O protagonismo de Celie em the color purple : uma abordagem interseccional e sistêmico-funcional

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the self-construction of the character Celie in the epistolary novel The color purple, by Alice Walker. Such study focuses on transitive utterances in which there are occurrences of pronouns “I” and “me” referring to Celie as agent and object when speaking of herself. The analysis is based on the way in which she experiences the world and how this proposal can contribute to the protagonism of black women and/or queer with reluctance to patriarchy in nowadays society. The corpus consists of letters written by Celie to God and/or to her sister Nettie. Our study proposes to investigate the sentences as a potential for a process of experiential construction of the individual. Therefore, this research takes as theoretical contribution the Systemic-Functional Linguistics, with Halliday and Matthiessen (2014), specifically in the analysis of the Transitivity System. Which can be defined as a system of description of sentences through semantic categories that explain how the individual experiences the world. Thus, in order to understand how Celie self-construction points to a protagonism, after discovering a new way of loving, intersectionality is also being used as a theoretical-methodological foundation, a concept that “it instrumentalizes us to see the modern colonial matrix against groups treated as oppressed” (AKOTIRENE, 2019, p. 44). Results indicate to a greater occurrence of Verbal Processes, totaling 260 occurrences, that is, Celie, as Sayer, is the speaker in the discourse. Based on the character’s experience of the world through speech, Celie creates her narrative text by verbally presenting her experiences after discovering a love for another woman, Shug. And even in the face of multiple violence suffered, she achieved her autonomy as a queer black woman in a 20th century cis-heteropatriarchal society. This study may contribute to the interest of seeking to understand social problems, so that social movements could engage and face the oppressive system of society.