characters[1]

It is possible that you will find yourself faced with a question about characters in the examination, so it might be worthwhile taking the time to note them down as you read through the novel. Below are some ‘food-for thought’ synopses on the ten most important characters in the novel. Celie Celie is the main narrator as well as the central character in the novel. When we are first introduced to her we recognise her innocence and simple mind, "he put his thing up gainst my hip" and then "he grab hold my titties." Her failure to sign her name highlights that she has neither identity nor voice and that she is ashamed of the person she perceives herself to be. Having suffered the torment of repeated rape and having to let go of her children, Celie tells, "I don't bleed no more," as she is both emotionally and sexually sterile. Her loss is doubled when she is forced to let go of her sister Nettie, yet her horizons expand as she meets more and more people and, in doing so, she begins to realise who she is. When she visits the clothes store to select a new outfit, she has a choice between "brown, maroon or navy blue." While this implies uniformity and a life of work not pleasure in these garments, it may also signal a new identity. When she earlier meets Corrine in the dry goods store, she begins to question authority as well as her situation: "who her daddy, I blurt out." In the first twenty pages of the novel, Celie is accused no less than three times. Her mother dies "screaming and cussing" at her over the illegitimate baby, and Mr. _______'s children "cuse [her] of murder" as she shears off their hair. What this highlights to the reader is Celie's loneliness and trials in life, an isolation that Walker herself experienced while at university and this for Celie continues until she meets blues singer Shug Avery. In her presence, Celie becomes much more expressive, at one point almost poetic as she says; "look like a little mouse been nibbling the biscuit, a rat run off with the ham." Shug educates her and her reference to Celie as "still a virgin" ties in well with Celie's earlier observation that "God" gave her the children. Celie's years and years of isolation continue until, within the space of one letter, she has both lover in Shug and sister in Nettie, as news from her travels in Africa filter through to her, and with it news that Alphonso is not her father. The phrase "once upon a time" used in Nettie's revelation is synonymous with a fairy tale. However these words mark Celie's own personal victory and her own personal fairy tale, because in not being tied to the fact that her step-father once raped her, she can begin to enjoy freedom, knowing that both her parents were very honourable people. The beautiful family tableau of Celie's family painted: "the man had a wife, whom he adored," suggests the fact that Celie was conceived in love and care. Her freedom of spirit is emphasised as she finally leaves Mr. _______ to "enter into Creation," a natural paradise with Shug Avery with "a fountain out front" suggesting a new life as a liberated woman. She has found a new voice and asserted her identity, and in doing so begins to free other people by making and tailoring pants to suit the wearer rather than the manufacturer's purse. Celie makes it her occupation to free people and the name of her trouser firm "Folkspants Unlimited" is a symbol for the fact that all women may be free, wherever they are in the world. At the end of the novel, her words "I think this the youngest us ever felt" symbolises the fact that for Celie, the end of the novel is in effect, the beginning of the rest of her life. Nettie Nettie is the secondary narrator in the novel and undoubtedly the secondary heroine to Celie. Her letters back to the American South represent America’s ties with its mother country Africa, and her travel to the Olinka tribe in Monrovia suggests a return to her roots, via the umbilical cord that many black people find themselves fastened by. Yet, Nettie is not given a smooth journey through Africa, much like Celie who is not deprived of her trials back home. Despite always keeping "the desire to know" Nettie is in fact very ignorant of her own mother country, its attitudes and its beliefs. One of Nettie’s trials includes her own personal fight to cleanse herself of the tarnish Corrine would put on her. "It hot here, Celie" she writes "Hotter than July. Hotter than August and July," Nettie’s repetition of the word "hotter" signifies her heated relationship with Corrine. Her phrase "I woke this morning bound to tell Corrine and Samuel" deepens our idea that Nettie is caught in a jail of deceit, though her intense love of "our children" Adam and Olivia makes us aware albeit casually of the deep relationship that Nettie and Celie hold. When signing off too, Nettie often writes from "your devoted sister" symbolising a sure faith in the friendship and love that the two sisters hold for one another. However, Nettie’s efforts to help the people in Africa are less well received. In travelling to Africa the author makes us more aware of black people’s own unawareness of their own heritage. "I hadn’t realised I was so ignorant" writes Nettie. Yet her unwitting ignorance and complicity with the English in drinking "hot tea" and as a result earning "rotten" teeth in the process would seem to show us that her habits coincide with the slave trade of the 1800s. This system meant that many black people were forced to work day and night in order to gather sugar cane and other commodities, though they were actually paid very little if not anything at all. Essentially her missionary work in Olinka goes hand in hand with the imperialisation process of Speke and Schweitzer’s time when they attempted to impose their beliefs on the nation. Nettie herself makes reference to the fact that the English love to use the phrase "hard times" in conjunction with Africa, even though "Africa’s hard times were made harder by them." Given then the fact that this phrase seems to symbolise people’s ignorance of causing wrong, when Nettie too remarks that the village has "fallen on such hard times" we can read into her remark the idea that the missionaries have hindered and not helped the people of Olinka. Despite her failed attempts to aid the African people in their fight against the racist road-builders, Nettie finds happiness in Samuel. This is somewhat alluded to as Nettie tells Celie of her bed, which looks like the "bed of a bride," a bride being the thing she will become in due course. Despite this marriage, Nettie is still grieved to have been part of no family: "I have nothing of my own. No man, no children, no close friend," and yet it is this family that fate has woven together that proves to be more of a family than Nettie ever had before. Mr. _______ [or Albert] For many people, Mr. _______ or Albert as he is later known, represents the whole of black manhood. Not only is he cruel, deceitful and unfeeling but as the girl he married was his third choice – after Nettie and Shug Avery – he gives her third rate treatment. Most people wonder, on first reading the book, why Celie fails to be able to pronounce his name and scholars have given us many reasons. It may be because Celie does not feel she can, especially in context of the way he treats her. In contrast, Celie refers to "Shug Avery" almost possessively. Calling Albert "Mr. _______" may also be an acknowledgement for his authority. Perhaps more than just embodying the whole population of black men – I would argue that he does not – Mr. _______ stands for all those people who mistreat others on the basis of being mistreated themselves. Mr. _______ lost his power when he was younger. We hear from Shug that "Albert try to stand up for us, git knocked down" and so in order to re-establish his power, he dominates his son. In having the power to "give him wages for working" Mr. _______ brings light on the totalitarian power he has over his son. Yet, in order to highlight his potential for healing, Mr. _______ is portrayed as "weak." This is very much like Shug Avery, who says that she "is too weak a woman" not to have one final fling with Germaine. This ‘weakness’ in these two characters highlights the idea, that though one seems perpetually evil and the other endlessly pleasant, both are human beings. Mr. _______ we are told has a "weak chin." Again, it can be read that this weak chin is a symbol for his unwillingness to stand up for Shug as the women in church "say amen gainst Shug." In contrast, Celie says "I have more chin" and this is emphasised in the way she treats old Mr. _______ to a "little spit" in his glass of water. In this quest for power, Mr. _______ obsessively hides Nettie’s letters from Africa and consequently commits a cardinal sin – ignorance. So magnificent sin, that many of Walker's characters in her other books, such as Grange in The Third Life of Grange Copeland, have suffered death because of it. It represents a denial of a voice and of the truth. It is implied that it is the ignorance of her meeting with Celie in the dry-goods store that eventually kills Corrine. Nettie tells us that the Olinka tribe "acknowledge no responsibility whatsoever" for the rise of slavery. Mr. _______, who just "walk round with [Nettie’s letters] in his coat all day" is thus forced to go on a spiritual journey of guilt, penance and atonement for sin. In "having to listen to his own heart beat" Mr. _______ is not going through some supernatural experience. It is merely guilt, and this guilt again harks back to the fact that he is human. By the end "he work real hard" much to Celie’s disbelief. His new hobby can not only be touted as a natural religious awakening, much like that of Harpo and Sofia’s with the "reefer," but if the shells bear some symbolic similarity to the female reproductive organs, Albert is finally beginning to understand women. In treating each shell "like it just arrive," Albert, no longer giving "licks" and punishment, is treating women with respect and courtesy. The fact that he is forgiven and salvaged at the end of the novel is a testament to the fact that anyone can be saved, regardless of their crime. Shug Avery Shug Avery silences by her very dominance, and unlike Sofia she actively challenges men rather than just resisting their control. The first idea we get of her is when a picture of her "fell out" of Mr. _______’s wallet "an slid under the table." By this very description, we see Shug’s spirit almost hidden in the photograph and in sliding under the table we realise that Shug Avery is a difficult woman to control. With "her face rouge" we see two sides of Shug Avery, loving and sensual but equally dangerous. Indeed, throughout the novel, Shug Avery is a woman with two sides to her character. On arriving at Mr. _______’s house Celie describes her as "half way tween good an evil" and while watching her recuperate, Celie says she "weak as a kitten" though her mouth "just pack with claws." The dichotomy of Shug’s personality is summed up in her nickname, the "Queen Honeybee," in that she can be as sweet as honey but she also has a sting in her tail. In Celie’s life, Shug becomes parent and comforter "kissing the water as it come down" Celie’s face as she begins to tell her about her relationship with Alphonso. She is also a teacher giving her sex education and could also be considered a metaphorical missionary in Celie’s life giving her freedom, much like the literal missionaries in the Olinka section of the novel. Shug’s doctrine is that "God is everything," but unlike the missionaries in Africa, Shug can offer Celie something she needs, she offers her the chance to no longer be "a motherless child" but "part of everything, not separate at all." Shug is one character who refuses to be put in a box. Many readers will see her as a lesbian by virtue of her relationship with Celie and yet she confesses "some mens can be lots of fun." This unwillingness to be labelled either straight or gay is a statement of Shug Avery’s freedom. Her desperate feelings for Germaine suggest that she is simply a human being and like many going through the changes of age she marvels "how long can it last." Yet in other areas of the novel we see Shug Avery almost as a supernatural being from a fairy tale. If Alphonso is the wicked stepfather, then Shug can be read as the saviour, the godmother. Yet upon her arrival "she got a long pointed nose," with "lips look like black plum" and her "cackle" almost makes her seem witch-like. She is both spellbinding and bewitching. This innate ability to control men is evident when both she and Celie leave, "Mr. _______ start up from his seat, look at Shug, plop down again," and yet these witch-like characteristics are equated with her priestlike tendencies. These are highlighted when she offers to "grace" Harpo’s with a song and when Celie acquires Alphonso’s old home, the two use "cedar sticks" and starting "at the top of the house in the attic" cleanse it of evil. This mixed personality again contributes to our initial idea of Shug as half human and half divine and once she has empowered Celie, she too can learn to "curse" her oppressors. Shug’s character as priest, witch and human therefore encapsulates Walker’s idea that God is everything and humans are therefore part of God. It is as God then that we are reminded to be like Shug – loving, empowering, and comforting to all. Sofia Sofia, with her "amazon sisters" and other strong family ties is quite the extreme of the isolated, lost and mentally wandering Celie. When we first meet her in letter seventeen, her body, which according to Celie, "bout to bust out her dress" highlights her need for freedom and unwillingness to be kept within confines, whether these be verbal or physical. Sofia is a character that, like Walker, battles to attempt to achieve egalitarianism - that is equality among the sexes. In her family, there are "six boys, six girls," and at her mother’s funeral three brothers and three sisters carry the coffin into the church, even though this is seemingly against convention. Letter on, Sofia believes that she owes Reynolds Stanley Earl no compliments, because even though his mother showed Sofia "some human kindness," Sofia showed her some too. Sofia is a character that silences by her dominance. Harpo and his "daddy sit there and sit there and sit there" as Sofia leaves the house, "they never talk." Yet just as Sofia demands respect, she also shows some, calling Celie, "Mrs. _______." In wearing "a old pair of Harpo pants" Sofia makes her husband conscious that she is more of a man than he is. Yet, she is not averse to using her domestic environment against him: "she reach down and grab piece of stove wood and wack him across the eyes." When Sofia is silenced it is at the hands of white people, and not men. Her reply "hell no" is not merely a flippant remark, but Sofia feels that she is responsible for making sure that her children do not subjugate themselves to racist whites in the future. Sofia’s voice is however subdued. She despises the prison laundry work, not-so-much because she despises domesticity, but because she is conscious of the fact that all those who have come to visit her, pity her: "Mr. _______" we are told "suck in his breath. Harpo groan. Miss Shug cuss." As maid to Miss Millie, she returns almost as a martyr, as "all the children come crowding round the car." However, we see her trying to mask her pride as she remarks "I don’t think [the little ones] even notice I was sitting in the back of the car." Her exclusion from the family is all too evident however at the table as her children call her "miss." Additionally, the line "it like a voice speaking from the dead" may illuminate the death of her spirit – in reference to the "grave" - but paradoxically may allude to the idea that she is going through a process of resurrection and regeneration. Sofia is very maternalistic, and even though she detracts from Eleanor Jane’s younger son, and affirms that she will not be "able to love [her] own son," she nevertheless comes to lift him out of Henrietta’s way once he becomes boisterous. Many have been critical of Sofia’s portrayal in the novel. She is after all, the only woman who does fight and as a result of that is put in jail. Still, Sofia’s hardships are not perpetual, and the image of her wearing Celie’s pants while "jumping over the moon" signals both freedom and liberation. Harpo Harpo should not be confused with his father, Mr. _______, in the respect that although it is evident both men strive for the power to overrule women, Harpo is maternal, and represents the sambo-type male. Along with his "big bug eyes," his face that is like a "woman’s face" and his puerile "boo-hoo" crying in front of Celie, Harpo is character that attempts to live up to his father’s expectations of him, but fails. His idea to "git some dynamite off the gang that’s building that big bridge down the road" in order to release Sofia from jail highlights his need to be recognised as stereotypically masculine, exactly the one thing he is not. His notion that in order to "make Sofia mind" he must eat gluttonously is humorous and farcical, though equally sad as the reader realises that this is not the real Harpo. He undoubtedly loves Sofia’s independent spirit, and this can be seen both when Sofia returns to his jukejoint and towards the end of the novel where he boasts "I got six children by this crazy woman." Harpo also loves "cooking and cleaning and doing stuff around the house" much more than Sofia does. Even when Sofia decides to leave Harpo, the last thing he does is "use the old dry daidie to wipe his eyes." Harpo is however overbearingly conscious of wanting to ‘keep face’ among males, and as a result of wanting "a dog" instead of a wife, Sofia leaves him. Indeed, in allowing him to look after "Dilsey, Coco and Boo" Sofia gives him the chance to control the animals, as she leaves. Like his father, Harpo sits on the steps "acting like he don’t care" – ignorance and the ‘stiff upper lip’ being another of Harpo’s preconceived ideas as to how a real man should act. Yet, just like his father Mr. _______, after his wife does leave him, it gives him the chance to reform. "Sofia gone six months, Harpo act like a different man," we learn. Harpo’s obsession with power has however led him in a different direction. He still no doubt has a passion for strong, dominant women, and we notice this in the way he is "staring at [Shug Avery] real hard" when he does not think Celie is looking at him. A justification for this passion might come out of the fact that his mother was a dominant woman, a woman whom he loved very much. However, Harpo believes that the only way in which to show his power is through controlling women. He thus plays a safe bet with Mary Agnes, because up until she is raped by the warden, she has no voice, no identity and as a result no attractive character. Harpo, like his father, begins to understand Sofia’s attitudes; much in the same way as Mr. _______ realises Celie’s towards the end. By the end of the novel, we almost see a version of sisterhood among males, as Harpo helps his father rid himself of the guilt he has brought upon himself. The act of cleaning the house, preparing food and finding time to "give his daddy a bath" is not only reminiscent of Celie and Shug cleansing each other earlier on in the novel, but it reinforces the idea that each of us needs each other. Essentially, a cliché though it is, Harpo is the novel’s ‘new man,’ but only becomes it once he begins to accept the fragility of sexual stereotyping. Mary Agnes The character of Mary Agnes is important to an idea of Alice Walker’s. In one interview she said "the magic of naming is that people often become what they are called," and this is certainly true in Mary Agnes’ case. As ‘Squeak’, we are told that she has a "teenouncy voice" and that in Harpo’s depression he simply "looks through her head." As Squeak, then she has no voice and no identity. In asserting to the world as well as to Harpo that her name "Mary Agnes" the character is allowed to develop her voice through singing, and in turn mock those who only showed interest in her "yellow" skin. Mary Agnes is able to attain this voice much earlier than Celie. This has a lot to do with the fact that she discovers the virtues of sisterhood more readily than does Celie. Not only is she "the one to go" and get Sofia out of jail, but she is encouraged to share her dreadful experiences with Shug and the party straight after the rape, "if you can’t tell us, who you gon tell, God." From here, she is liberated. For Celie, though her bad experiences date back to the first letter, she does not tell Shug until letter forty-seven, and so is not helped until much later on. The next dramatic encounter featuring Mary Agnes is at dinner in letter seventy-four. In a few short lines, we realise that Mary Agnes is now "Squeak" again. Her pregnancy bearing Jolentha has, it seems forced her back into domesticity. She makes the connection that as "Mary Agnes" she "could sing in public." Her custom made pants at the end, which remind Celie of the "sunset" highlight that she has brightness on future horizons. Grady Grady is Shug’s husband, and he is described as a man wearing "big red suspenders" and having "big toofs." By the virtue of only ever having one narrator, Grady is then portrayed as a foolish, undesirable character though never malicious or exacting. As Walker allows us to get inside Celie’s head, we can empathise with her. We all, as we read the sections where Grady is featured, wonder why Shug ever married him? The relationship between Shug and Grady is not cited in the Relationship profiles on this site, precisely because it is so superficial. When Shug’s car broke down, Grady was "the man who fixed it." They simply "took one look at one nother" and "that was it." In this context, the relationship seems rather suspect. The fact that Shug is "cold in her and Grady bed" is a symbol for the coldness of the relationship, there is no warmth, no love there, and one must bear in mind that this is only two letters after Shug had introduced him. Grady is a con-artist throughout the novel. Shug no doubt has power over him. It was Shug who "found" him and he is referred to as Shug’s "dog." Yet, in calling Shug "mama" and not paying her "no mind," Grady is almost certainly only after Shug Avery’s money, as he takes almost no interest in her after they return to Mr. _______'s home. The fact that Shug shows completely no jealousy when he has got his eyes on Squeak highlights what a foolish, worthless man Grady is. Samuel Samuel is described as "a big man" who has "the most thoughtful and gentle brown eyes." Not only does this description function to illuminate Nettie’s sub-conscious desire for Samuel as a man, but it also highlights Samuel – along with Jack – as a breach to the notion that Walker went out deliberately to defame black American men. Indeed, even when most disgusted by the fact that the Olinka have a constant preoccupation with merely "things" Samuel role is as a frustrated, tiring man who had "dreams of helping people" rather than harbouring any vindictive or malicious attitudes towards people. All the characters in the novel go through physical, spiritual and emotional journeys. Samuel’s encounters all three. His journey is especially frustrating. His reluctance to become involved in Celie and Mr. _______’s affairs is understandable, yet in choosing not "coming between man and wife" Walker is criticising his willingness to become involved with the African people before actually addressing his own people’s problems. Samuel and the missionaries are like "flies on an elephant’s hide," they are irritating, made unwelcome by the people and, like flies, generally have little impact on the tribe of Olinka and their beliefs despite believing that they and the African people are working towards "one common goal." Samuel attempts to covert the people. Ironically, not only does he seem at his most useful when he is not doing this, "we teach the young ones, babysit the babies, look after the old and sick," but it is he that is converted to a faith where "each person’s spirit is encouraged to seek God directly" with less doctrine. Corrine Corrine denies sisterhood in the very act of asking that she, Samuel and Nettie "should call one another brother and sister." In referring to the native people as "thick," the reader is put at odds with Corrine, as her mind becomes slowly more confused and corrupted. Her second sin against sisterhood does not involve the personal – Nettie or the Olinka tribe – but she rejects the whole Olinka idea that we are all each others children. "Don’t let the children call you Mama Nettie, she said, even in play." The idea of "accept[ing] everybody else as a child of God, or one mother’s children" is an act that is not just carried out between the Olinka people but among Squeak, Odessa and Sofia’s other "amazon sisters" while Sofia is serving as maid. In rejecting sisterhood, Corrine subsequently receives none. Throughout the novel we get the sense that sisterhood is a woman’s ‘living bread,’ and without it even the strongest woman will be crushed. Such is the case with Celie, Annie Julia, whose "family forgot about her once she married" and Celie’s mother Maria. In three of these four cases, the end result is death. This too happens to the solitary Corrine, though she regains "sweet ways" and her "heart intent on doing good" once she has faith to regard Nettie’s story as the truth. Eleanor Jane Eleanor Jane, daughter of the racist Miss Millie, is a confused character in the sense that she has been indoctrinated by her parents into believing that black serving white is a natural state of being. She deems it "unnatural" that Sofia can turn away from her new baby boy, Reynolds Stanley Earl, and when trouble brews in her dysfunctional family, she has no qualms about unsettling Sofia’s family dinner in order to appease her own. When we are first introduced to Eleanor Jane it is during Sofia’s altercation with Miss Millie’s younger son, Billy. She "always stick up" for Sofia, especially as Millie asks rather discriminatory, "Sofia do it?" but Sofia, surprisingly "never notice, she as deef to the little girl as she is to her brother." This is because not only does Eleanor Jane represent the next generation of the people who forced her to work as maid, but she also signifies Sofia’s lack of ability to stand up for herself. Eleanor Jane, thus becomes Sofia’s spokesperson, and in this sense Sofia loses her voice. There are also many instances where Eleanor Jane attempts to forcibly integrate Sofia into a family in which she does not belong. In letter seventy-four, she highlights her racist overtones by disregarding Odessa’s offer of some food, and yet, she takes Sofia away from a family already hostile towards her, precisely because of the kindness she has been forced to show to another set of children. In letter eightyseven, Sofia makes a stand against Eleanor Jane and refuses to be integrated into her family as substitute black mammy. Alphonso Alphonso resembles the black men who sold so many of their country’s people into slavery during the 1800's slave trade. Like the old slave masters, Alphonso subjects Celie to terrifying sexual abuse and trades his sexual partners in once they become "too old for" him. That said, Alphonso knows real moral behaviour, and in giving away both of Celie’s children, we see that he is conscious of any of the children ever resembling him. His remark about Miss Beasley, who "run off at the mouth so much no man would have her" internalises in Celie the notion that passivity in women is crucial in a male-dominated world. In following the white men during letter eight and opening a store with his "own white boy to run it" Alphonso simply perpetuates racism, but in a different form. He is a character that is able to put on a front to a community that is otherwise blind to his actions. On his gravestone, the epitaph reads "Upright husband and father. Kind to the poor and helpless," though this is contradictory in the context of his actions towards Celie and May Ellen. Alphonso is the only unredeemed character in the novel, and this is captured by Celie’s inability to ever call him by his real name – unlike Mr. _______ who later is called Albert. His death however, is a form of poetic justice; he is killed while having sex, the very thing that he always sought during his very self-indulgent life. Tashi Throughout the novel we find that Tashi is a new generation woman, a radical, and as a result she seems a novelty in a country rife with traditional values and attitudes. It is therefore disturbing that despite the new optimism in Tashi, she agrees to go ahead with both the "facial scarification ceremony and the rite of female initiation," an indelible stamp that conservatism still prevails throughout the world. Earlier in the book we see Tashi’s father angry and agitated because he teaches her in vain and "this knowledge does not really enter her soul." We may assume that Tashi takes for granted what her father has to say because she does not acknowledge it as the truth, just him attempting to indoctrinate her with his idea of the duties of womanhood. Tashi attempts to change the system, her father tells us that "her face is beginning to show the spirit of one of her aunts who was sold to the trader" after flippant behaviour. Tashi is also however one who attempts to not only change the sex but the race system also. As the children tell stories Nettie says "I am encouraging [Tashi] and Olivia to write them down in Olinka and English" and from this we can infer that Tashi is one who tries to reconcile difference between the races, and languages in order that they may have some shared understanding. However, some believe that her character is somewhat marred in having the female circumcision. Doris Baines Doris Baines reflects the age-old missionary, because like "Speke" and "Livingstone" who took "thousands of vases, jars" and other ornaments, Baines too, takes from the natives their experiences, and converts them into works of literature under her pen name Jared Hunt. To a greater extent then, Doris Baines' actions link in with Harris' Uncle Remus Tales, tales that were taken from active slaves and claimed as the work of a white man. Moreover in admitting, "I own a village of Akwee" her actions tie in with the principles of colonialism, where one country would take relics and other valuables from one country and make them everyday commodities in their own. She makes the distinction between "an African daisy and an English daisy" and so respects diversity, but in another sense she fails to regard everybody as ‘one,’ and thus goes against the Olinka principles, who accept everybody else "as a child of God." Doris Baines is also a hypocrite, who after resisting to marry to "so many milkfed young men" becomes an honorary husband by accepting a "couple of wives" whom she then educates. Of course, these wives may also be read in terms of a prize, much like the one Samuel’s Aunt receives from King Leopold. However, one might also say that Doris Baines is doing ‘her bit’ for racial relations by fostering Harry, yet her attempt to integrate him as a son "produced in him a kind of soberly observant speechlessness." Baines therefore can be read either as a freedom fighter writing "reams of paper in their behalf" or as simply a reminder that Africa has no voice and as such, the only beliefs and ideas we have about their people are those created by white people.