In search of the spontaneous gesture: the subjectivation of the black woman in The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

Abstract

Starting from the dialogue between literature and psychoanalysis, this article aims to present a possible reading of the novel The color purple, by Alice Walker, according to the Winnicottian maturational theory. In this novel, Walker introduces to the sad story of Celie, a young black woman violently prevented from living with her children and sister. Married to a violent man, Celie lives as if she doesn’t exist. The oppressive and violent environment described by Walker illustrates well the environmental failures that Winnicott considers present in the constitution of the false self. In contrast, the construction of the true self, characterized by creativity and “spontaneous gesture”, presupposes a process of subjectification marked by an affective and “sufficiently good” experience of otherness. In this sense, it is possible to understand the transformations experienced by Celie in her encounter with Shug Avery, in order to experience her own femininity. The experience of the human encounter enables processes of resignification and the elaboration of environmental failures, therefore, processes of emotional development. In this novel, the time of the narrative reveals the time of human maturation, standing out, alongside the social criticism, the relationship of male and female components that integrate being and doing as fundamental and constitutive dimensions of the self.