This article investigates the role of shame in shaping the epistolary form and aesthetic structur... more This article investigates the role of shame in shaping the epistolary form and aesthetic structure of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. I argue that the epistolary framing presents a crisis in the development of Celie’s shamed self-consciousness. To explain the connection between shame and Celie’s self-consciousness, I build on Jean Paul Sartre’s theory of existentialism and explore three phases of Celie’s evolution as it is represented in three phrases that I identify as significant transitions in the text: “I am,” “But I’m here,” and “It mine.” The first section examines how shame fractures Celie’s self-consciousness; the second focuses on how Celie positions and locates herself in the world; and the third explains how Celie mobilizes shame by connecting her self-consciousness to a past that is shameful but also generative. I conclude by considering the novel’s emergence in the Cosby/Reagan era in order to illuminate the mutual constitution of black familial pride and black racial shame.
This article investigates the role of shame in shaping the epistolary form and aesthetic structur... more This article investigates the role of shame in shaping the epistolary form and aesthetic structure of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. I argue that the epistolary framing presents a crisis in the development of Celie’s shamed self-consciousness. To explain the connection between shame and Celie’s self-consciousness, I build on Jean Paul Sartre’s theory of existentialism and explore three phases of Celie’s evolution as it is represented in three phrases that I identify as significant transitions in the text: “I am,” “But I’m here,” and “It mine.” The first section examines how shame fractures Celie’s self-consciousness; the second focuses on how Celie positions and locates herself in the world; and the third explains how Celie mobilizes shame by connecting her self-consciousness to a past that is shameful but also generative. I conclude by considering the novel’s emergence in the Cosby/Reagan era in order to illuminate the mutual constitution of black familial pride and black racial shame.
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Articles by Kimberly Love