ok, so i am sleepy

Celie’s interiority progresses over the novel, and the reader is given a rare glimpse into her experience, beginning with her intimate communications with God. When the novel switches to reading Nettie’s letters, we cross over into a full entry into Celie’s consciousness (be sure that is the turning point)—we receive the letters just as she did, entering the state of mind that Celie would have. But the epistolary form is very clear: we are receiving only tidbits of information, never the complete picture, so it’s not that we are becoming Celie, becoming the subject or her subject, becoming just like her. Instead, we are able to see and feel compassion for her, to see and understand her inner life as much as possible, because she narrates the novel from such an intimate point of view.

The idea of doubling persists in the novel, but not in the traditional sense—Walker’s doubles are not foils or duplicates, but they suggest the irreconcilable tensions in life. Celie’s first act of writing to God is an act of defiance, but also of obedience. The only experiences that transcend this tension are the intimate love connections, such as those between Celie and Nettie and Celie and Shug—and, at the beginning, Harpo and Sofia, though that changes because of gender societal expectations.

My definition of a healing narrative is one that takes you into the healing of the primary character by constructing an intimacy between the reader and the narrative voice. The healing narrative is a descendent or close sibling of the sentimental novel, but perhaps a subset, or a strange variation: if the sentimental novel uses dramatic language to invoke outrage at the violation of shared (often Christian) values (cite), the healing narrative uses innovations of genre and characters whose arc centers around healing from mental or physical trauma (usually both) to invoke the desire to engage the process brought to life in the book. This engagement depends upon shared humanist values, which is why many of these texts have been ill-received in the literary world, due to the postmodern backlash against humanism. But the in-flux humanism prescribed in healing narratives bears little relation to the varities of humanism proposed earlier, which depended upon a classist scientific discourse. The reader is asked to share these sensations in order to reach a shared goal (women’s liberation; equal civil rights; spiritual enlightenment), just as sentimental readers were asked (often directly) to use the texts as self-teaching tools and motivation for activism.

AS a relation of the sentimental narrative, however, Walker’s texts are most closely connected with the radical spiritual autobiographies of the 19th century, and the realistic and radical portraits of Southern life presented in Hurston and Flannery O’Connor. Walker’s connection with Hurston is well-documented, but it cannot be overstated, and the relation between the two has often been seen as the history of black women’s literarure in the 20th century.

Ok, so I am sleepy.