Abstract
This thesis will argue that Our Nig, The Color Purple, and Their Eyes Were Watching God are not only unique simply for being a bildungsroman of which a black woman is a focal point, but also, because Christianity plays an important role in each novel, and because each novel’s protagonist must contend with two forms of oppression – that is, sexism on top of racism – Frado, Celie, and Janie (from Our Nig, The Color Purple, and Their Eyes Were Watching God, respectively) are suffering exceedingly, and are therefore struggling to discover an answer to that timeless question: what is Christianity, and how should it be interpreted? Frado, who is a victim of racist ideology masquerading as Christianity – for Mrs. Bellmont, her tormentor, regularly exploits biblical passages to justify her mistreatment – never comes across an answer to this query. Janie, a disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson, is, unlike her literary antecedent, oppressed almost exclusively by patriarchy; for Janie, “god” is found not in any ancient text, but in nature. Finally, Celie is oppressed by both patriarchy and racism. Moreover, for Celie, God is not oppressive so much as He is absent; He is a deity who, due to having been reconceptualized as a white male, and therefore a representative of patriarchy. Consequently, Celie, like Janie before her, and with the invaluable aid of her friend, Shug, not only adopts an Emersonian perspective of God, but also explicitly acknowledges that God need not be her opposite – that is, a white male. For this reason, I suggest that The Color Purple is the most complete bildungsroman of the three texts that will be discussed.