Harpo as a Contradiction of Prevalent Stereotypes, Kirthana Ganesh 1313291

Kirthana Ganesh 1313291

Dr. Arya Aiyappan

American Literatures- The Color Purple

August 28, 2014

Harpo as a Contradiction of Prevalent Stereotypes

Alice Walker’s ‘The Color Purple’ is a critically acclaimed, Pulitzer prize-winning novel about a young black woman’s journey of self-discovery and independence, set in the Jazz Age South. Although Celie is the protagonist of the novel, and the novel itself is primarily female-centric, it is important to understand the males in the story, as each of them is specifically tailored to emphasize the feminism in the story. This essay will therefore focus on the character of Harpo, Celie’s stepson, and how his characterization is significant in the context of breaking stereotypes.

Harpo’s character initially seems to be quite insignificant, since he is only one of Mr. ___’s children and Celie has no feelings about him. However, as the plot progresses, his character has a story-line of its own, which develops from the moment he falls in love with Sofia. In Sofia’s character, we see all those qualities that a woman ‘should not’ possess; she is physically well-built, not at all submissive, proud, independent, capable, and ready to fight for what she wants. In other words, she is everything that Celie is not. Her relationship with Harpo is first met with befuddlement in the reader- how can any man of that time love a woman such as Sofia? More importantly, how can he impregnate her, knowing that that is the only way they could be married? Their love must be strong, if he could bend the will of a woman like that, but how is it possible?

These questions give us the first insight into Harpo’s character. He is shown as a meek man, terrified to his very core when faced with a confrontation. When he brings Sofia home, Mr. ____ is anything but polite. “How you know Harpo be the father?, he questions, “Young womens no good these days, got they legs open to every Tom, Dick and Harry.” (Walker 32).  Harpo makes no move to defend her, or even himself. Sofia is the one who answers back, and eventually storms out. We are therefore confronted with the first trait of his that is in direct opposition to conventional masculine stereotypes- he is not aggressive, and shies away from a fight.

Once they do get married and start living together, Celie describes how Sofia tends the farm and repairs the house, while Harpo takes care of the children and cooks. He is a natural at it, according to Sofia, describing his culinary skills, yet another contradictory trait. They seem to be a well-functioning household unit; Sofia takes care of the fields and Harpo takes care of the household. However, eventually, the pressure of having to conform to social expectations of his ‘manliness’ start to affect him. He starts to get increasingly preoccupied with his inability to make his wife ‘mind’. When he approaches Mr. ____ for advice, he is told to beat her. “wives is like little children”, he is told (Walker 37), and that they deserve to be beaten. Even Celie agrees with this proposition, and Harpo’s struggles to ‘be a man’ begin.

At this point, we see the issues that Harpo faces. He is a man who is being forced to fit into a preconceived idea of masculinity and his attempts to beat his wife are both comic, and slightly pathetic. Sofia, having been raised in a household of independent women, fights right back (“I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me.” (Walker 42)), and injures him on every occasion, even when Harpo begins to eat much more food than usual, in an attempt to become as physically big as him wife, he still fails. Eventually his wife leaves him, declaring that he did not want a wife, he wanted a dog. And so we see how he loses out on his happiness in his desperation to conform.

With Sofia gone, Harpo does begin to ‘fit in’. He becomes promiscuous, opens up the juke-joint and in short, becomes extremely popular in the town. He begins a relationship with Squeak, who gives him what he wants- complete submissiveness. He yells and her and beats her and she takes it all, much like Celie. Conceivably, he is now a ‘man’ in the house, and Mr. ___ starts treating him as a mature person. He has everything he wants, but is not particularly happy.

We see a sliver of the old Harpo return only when Sofia returns to the juke-joint. At that point, he has realized the futility of his attempts to change himself, and has started to feel more at ease with himself. And so, he ends the novel as a happy and content man.

To me, Harpo seemed the first character I focused on while reading the novel, because he was so radically different from anybody else, and also the fact that his character seemed to be most unappreciated. As I decided to do my paper on him and began looking for research papers to help me, I realized that there are literally no papers about his character. The papers were all female-centric, speaking about feminism, homosexuality, motherhood, emancipation of women etc, with a sprinkling of other themes like religion and historical significance. The closest reference to Harpo that I could find was in a paper titled, “Humor in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple”. To me, this is inconceivable, because as important as it is to highlight the feminism in the novel to empower women, it is equally, if not more important to also consider his character, as a means of empowering men who also face stereotypes and oppression, though of a different kind.

Walker’s choice of characterization, as well as her construction of the plot in a way such that Harpo’s journey of self-discovery runs almost parallel with Celie’s emphasizes her objective of a story that is holistic in its approach and looks at gender as a ‘gendered issue’, i.e. that both men and women face their share of oppression, and both need attention.

Works Cited:

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Washington: Pocket Books/Washington Square

     Press.1985. Print.