Literature CIA III

                                                                                                        Submitted by Ruchira.R (II PSEnglish)

                                                                                                        1313283 

Topic: The spirit of the Blues and Music as an important medium of expression

In the novel The Color Purple, Shug Avery, the Blues singer is seen as one of the most influential character in the protagonist Celie’s life who also later plays a very important role in liberating Celie from the clutches of her husband and to speak for herself. She plays a major role in transforming Celie’s life from one of suppression to freedom of expression. Shug through the medium of music is able to articulate the struggles of the oppressed who are unable to do so themselves and just like Bessie Smith, one of the most famous Blues singers of the time, has a strong connect with the audience forging them to respond and be an active part of the performance rather than a submissive one. She encourages Celie to stand up for her beliefs and right to be treated with respect. The philosophy that Shug seems to use is something that is deeply rooted in African American beliefs. She ensures that the audience has a new connect with the world and emphasizes the importance of the sacred aspect of all living things together. This is also important to understand the spiritual connect she brings out through the musical arena.

Closesly associated with Shug Avery and Bessie Smith are the West African beliefs of Legba who is the spirit of the musicians. They can be seen as the followers of this spirit because like the spirit they establish a connection between the spiritual world and the individual which leads to the psychological relief followed by growth experienced by them. This shows that there was a link between the African American forms of music and the African kind however the spiritual importance of music as seen by the Africans is harder to trace. In the novel we see that people are not receptive of the blues genre as something socially acceptable. When Shug Avery falls ill, her community doesn’t want to help her because of the controversial person that she was and she crosses social boundaries no one else dared to attempt before her. This may reflect on the mentality that blues and jazz as categories of music are seen as evil even after the African Americans had migrated to a new land and converted their religion. Their African beliefs were rooted in them. The only venue for spiritual music which they had seen was the white man’s churches and they barred secular music condemning it to be threatening and some even proclaimed it to be sinful. The African derived secular music was spiritual enforcing the African Americans to consider Blues as an evil influence.

The term Blues is rooted in African beliefs and the meaning has been susceptible to change over time. One of the Higher Powers that the Africans believed in were called as the orishas and even Bessie Smith songs talks about an encounter with one such orisha. Many blues songs have lyrics which when further examined seem to have roots in the African worldview which says that the cosmos is an intricate web of spiritual and physical forces wherein the more intelligent species, or Muntu, exert their power and influence over lower forms of life through nommo (powerful speech). When they came to America they had forgotten most of the names of the orishas and thought of adapting the word ‘blues’ to mean sorrow and problems. This is further retraced to seventeenth century England where malevolent spirits were called as ‘blue devils’. Since this was closely associated with their ancestral beliefs of orishas they had integrated some of the European beliefs which helped them preserve theirs. However there is a difference between the two terms as one connotes being evil and the orishas were good or evil depending upon the situation. In the songs it is seen that the singer personifies their “blues” who is an unwelcome entity intruding upon their lives. The blues is then an active character and an old acquaintance. Kokomo Arnold is one singer who describes the blues as “walking like a man” and coming back into his life. Bessie Smith and many other singers seem to seek relief from singing about the blues. All of these are examples of how the blues become something much more than a feeling of depression. It is even a living entity that can control their thoughts and emotional state which is similar to the concept of the orisha which rules over the humans and possess it’s victims. It has been observed that when the blues singer sings about their troubles, their ultimate aim is to get the audience to empathize and feel what they feel, hence, what may start out to be a personal expression, turns out to be a collective one.

Coming back to the concept of the “blues conversion” previously talked about, it is a transformation experienced by the individual but not in the conventional spiritual sense. Bessie also talks about this but unlike a Christian conversion which aims to unite the individual with the God, the "blues conversion" begins a new relationship between the individual and the world as a whole and not restricted to a particular Being. Even Shug in her songs promises that the change in attitude resulting from the "blues conversion” will bring earthly rewards. For Shug, "God is everything....  Everything that is or ever was or ever will be"(167).  This statement while appears simple requires a lot of introspective abilities which the blues singer seems to have. They reflect on their problems and they bring it out through their songs and when they feel troubled or bogged down they have a deeper understanding of themselves and the way the world functions. Shug manages to convince Celie that once she overcomes her view that God is a white man with a white beard and that God can be any living entity and it acts as an all- encompassing force then she seems to have liberated herself from the clutches of patriarchy and found the true meaning of spirituality...Once she discovers that God is not to be feared and not necessarily a person, she seems to enjoy the little pleasures of life previously denied by her. This notion of spiritual power as a force that can be extracted to better the lives of individuals is similar to the African concepts of nommo and magara (life force) than it is to Christian doctrine. Shug similarly synthesizes the spiritual power of music through her ostensibly secular music performances weaving a thin line of difference between the sacred and the profane. Shug is the main influential persona through whom Celie can go through a “blues conversion” that finally makes her speak out for herself and take charge of her life. She is astounded by the verbosity of Shug and the courage that she didn’t have to speak out and at the end of the novel becomes a transformed entity. Both women are stark contrasts but Shug being a musician is able to identify with the sorrow that she sees in Celie and establishes a bond with her. Shug, who can be seen as the child of Legba as aforementioned, uses this power given to her and modifies Celie’s life to the fullest extent possible.

 

 

Works Cited

Marvin, Thomas. F. ""Preachin' the Blues": Bessie Smith's Secular Religion and Alice Walker's The Color Purple." African American Review Vol. 28.No. 3 (1994): Pp 411-421. Http://www.jstor.org/stable/3041977. Web. 27 Aug. 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3041977?uid=3738256&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104089974181>.

Williams, Carolyn, and Richard J. Douglass-Chin. "Preacher Woman Sings the Blues: The Autobiographies of Nineteenth-Century African American Evangelists by Richard J. Douglass-Chin." The Florida Historical Quarterly Vol. 81.No. 2 (2002): Pp. 214-216. Http://www.jstor.org/stable/30150652. Web. 27 Aug. 2014.

Goyal, B.S. "Spirit of the Blues in The Color Purple." The Color Purple( A Critical Study). Delhi: Surjeet Publications, 2012. 173-184. Print.