MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English Language and Literature Coping Strategies of Women Characters in Alice Walker's The Color Purple Master's Thesis Brno 2020 Supervisor: Author: Mgr. Pavla Buchtová Bc. Jana Mühlfeitová Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis is my own, that I worked on it independently and that I used only the sources listed in the bibliography. Prohlášení Prohlašuji, že jsem závěrečnou diplomovou práci vypracoval samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných pramenů, dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů. Bc. Jana Mühlfeitová Brno………………………. ……………………………….. 2 Acknowledgements: I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Pavla Buchtová for her patience, support and kind guidance during my work on the thesis. I would also like to thank my family for their encouragement and faith. 3 Anotace: Cílem této diplomové práce je sledovat čtyři hlavní ženské postavy z románu Alice Walker The Color Purple (v českém překladu Barva Nachu). Práce se zaměřuje na popis a analýzu způsobů, kterými se tyto ženy vyrovnávají s obtížemi ve svém životě. Tyto způsoby se nazývají strategie zvládání. Práce si klade za cíl ukázat, že individuální volba strategií, které používají, vychází z jejich odlišných osobností, životních zkušeností a je v souladu s konceptem jejich sebepojetí. Práce také ukazuje, že tyto strategie se mohou vyvíjet a měnit. Sleduje také motivy a události, které takovou změnu umožňují. Práce se snaží ukázat, že všechny tyto změny jsou přirozené a jejich kořeny lze dohledat. Klíčová slova: Afro-americké ženy, strategie zvládání zátěžových situací, životní zkušenosti, vývoj 4 Annotation: The aim of this diploma thesis is to observe the four main female characters from Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple. The focus of the thesis is to describe and analyse the ways these women use to cope with difficulties in their life. These ways are called coping strategies. The thesis aims to show that the individual choice of coping strategies they use is based on their different personalities, life experiences and are in accordance with the concept of their self-value. The thesis also show that these strategies may develop and change. It also traces the motives and events that enable such change. The thesis aims to show that these changes are natural and their roots are traceable. Key words Afro-American women, coping strategies, life experiences, development, 5 Contents: Introduction: ............................................................................................................. 8 1 The Color Purple and Coping ...................................................................................... 11 1.1 Alice Walker, Focus on Relationships ............................................................... 11 1.2 The Novel and its Reception .............................................................................. 14 1.3. The Time and the Themes ................................................................................. 17 1.4. Coping Strategies .............................................................................................. 22 2 The Black Women Characters ..................................................................................... 25 2.1. The Submissive ................................................................................................. 26 2.1.1 Celie, from Existing to Living ................................................................ 27 2.1.2 Celie's Troubled Childhood ................................................................... 27 2.1.3 Someone to Talk to ............................................................................... 29 2.1.4 The Sisterhood ....................................................................................... 31 2.1.5 Leaving the Christian God ..................................................................... 35 2.1.6 Nettie, the Lucky One ........................................................................... 38 2.1.7 Nettie's Childhood ................................................................................ 39 2.1.8 Nettie's Double Flight ........................................................................... 40 2.1.9 Nettie on a Mission-a Decent Young Lady is Born .............................. 42 2.2 The Fighters ...................................................................................................... 44 2.2.1 Shug, the Heartbreaker ......................................................................... 45 6 2.2.2 From Lilly to Shug ................................................................................. 45 2.2.3 Troubles with Albert ............................................................................ 48 2.2.4 Encounter with Celie ............................................................................ 50 2.2.5. Shug and her Faith ............................................................................... 52 2.2.6 Sofia the Fighter .................................................................................... 56 2.2.7 Sofia’s Family ........................................................................................ 57 2.2.8 Sofia and Harpo ................................................................................... 58 2.2.9 Sofia and the White Man’s World ......................................................... 61 3 Conclusion: .................................................................................................................. 67 Works Cited: ................................................................................................................... 72 7 Introduction: The aim of this thesis Coping Strategies of Women Characters in Alice Walker's The Color Purple is to observe four individual women characters in the novel and focus on the different ways they use in dealing with difficulties. The thesis introduces the basics of the theory of coping; however, it does not intend to provide a specific psychological analysis of these characters. The main focus of the analysis is to show the factual ways of coping of these individual women, as they are pictured in the novel, and trace the possible root-causes of their unique strategies. As the characters sometimes evolve and change, the thesis also seeks to discover the triggers leading to such development and change. My first encounter with The Color Purple was through the famous film directed by Steven Spielberg. I remember that it happened one Sunday afternoon, many years ago. I switched on the TV and the film was on. When I started watching, it was already halfway through; however, I liked it so much that when I found out that it was based on a novel, I went to a bookshop and bought it. I loved it. It was sincere, wise and thought-provoking. It spoke about the essential life issues in a clear, simple way. It did not pretend anything. I especially liked the way Walker pictured her women characters. I found them authentic and relatable. Thus, when I was about to choose a topic for my Diploma Thesis, The Color Purple was at the top of my list. The novel has been loved by many; however, it has also been a subject to strong criticism. While I was going through those numerous research papers written about the novel, I realized that the main problem might be, that some 8 scholars stubbornly need to put the novel into a category. Some try to see it as a historical novel and then are confused by historical inaccuracies and factual mistakes. Other scholars want to see Black-Afro American novel and then are surprised that the novel’s main concerns are not racial issues but rather problems within the Afro-American community. In the theses, I would like to draw attention to what I see as the main assets of the book. I want to focus on individual women characters, their different personalities and different fates, on encounters and relationships that play such an important role in their personal development. I realized that the major differences among the individual characters are in the way they approach life difficulties. Therefore, I decided to study these differences and try to find what had caused them. There are two main parts of the thesis. The first part introduces the author and the novel and also presents an overview of the theory of coping and lists major categories of coping strategies. This first part is divided into four chapters. The first chapter focuses on the author of the novel. It aims to show the possible motives that lead Alice Walker to making the life challenges of Afro-American women one of the main focuses of her work. The following two chapters are concerned with the novel The Color Purple. Firstly, the thesis presents different opinions and controversies that have followed the novel and also gives reasons why the author of this thesis believes that the novel deserves its recognition. The following chapter describes the setting of the novel and introduces the main themes and topics which the novel deals with. The last, fourth, chapter of this introductory part focuses on the theory of coping. It gives a brief explanation of the term and lists the most common categories used to describe differences in individual ways of coping. It also introduces a theory suggesting that the ways in which Afro-Americans