Walker’s The coLor purpLe and Zora Neale
Hurston’s their eyes were watchinG God,
where the oppressed black men further subjugate
the black women. Thus, the black women in the
novels are doubly oppressed in their rural southern
societies. This is specifically addressed in Their Eyes
Were Watching God when the protagonist Janie is told
by her grandmother that black women are the mules
of the world. While the black men are oppressed by
white society, according to Nanny, the black women
are oppressed by both the white power structure and
black men. This is also seen in the experiences of
Celie, who for much of The Color Purple is beaten
and oppressed by her husband, Mr. ——. In this
novel, even Celie, who is subjugated for most of
her life, encourages her stepson Harpo to beat his
strong-willed wife, Sofia. In Friere’s view, Celie has
become so enmeshed in a culture of oppression that
she does not see it as aberrant.
Oppression, with all its diverse implications, has
been apparent throughout much of time. For exam-
ple, in the Bible, not only are the Jews oppressed
by the Egyptians and the Syrians, but the women
of the Old Testament are also faced with laws that
are inequitable. In fact, according to the Oxford
English Dictionary, the earliest recorded use of the
word oppression in the English language was in a
1382 version of the Bible. As an example of female
oppression, in the book of Exodus, it is indicated
that it is permissible to sell one’s daughters into
slavery. Unlike sons who were sold into slavery,
daughters were not released after a six-year period;
they remained slaves.
Similar to examining the religious text of the
Bible, one needs only look at various historical peri-
ods to see countless examples of groups oppressed
by others. Two modern examples of oppression are
the apartheid of South Africa and Adolf Hitler’s
oppression and persecution of the Jewish people.
South African apartheid was a system of legalized
racism and segregation enforced by the National
Party government. In this society, marginalized pop-
ulations, particularly “black” and “colored” (which
was a mixed-race designation), were subjected to
laws restricting where they resided, their right to
voting, their ability to marry or engage in sexual
relations with members of other races, where they
could work, and eventually their ability to be
citizens. Similarly, the Jewish people of Hitler’s Ger-
many were subjected to extremely differential treat-
ment. The Nuremburg Laws prohibited marriage
and sexual relations between Jews and Germans and
stripped Jewish people of citizenship. Laws prohib-
iting where, and eventually if, Jewish people could
work and be educated were part of the path that
led to the Holocaust. The memoirs anne Frank:
the diary oF a younG GirL, by Anne Frank, and
niGht, by Elie Wiesel, document the oppressive
experience of subjugated people living in Nazi Ger-
many. Both of these periods are emblematic of the
oppression that permeates history.
Since the works written in each era can be seen
to reflect the zeitgeist of that period, and since
oppression is so prevalent in history, it makes sense
that it can be identified in works from multiple eras,
countries, and cultural/social groups. At times, the
works have been written purposefully to demon-
strate the evils of the oppression, as in Richard
Wright’s native son, a novel in which the author
presents the oppressive racism of America in the
1930s, as experienced by his protagonist, Bigger
Thomas. Sometimes, the works studied will not
intentionally describe the oppressive system; instead,
through their illustration of the social structure and
mores of their times, they depict oppressions that
critics can analyze. For instance, literary scholars fre-
quently examine William Shakespeare’s play The
taMinG oF the shrew and analyze the oppression
of women. Whether or not Shakespeare intended
to subvert or uphold the patriarchy of his time, his
play can still be studied to analyze the oppression
of women.
In terms of literary theory, critics did not always
address the oppression in works. It became most
apparent with the emergence of fields of criticism
that are sociologically and culturally based. Because
of its diverse dimensions, the theme of oppression
is evident in many of these fields of literary study.
For example, analyses of oppression are explored
in gender studies, cultural studies, Marxist criti-
cism, feminist criticism, postcolonial criticism, queer
theory, and other sociologically influenced branches
of criticism. To illustrate, books addressing South
African apartheid would be of particular interestoppression 77