Cultural Analysis of the Third Life of Grange Copeland - Essay Example

Cultural Analysis of The Third Life of Grange Copeland Human nature often undermines life and feels it will be able to control changes and unfortunate situations to turn things for the better. However, in real life, that is not the case. Men and women, belong to the modern centuries, have long tried to at least keep things happy and under control as writers of fiction by depicting facts of real life and change the turn of events into positive or neutral climaxes. However, not every writer works in the same direction. A work of fiction often turns out to be the honest depiction of facts that deal with social causes of “inequality” and “oppression in American society” (Bayles, 1989, p.612) by keen observers of these facts. Alice Walker created a similar piece of fiction that has a gripping storyline and three generations of African black history within the state of Georgia. Set over three generations of the Copeland family, the story begins in 1920s and ends in 1960s. As is evident, through the journey of the family from a disgruntled and oppressed black family to a prospective earner’s family in the North, the writer Alice Walker shows that it takes three generations to right the wrong of elders in the “Copeland family” (Walker, 2011, p.32). In totality, the depiction of three generation shows how in the darkness of humanity, three members of the same family, who tried hard to be positive in life, repeated mistakes they never intended to indulge in, owing to knowledge of the same mistake being committed by their parents. It shows an African American experience, one that has grueling details of life, wherein Blacks desperately tried to either fit in or ignore the racial abuse subjected to them on the basis of color and carry on with life in their own good or bad ways. The treatment, which was solely on the basis of color, which the white community “extended to Africans in America was much different from that extended to Asian communities” (Chang, 1995, p.231). The story begins at the third generation with narration by Ruth Copeland, the granddaughter of Grange Copeland. Parts of all three generations are narrated by the three main protagonists of the Copeland family namely, Grange, Brownfield and Ruth in respective chapters either as a flashback or as a journey in the present. When one studies the journeys of these three main characters, it becomes every evident that as a literary piece and as a depiction of social affairs, one complete with emotional details, this fictional story is an apt representation of Black culture and conditions of living during the time of the novel. Three Stories In One: Copeland Saga The crux of the novel lies in showcase of unhappiness, inadequacy, frustration and anger of blacks that goes down across three generations. Grange Copeland, who is a positive thinking sharecropper, has a wife and son. He serves at a local farm and shears cotton crops for a living and the spouses work hard to earn a happy living. When the hopes of “growth and prosperity” through sharecropping fails (Soto, 2004, p.30), the couple grows estranged and starts looking for solace and love outside the marriage. Grange gets involved with a local prostitute Josie and Margaret has a baby after an affair with a white man which leads to further chaos and Grange decides to travel to the North shunning his family. Margaret, who is unable to bear the pain, kills herself and her illegit child through poisoning, leaving their only son Brownfield all by himself. Brownfield grows into a man who hated his father all through childhood and wants to bring stability into his life (Walker, 2011, p.45). Unknown to him he gets involved with the same prostitute and her daughter till he gets married to Mem. The marriage, one that starts on a passionate note, turns sour as Brownfield also faces the same irony of society wherein racism dominates growth and prosperity. Ruth is Brownfield’s daughter and a fresh whiff of breeze to the novel. Her aspirations, outlook and perspectives bring new zeal in Grange’s way of perceiving the unfortunate predicament of the black community. Grange travels to North and Brownfield later arrives there with his family. Ruth, the fresh face Grange meets in the North amidst the action of Civil Rights Movement, makes Grange realize that there are ways to bring positivity even in an unfortunate life of entrapment. The main onus is on Ruth to prove that “Blacks can be happy and positive” by bringing in the positive feelings in members of her family, which she successfully does (Walker, 2011, p.240). As Grange discovers a third life through his granddaughter, who is used as the fresh turn in this story, the story takes an unusual turn into positivity leaving the reader with hope. However, in the narration, serious depictions of life and social conditions as they were in America of the 1920s showcase aspects that enlighten us about salient influences on human nature and reactions. Cultural Analysis of The Story Key issues regarding race, gender and class are seen in different occasions of the story. For example, if we take the story of Brownfield Copeland alone, we find a lack of control and discrimination as we see in the character’s father Grange, although Brownfield wanted to avoid making the same mistakes as his father did. Racial discrimination, a horrendous American truth that existed till late nineteenth century, leads to a mental condition wherein frustration and lack of financial balance leads to “loss of optimism in Blacks” and undermines their status through low performance in the American society (Parrillo, 2001, p.587). Brownfield, a youngster full of bitterness for his father, witnesses his mother’s suicide and the killing of his step-brother. He decides to embark on a path different from his father’s and finds himself again become a victim of racial abuse, anger and frustration and domestic tension. This period is when whites had a “backlash towards” complaints of “racism of Blacks in the American society” (King Jr., 1967, p.321). Women And Their Depiction In a strange way, depiction of gender bias and abuse on women has been adeptly accomplished by the writer in each character’s story. Mem, Brownfield’s wife, faces drunken torture and abuse in hands of her husband and dies a similar “embittered” fate as Margaret, Brownfield’s mother (Walker 2011, p.150). Just like Grange failed in staying truthful to his wife, Brownfield, even after getting married to Mem, is unhappy with his situation and turns his frustrations towards life towards his wife and children, by beating them up and by sleeping with women outside the family. He fails to live up to his own expectations and optimism, and also to the expectations of his wife and children. “When she was teaching school they both had saved pennies to buy the house, but when he was angry and drunk he stole the money and bought a pig from some friends…” (Walker, 2011, p.134). Frustration, a feeling that is best depicted in this story, is a major determiner of happiness in an African American family in the early nineteenth century, where futuristic optimism dies in the hands of harsh reality of racism and turns into oppressive seeking of pleasure and happiness in fleeting pleasures of life. In the novel, Brownfield’s character, the one we study right from birth through teens and marriage is built with carefully sketched influences of race, class and gender by Walker. Brownfield faces racial and domestic abuse from childhood, watches the futile practices of members of his class and fails to understand expectations of his wife under the influence of Josie, the lady with whom his father had an affair in the past and with whom he had an affair too. Brownfield, even in Ruth’s eyes, is a failure since he failed what he set out to achieve, “just like his own father” (Walker, 2011, p.245). Ruth brings a change in the scene with her fresh perspective and a tendency to pioneer the act of bringing back positivity through the “futile efforts of Whites” to continue with racism (Bayles, 1989, p.616). Conclusion: When we undertake a cultural analysis of the novel The Third life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker, we find many intrinsic details about lives of Blacks and how they brought back optimism in their lives during the American Civil War. Influences of race, gender and class determine a great deal of the performance of each character in the story, and show a very important aspect of American history, namely, the struggle undergone by African Americans. References Bayles, Martha. "The Problem with Post-Racism." Rereading America: Cultural contexts for critical thinking and writing (1989): 615-21. Chang, Curtis. "Streets of gold: The myth of the model minority." Rereading America: Cultural contexts for critical thinking and writing (1995). King Jr, Martin Luther. "Racism and the white backlash." Rereading America: Cultural contexts for critical thinking and writing (1967): 319-330. Parrillo, Vincent N. "Causes of Prejudice." Rereading America: Cultural contexts for critical thinking and writing (2001): 577-590. Soto, Gary. "Looking for Work." Rereading America: Cultural contexts for critical thinking and writing (2004): 26-32. Walker, Alice. The third life of Grange Copeland. Hachette UK, 2011. Read More