity is a factor that the characters of both texts lack due to their oppressive states. Oppression which hinders the characters from attaining their self-identity. It is through the relationships that the characters form with each other is what enables them to attain their sense of self.

Before Celie had met Shug she had no sense of self. She didn’t truly understand the real concept of love or what it meant to be loved. Shug then becomes Celie’s lover, sister, mother, who helps Celie to recover her own sexuality, spirituality, and voice. Shug also helps Celie escape patriarchal control as she tells Albert to stop beating her and he complies. This suggests that Shug is a key component that has enabled the liberation of Celie from the male control. Sofia’s relationship with Celie has also ensured her emancipation from patriarchal control. Sofa is strong willed and independent and is viewed by Celie as a role model. She constantly engages in physical fights with her husband signifying her refusal to succumb to patriarchal conventions. Sofia even refuses to submit to societal conventions such as submitting to the white man as she refuses to work for the mayor’s wife. Sula’s relationship with Nel allows provides both girls with a sense of self-discovery. As four Irish schoolboys attempt to harass the two girls as a sign of asserting their racial superiority. But together they are able to stand their ground and force them away which Nel was unable to do at first which proves that they need each other to overcome any adversity that comes their way. The lack of maternal guidance in their lives means that they almost rely on each other for this. Nel and Sula both go out to discover men together based on societies perception that women are incomplete without a man. This is an example of the two girls coming to terms with their social identity together. The lack of Sula’s relationship with her mother causes her to stray from what is morally correct and as a result of this her identity suffers. Sula’s relationship with Nel made up her identity Harpo ast his daddy why he beat me. Mr. _______ say, Cause he my wife. Plus, she stubborn. All women good for—he don’t finish. He just tucks his chin over the paper like he do.

Remind me of Pa

“We sleep like sisters”. “She say, I love you, Miss Celie. And then she haul off and kiss me on the mouth”. “This song I’m bout to sing is call Miss Celie’s song”. Shug: More than anything God love admiration. Celie: You saying God is vain? Shug: No, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off when you walk by the colour purple in a field and don't notice it”I say it cause I’m a fool, I say. I say it cause I’m jealous of you. I say it cause you do what I can’t. What that? she say. Fight. I say. She say, All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men“Would you like to work for me, be my maid? Sofia say, Hell no. ”"unshaped, formless things" who "found relief in each other's personality". "The healthy Sula-Nel has what each lacks alone". “One day Sula hears her mother say I love Sula. I just don’t like her”. “These particular boys caught Nel once and pushed her from hand to hand until they grew tired of her frightened helpless face”. “If I can do that to myself, what you suppose I’ll do to you?”“The theme they were now discovering was men”. Going to find “beautiful black boys”. Which was only fitting, for it was in dreams that the two girls had first me“I’m gitting tired of Harpo, [Sofia] say. All he think about since us married is how to make me mind. He don’t want a wife, he want a dog,”

Social Values or Expectations

Societal values and expectations has the ability to form a segment or the entirety of one’s identity. However, some of the characters in both texts do not acquiesce to societal principles suggesting that one’s social setting doesn’t have the ability to mould one’s identity.