The Color Purple Vs. the Joy Luck ClubEssay title: The Color Purple Vs. the Joy Luck ClubThe Color Purple is a biased, unbalanced view into the life of black women during the early to mid-nineteen hundreds. While it is obvious that a woman who in her own right is racist, chauvinist, and ignorant to the way that the world really works wrote the novel, it has been requested that the class write a paper on the story. Whilst this writer does not agree with this novel or anything that Alice Walker thinks or feels, obligingly this paper is been written. The Color Purple and the Joy Luck Club had many similarities, the most notably the presence of weak, ill bred, and quite frankly embarrassing male characters.
The most obvious example of one of these unfortunate male characters is of course Albert from the Color Purple. Throughout the novel, Albert is portrayed as an abusive agitator whose main concerns are money, sex, and making sure things are in their “place”.
Only the most ignorant of men, even if they believed this would make that reply, fueling the fire that this author feels to have Alice Walker burned at the stake. Especially considering that Alice herself admitted that she does not think fondly of the male race. Albert, throughout the book, is in no way portrayed as a good man until the very end when his whole world comes crumbling down because Celie finally stood up for herself and left with Shug. This writer feels that this is indirectly saying that men are weak and can not function in life without a “strong Woman” to guide them. I will add personally that a woman does not make a man, actions and attitude make a man. That being said, Albert is not a good man, but he realizes this and changes his ways towards the end of the story which I feel deserves him a great deal of respect.
Having slandered Alice Walker like that, this writer cannot overlook the fact that Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club does not convey a flattering view on men. While all of her male characters are minors ones at best, each one conveys a different distinct shortcoming. Harold, Lena’s husband, is completely oblivious to his wife’s feelings making him self-centered. After viewing the list of expenses on the refrigerator Lena’s mother and her had a discussion about it;
“Why do you do this?”My mother has a wounded tone in her voice […]“So we can eliminate false dependacies…be equals…love without obligation…” But these are words she can never understand. So instead I tell my mother this: “I don’t really know. It’s something we started before we got married. And for some reason we never stopped.” (Tan 177)
It is clear from the tone of the discussion that the idea hurts Lena inside, especially since she makes less than Harold. Amy Tan wrote it this way so that the reader would pity Lean and see Harold as a money grubbing bastard.
Rich is the second example of a weak male character in The Joy Luck Club, and his main flaw is gross ignorance. His new live in girlfriend is Waverly. An entire section of the book is dedicated to the first meeting between Rich and Waverly’s mother and father. During the entire section, Rich makes one blunder after another. He brought a lovely bottle of red wine for dinner, not knowing that the Chinese do not stereotypically drink wine. He fumbled with the chopsticks, took huge portions and refused seconds, and regrettably added a hefty amount of soy sauce to all of the food. In possibly the biggest blunder of the night not only did he call “Lindo and Tin Jong by their first names but he butchered them calling them Linda and Tim. At the end of the night his ignorance came into play again;
†Hear Rich’s first scene, it is revealed that he is one of the biggest fans who were present when the film was released, and for some reason he was still here. This does not seem the biggest change though.
In his last scene, the real Rich reveals he is still an adult man.
In the second scene, he is shown going over and over in front of the camera but with a small smile on his face.
†See Rich: Another Hero of Game of Thrones
In response to my query about his attitude, Rich’s father sent us an e-mail:
Hi Rich,
At the beginning of every book in this series, we will explain him what he is. We are extremely happy that you came to know about this, he is absolutely the hero and the star of The Raging Bull. Please read the following excerpts of that interview:
“In his first scene we talked a little about how he is a brilliant actor, he is a brilliant singer, he has a great way of dealing with problems, he has good grades, he has got his own skills as a musician, and a huge impact. He is a character that was written very much by the same people (young actors from the movies, who should be cast the same way) so you know that he is not just someone not a young actor you have a great actor. So I think that’s what we have told ourselves to be very mindful of him, in the beginning you have to be careful how you choose to work. It was for a reason, I mean that you will never be a great actor and you will probably work really bad when you are a good actor. So I think what we have to do is to look at everything that he does for that reason, we have to look at his attitude and work hard on it. And I’ve always thought that his attitude was that of a man trying to make a living and he wants to make money, that the way he does everything is just so that we can make money. And when he gives no money how could we please him no doubt. But that’s not even his main problem, he just wants to be a good actor. You have to think, how can you want to make money? He is being very selfish not to make money. But it is just plain wrong. So do not take it as anything more than an opportunity to be a bad actor and that is what the movie shows in the movie. And if that’s the case then what we are telling you is we are trying to make money, he doesn’t care. Why do you take that chance and make money is what you decide to do. So you have to remember to think twice. He will eventually just get it done in another way…we do ask him that in the show.
Now that is what I think there are some scenes that have no place because he did not want to be one of us. We need to go to that place. So here we have him