Day 13 Issues 2/19/02
1. Names. Exams for those who missed last time. A few topical statements back, yet. Some adjustments in the schedule: please throw away the other one and use this! IMPORTANT!
2. Where do we go today? I think we’ll break into groups again, around those who did responses for today. Some discussion of the book, some of the issues that we’re encountering, especially domestic violence and abuse. I have my laptop, if some groups want to look at web sites for the day.
In each group: talk about your response and issues you discussed. Many raised very good questions, sometimes ones that you weren’t sure about the answers to. How did others in the group respond to those issues? What particular passages of the text seem most important to them?
Come back with two or three questions to discuss, and passages that relate to them.
Other issues that come up: how women resist, how they become empowered.
Lesbianism, and to what extent Celie is a “real” lesbian and to what extent she’s just desperate for love and human connection.
The law and the justice system. Sophia’s experience, especially, in which race is a crucial factor. She gets in trouble mainly because she refuses to be a “good,” subservient black woman, doesn’t she? This issue of justice is ongoing. This morning the state of Ohio executed Robert Byrd, a poor white man convicted of killing a man 18 years ago.
To think about for next time: religion in Color Purple.
“The Color Purple was published in 1982. It received much attention and praise and was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award that year. Walker described The Color Purple in the following ways:
|
The Color Purple is "a theological work examining
the journey from the religious back to the spiritual." |
|
[The Color Purple] "is the pagan
transformation of God from patriarchal male supremacist into trees, stars,
wind and everything else. . .." |
|
[The Color Purple's] intent [is] to explore the
difficult path of someone who starts out in life already a spiritual captive,
but who, through her own courage and the help of others, breaks free into the
realization that she, like Nature itself, is a radiant expression of the
heretofore perceived as quite distant Divine." |
http://www.uwyo.edu/wch/bdpguidecp.htm
Angel Lombardo
The link I found was under “woman haters”
www.theabsolute.net/minefield/misc.html#guide. This man tries to explain to other men how to understand a woman. Yeah, he has it all figured out. It is like the blind leading the blind.
Brad Immel
One website I found was at http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~melindaj/bio.html. It is a biography of Alice Walker.
Adam Drake
http://www.afsc.org/pwork/1200/122k05.htm this site is about the future of black america and how it's going to get a lot shorter if the judicial system doesn't do something about the racial effect on incarceration.
Lisa Langood
I found a web site that lists some horrifying statistics on family violence at http://endabuse.org/programs/display.php3?DocID=77. What has changed is how these issues are dealt with. There are now laws against discrimination against someone’s race, gender, or religion. Child abusers and wife beaters can be put in jail. . . . I found various groups for incest survivors on the Internet. V.O.I.C.E.S. in Action, found at http://www.voices-action.org/index.html is one such group. The organization reports on what is being done to protect children, and allows incest survivors to share their stories. She could also find help to deal with domestic violence. The Family Violence Prevention Fund at http://endabuse.org/index2.php3 provides a lot of info dealing with this issue.
Jill Kerlin
This is a useful resource when reading the book. It gives character analyses and overviews of the letters: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/purple/context.html. This website has no real content, but does have some interesting questions to think about: http://www.uwyo.edu/wch/bdpguidecp.htm. This website gives statistics on domestic violence: http://www.dvsheltertour.org/fact.html#widespread. The book focuses on the abuse of African Americans, but I was interested to discover that domestic violence occurs equally among African American and Caucasian women.
Erika Keegan
http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/walker.html
In your group:
1.
The person who responded for the day should talk about your response and the
specific issues you discussed. Many raised very good questions, sometimes ones
that you weren’t sure about the answers to.
2.
How did/do others in the group respond to those issues? What particular
passages of the text relate most closely? Look at some of those passages again.
Have some discussion. If you like, look at some of the web sites people found
for today.
3.
What other issues/questions arise as you talk? What did others in the group
find important/interesting/puzzling in today’s reading?
4.
Come back with two or three questions you want to raise for discussion with the
whole class, and passages in the text that relate to them.
To
think about for next time: religion in Color Purple.
Some quotes from Alice
Walker:
|
The
Color Purple is "a theological work examining the journey from the
religious back to the spiritual." |
|
[The
Color Purple] "is the pagan transformation of God from patriarchal male
supremacist into trees, stars, wind and everything else. . .." |
|
[The
Color Purple's] intent [is] to explore the difficult path of someone who
starts out in life already a spiritual captive, but who, through her own
courage and the help of others, breaks free into the realization that she,
like Nature itself, is a radiant expression of the heretofore perceived as
quite distant Divine." |