Producing a Womanist Text: The Maternal as Signifier in Alice Walker's 'The Color Purple.'

Janet J. Montelaro. ELS Monograph Series 70. Victoria: U of Victoria, 1996.96 pp. $12.00.

Reviewed by

Mary Margaret Richards Wofford College 

This monograph offers useful comments on Walker's use of the maternal in The Color Purple. Montelaro's argument grows in force and power as the book progresses. Her introduction, in which she establishes her critical principles, is overladen with critical jargon. Her first chapter, focusing on Walker's discussion of her own creative work and her connection with her ancestors, both biological and literary, is clearer but fairly obvious to any reader of the essays. Her second and third chapters are the heart of her argument and the best parts of the book.

Chapter two focuses closely on the maternal relationships in the novel itself. Here Montelaro goes beyond what previous critics have said about the novel, showing where their analyses fall short of exploring Walker's complexity in presenting many variations of the maternal. She points out that women in the novel are compelled "to nurture and rear children as a result of their oppression by a patriarchal society and the corollary social violence of racism" and that in the novel there is a "recurring pattern" of "forced separation of the mother from her children." The community of females that develops in the course of the novel "occurs as a result of events circumscribed by maternal activity"-that is, women help each other rear the children, no matter who actually gave birth to them, and create a sisterly bond as a result.

Chapter three is perhaps the most interesting section of the book. Here Montelaro focuses on Nettie's letters from Africa, making two main points: first, that "the most distinguishing theme" of this section has to do with the identity of Adam and Olivia's mother, and, second, that Walker makes use of Jane Eyre as a way of discussing imperialism and colonialism. Montelaro locates the major crisis of the African portion of the book in Corrine's belief that Nettie is in fact Adam and Olivia's mother, and couples this "crisis of faith" with Corrine's loss of faith in her missionary work and the displacement of the Olinka people by rubber plantations owned by Europeans. She points out that, rather than interrupting and distorting Walker's narrative, Nettie's letters "align the domestic imperialism of Albert's and Alfonso's households with the problem of a religious evangelization that helps aggrandize Western power on the African continent." It is important that both Nettie and Celie are ultimately able to conceive of God in a way that is not patriarchal and imperialist - Nettie, by rejecting any visual image of God and by using the creation narratives of the Olinka, and Celie, with Shug's assistance, by thinking of God in universal, maternal, and erotic metaphors.

In the second part of this chapter Montelaro discusses the parallels between Walker's book and Jane Eyre. I think it unfortunate that Montelaro uses the term parody to describe the relationship, since there is no humor involved in Walker's use of the earlier novel; irony would be a more accurate term. Montelaro's more important point is that Walker challenges the canon which includes fane Eyre and in doing so questions "such nineteenth-century feminine 'ideals' as marriage, motherhood, and domesticity" as well as "the 'authority' of canonical works that exalted these virtues." Montelaro points out that in many ways Nettie resembles Jane; Corrine, the mad wife; and Samuel, both Mr. Rochester and St. John Rivers. Walker's point is that evangelism and colonialism are intertwined; clearly, Montelaro is correct in making this connection. She goes on to use Gayatri Spivak's reading of fane Eyre to provide a context for her own comments about The Color Purple, thus strengthening her argument about the parallels between the two novels. Certainly Montelaro is correct in terming The Color Purple "revisionist," "postmodern," and "political," even though such conclusions are not the most important ones to be reached here.

This slight volume shows Walker's detailed analysis of African American motherhood and her questioning of the assumptions about motherhood found in canonical nineteenth-century British fiction. Further studies might build on Montelaro's work to examine Walker's use of other novels - such as Richardson's Pamela - in writing The Color Purple.