N°019_Vol.1_20

Introduction: Modernization has dealt a considerable blow to traditional black values indispensable for the well-being of black people and their societies. Indeed, with modernity, traditional black values have undergone a considerable negative change or decline which does not leave black women writers indifferent, including Alice Walker. So, this African American female novelist goes through black characterization in her three novels, namely The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), The Color Purple (1982) and Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), to denounce and deplore the decline in fundamental black traditional values while calling for their restoration for a more ethical, supportive, humanistic and honest black societies. Yet, some black critics have vociferously attacked Walker on her representation of black characters. Indeed, they have condemned the novelist for the representation of black men’s brutality towards their wives in the three studied novels, the portrayal of Alphonso, in The Color Purple, who repetitively rapes and impregnates his stepdaughter, Celie, who bluntly retells her rape in black folk English, and the projection of Tashi whose life is destroyed, in Possessing the Secret of Joy, by an African cultural practice which is excision. So, black characters’ portrayals have been said to be (sexually) immoral and demean Blacks along with their culture. By the same token, Walker (2005: 55) attests in Living by the Word: “I learned that a certain Mrs. Green had objected to having her daughter, Donna, read The Color Purple [at school]. In her opinion the book was too sexually explicit, presented a stereotyped view of blacks, and degraded black people by its ‘exposure’ of their folk language”. Presumably, Mrs. Green refused that her daughter read The Color Purple at school because, for her, its reading would instill a bad (sexual) education and the negative perception of the black race into her. Thereby, she overlooked the novel’s significant contribution to young black pupils’ good (sexual) education through its promotion of sexual abstinence or restraint, solidarity, humanism and honesty. Apart from Mrs. Green, many other black critics have dealt with Walker’s negative projection of Blacks and their culture.

 Referring to Walker’s devaluing of African ritual practice—excision—through Tashi’s characterization, in Possessing the Secret of Joy, Larson (in Gates & Appiah, 1993: 28) maintains: “The description of the excision [of Tashi] itself and its aftereffect is graphic enough to make one gag […] Walker and many others rationally believe that the cultural intent of such mutilation is absolutely clear: the denial of pleasure for women from all sexual activity”. It goes without saying that, just like Tashi in Possessing the Secret of Joy, excision has destroyed the lives of so many black women worldwide. With regard to many Blacks’ ignorance about this harmful cultural practice and its persistence, the author can be understood when she shocks to sensitize by making readers gag through the portrayal of Tashi’s excision and its aftershock. In any case, Tashi’s portrayal is made to open black people’s eyes on the danger of girls’ excision, hoping to save girls from it. The following hopeful declaration of the novelist in Warrior Marks corroborates: “I believe with all my heart that there is at least one little baby girl born somewhere on the planet today who will not know the pain of genital mutilation because of my work. And that in this one instance, at least, the pen will prove mightier than the circumciser’s knife” (Walker & Parmar, 1993: 25). No wonder, female genital mutilation is practiced in black patriarchal society which valorizes black masculinity treated in Walker’s studied novels.

Talking about black critics’ reaction against Walker’s representation of black masculinity in The Third Life and The Color Purple, Lister (2010: 4) writes: “[…] some critics raised questions about [The Third Life’s] treatment of black masculinity: a concern that would resurface continually in readings of Walker’s later work and reached fever pitch with the publication of The Color Purple”. Black masculinity, which is a black cultural fact, includes, among others, violence, dominance, severity, and hyper sexuality. So, it does not only harm black men’s lives but also those of women and children, an observation grounding Walker’s portrayals of some black men in her studied works, namely Alphonso and Albert in The Color Purple, Torabe in Possessing the Secret of Joy as well as Grange and Brownfield in The Third Life. Anyway, Walker does not reflect black masculinity in these black male characters to tarnish black men’s image or reinforce racial stereotypes against them, as hooks (in Gates & Appiah, 1993: 288) and Harris (1984: 156) think, but to draw their attention on the necessity to change for their own well-being and that of the whole black community. In this respect, “Catherine A. Colton reads The Color Purple as a rhetorical work, that is, as an illustration of language whose aim is the effect [of] a change” (Okoye-Ugwu & Ede, 2021: 3). Thereby, Walker’s depiction of black men or black masculinity in her fiction is for a good cause and should not be an issue at all within the black critical world.

It emerges from all the above criticisms that Walker negatively portrays Blacks and their culture. However, one can safely claim that these criticisms abound because their advocates have failed so far to ask the appropriate questions on Walker’s novels. To fill this gap, my analysis goes from the following questions: What types of declines in the modern black community are represented through black characters in Walker’s studied novels? Why does the novelist depict these declines in her selected novels? To answer these research questions I put forth two hypotheses: First, Walker represents the declining traditional sexual morality and cultural values within the modern black community through black characters. Second, she depicts these declines to invite contemporary black people to revive core traditional black sexual and cultural values that are indispensable to their survival. The aim of this paper is to show that Walker’s black characterization reflects the decline in black sexual morality and traditional cultural values in order to promote their return for the well-being of Blacks and their societies. To achieve the aforementioned aim, the study uses a combined critical approach based on postcolonial and Rosenblatt’s transactional reader-response theories. Explaining her theory, Rosenblatt (1988: 6) writes: “‘The meaning’ does not reside ready-made in the text or in the reader but happens during the transaction between reader and text”. Talking about postcolonial theory, Klages (2012: 66) elucidates: “Much postcolonial literary theory examines how authors deal with the issues and contradictions of life in formerly colonized cultures”. So, this theory will be the appropriate lens through which one will clearly perceive the way Walker deals with life problems and paradoxes in the contemporary and postcolonial black cultures. Black characters’ analysis reveals that the novelist highlights, first, the decadence in traditional sexual morality within the modern black society in order to call for the restoration of sexual abstinence or restraint. Then, she explores the decline in traditional black cultural values in order to advocate for the revival of solidarity, humanism and honesty.