ALICE WALKER’S FORBIDDEN TRUTHS IN POSSESSING THE SECRET OF JOY, IN LOVE AND TROUBLE: STORIES OF BLACK WOMEN AND YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD WOMAN DOWN

Abstract

The present research work examines how women are made able to overcome society’s forbidden truths — and the state of self-hatred engendered by these latter — to attain the state of wholeness or spiritual maturity. To fulfill such examination, Alice Walker’s taboo-breaking writing in Possessing the Secret of Joy, In Love and Trouble and You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down is analyzed. In Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker’s desacralization of the forbidden goes to the extreme. In this novel, the forbidden truth disclosed is female genital mutilation. In the study at hand, the disclosure of the forbidden is related to a process of maturation, marked by a move from self-hatred to wholeness. To account for this move in Possessing the Secret of Joy, recourse is made to a Jungian perspective. Carl Jung’s conception of this move, or what he referred to as the individuation process, lends to the female protagonist’s path to wholeness, in this novel, a progressive aspect. Yet, despite the fruitfulness that can ensue from this aspect and from the adoption of a Jungian perspective to analyze a novel whose author clearly recognized the healing impact Jung’s psychology had upon her, it appears impossible to apply the Jungian perspective, as it is, on the inner journey of the female protagonist of Possessing the Secret of Joy, known as Tashi. What seems to pose a problem in Carl Jung’s theorization of “psychic growth” is the presence of some allusions to women’s innate inferiority. It is more specifically in his theorization of the complementarity notion, or what he called “the anima-animus archetype”, that these allusions are apparent. This archetype represents one of the steps in the process of individuation, or “psychic growth”, the novel’s protagonist goes through. According to Carl Jung, it is during this phase that the individual discovers and faces her masculine side, or animus, if it is a woman or his feminine side, or anima, if it is a man. It has been observed by many feminist critics, like Susan Rowland, Verena Kast and Naomi Goldenberg that the Jungian theorization of duality is sexist and fell into the trap of easy stereotyping based on conventional gender roles. For them, what is specifically sexist in the Jungian theorization of duality is Jung’s consideration of women’s rationality, logic and spiritual strength as specific to what he deems their masculine side, or animus. So, whenever a woman is strong enough and escapes society’s patriarchal socialization, for the Jungians this is due to her masculine side. In In Love and Trouble and You Can’t Keep A Good Woman Down, the forbidden analyzed is more complex and less striking, but equally dangerous and harmful. In the two short stories entitled “Roselily” and “‘Really, Doesn’t Crime Pay?’”, it is identified with the degenerating effects of wifehood and motherhood in a woman’s life — especially when they are imposed as women’s only spheres of activity. In these short stories, it is not certain whether the state of wholeness is attained, but the process of maturation the female protagonists go through is itself revelatory of the different workings responsible for women’s oppression by society and its forbidden truths. In You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down, the female protagonists are equally oppressed by the forbidden, even though they are more assertive and self-confident. In “Advancing Luna — and Ida B. Wells”, the confrontation with the forbidden truth of interracial rape is lived by a woman writer activist. Even though this short story does not seem to have a definite end, its protagonist is nonetheless able to reach the point of condemning rape (interracial or not) and matures into a more committed writer. In “Coming Apart,” the forbidden issue treated by the writer is identified in the present research as pornography and its debasing power. What is particular about this short story is that the confrontation with the forbidden and the ensuing attainment of a certain maturity is lived by a man. Even though in some of her works, like The color Purple or Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker seems to be always willing to give men the role of the villains, this does not mean she is a separatist defending the rights of only women and blaming men for all the ills of the world. In this short story, she proves her interest in also men’s spiritual ascension towards the state of wholeness. Alice Walker instigates universal solidarity between people of all races, social backgrounds and of both sexes.