The Third Life of Grange Copeland

by Alice Walker

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Literary Techniques

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The central concept in The Third Life of Grange Copeland is the notion that individuals can undergo symbolic rebirth multiple times throughout their lives. This idea, discussed in the "Themes" section, is crucial for a full appreciation of the novel. Another significant aspect of the text is Walker's use of an omniscient third-person narrator, which allows for the exploration of the hidden thoughts and motivations of the characters. This narrative style is vital as the novel examines the different personas characters adopt to either conform to or challenge the racist stereotypes imposed on them. Through this omniscient narration, Walker immerses the reader in the multiple lives of her protagonist, Grange Copeland, illustrating various ways black men respond to the physical and economic oppression imposed by racist power structures.

Grange's initial responses are marked by a certain degree of brutality and misogyny, while Brownfield's reaction is even more violent and murderous. However, Walker does not intend to portray Brownfield as a monstrous, inherently evil character, as such a character's motivations would remain inscrutable. Instead, Walker emphasizes the impact of circumstances like poverty, racial oppression, and the absence of a loving home on the development of Grange's and Brownfield's characters.

Despite this, Walker is careful not to place all the blame on external circumstances. She strikes a balance, attributing character development to both external influences and the characters' inner weaknesses. She achieves this balance by refraining from direct authorial condemnation of even the most negative traits of Grange and Brownfield, maintaining a neutral tone in the omniscient narration. In doing so, Walker demonstrates that people, who are not born evil, can become monstrous under the pressure of historical and racial forces. To avoid such a fate, the characters must take responsibility for their actions.

Throughout the narrative, recurring symbols are employed to trace the evolution of various characters. Walker illustrates Brownfield's downfall and his destruction of Mem through detailed descriptions of their physical forms. Brownfield aims to dismantle everything that initially drew him to Mem, transforming her into someone he deems worthy of him. This destruction is symbolized by the deterioration of her once magnificent breasts, which were part of the vibrant figure that initially attracted Brownfield. These breasts symbolized the couple's earlier generative lovemaking—a gentle, joyful act of sharing rather than an act of taking.

As the story progresses, Mem's breasts shrivel, mirroring the decline of her entire body. As Brownfield's love diminishes and his lovemaking turns violent, Mem's body gradually loses its health and vitality. Similarly, Walker uses the physical decline of Brownfield's body to symbolize the destructive nature of relentless labor for the sharecropper. His body shrinks, aches, dries up, and cracks. Through this symbolism and the absence of overt authorial judgment, Walker maintains a balanced examination of character development, considering both inherent personal traits and historical influences.

Ideas for Group Discussions

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The Third Life of Grange Copeland illustrates the suffocating impact of persistent racial oppression, while also suggesting that this cycle can be disrupted. The seemingly unavoidable nature of this cycle is embodied in Brownfield's dangerous resignation, which tainted the initial two lives of Grange Copeland. Both characters, whose names (Grange, Brownfield) are linked to generations of Black labor on barren land, end up dead by the story's conclusion, unable to relinquish their hatred. Through his legacy, both in experiences shared and money left behind, Grange offers his granddaughter a chance at a life of freedom and love, where the future is a horizon of hope. However, Walker leaves the hope that Ruth symbolizes somewhat ambiguous, as Ruth is the sole fragile possibility remaining from three generations of the Copeland family.

(This entire section contains 316 words.)

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illustrates the suffocating impact of persistent racial oppression, while also suggesting that this cycle can be disrupted. The seemingly unavoidable nature of this cycle is embodied in Brownfield's dangerous resignation, which tainted the initial two lives of Grange Copeland. Both characters, whose names (Grange, Brownfield) are linked to generations of Black labor on barren land, end up dead by the story's conclusion, unable to relinquish their hatred. Through his legacy, both in experiences shared and money left behind, Grange offers his granddaughter a chance at a life of freedom and love, where the future is a horizon of hope. However, Walker leaves the hope that Ruth symbolizes somewhat ambiguous, as Ruth is the sole fragile possibility remaining from three generations of the Copeland family.

1. Do you think Grange Copeland is a sympathetic character? Why or why not?

2. Discuss the various contrasts Walker draws in the book between the North and the South. Do you believe the North represents a land of opportunity in any way?

3. Does Walker clearly convey the promise that Ruth holds for the future? Do you find this element of hope convincing?

4. Discuss the politics of education in the novel. Does Mem's use of "proper English" signify a self-aggrandizing rejection of her home and heritage, as Brownfield claims? Does Walker imply that certain modes of speech are more authentic than others?

5. Some critics argue that the male characters in this work are entirely unsympathetic and that the book criticizes men as a whole. Does the text support this viewpoint?

6. Discuss Grange's attacks on Josie's promiscuity. Do you think Grange's violent disapproval reflects the author's own views? Why or why not?

7. Compare the character of Mem with that of her daughter Ruth. Would you agree that, while their capacity to love and inability to hate represent hope for the future, Mem's fate demonstrates how fragile that hope is?

Social Concerns

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Alice Walker's The Third Life of Grange Copeland serves as an in-depth reflection on the efforts of rural African Americans to break free from the relentless cycle of sharecropping, an economic system as oppressive as the formal slavery abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation. Walker contends that sharecropping destroys the spirits of rural blacks, ruining their lives and undermining their capacity to love themselves and their families.

Walker illustrates the difficulty of escaping sharecropping through the character of Brownfield, the son of the main character, Grange Copeland. When Brownfield becomes engaged, he aims to earn money through hard work in hopes of moving north to live comfortably with his wife, Mem. As his dreams begin to crumble, Walker portrays Brownfield's growing sense of disillusionment and helplessness:

[Brownfield] ventured into the countryside, to a plantation [owner] reputed to be fair. They discussed sharecropping for two years, or until Brownfield could save enough to relocate his bride northward... Six years later, after endless labor from sunrise to sunset on fifty fertile acres of cotton and a good harvest, they received two sickly shoats for winter meat, some dried potatoes and apples from the boss's cellar, and hand-me-down clothes for his children from the boss's family... His mounting debt weighed heavily on him. He contemplated suicide... [all his prayers] turned into another mouth to feed, another body enslaved to settle his debts. He felt doomed to become nothing more than an overseer on the white man's plantation, supervising his own children.

Walker makes it clear that sharecropping is a modern form of economic slavery, where the black farmer's debt essentially places him under the white man's control. Even more distressing is the fact that Brownfield is compelled to put his children to work in the fields to alleviate the financial strain of an additional mouth to feed. Despite these extra hands, a year's hard labor benefits the white man, increases the black farmer's debt, and only earns the farmer a few unwanted hand-me-downs for his family. Essentially, Brownfield and his family are reduced to the status of farm machinery; their labor is traded to a new master in exchange for the use of a tractor. Like his sharecropper father before him, Brownfield learns to say "Yessir" to his white boss, much like slaves were forced to do. He is compelled to endure his boss's mistreatment of himself and his family with feigned cheerfulness. Even when contemplating murdering his supervisor for the torment and exploitation of his family, Brownfield smiles and agrees to work harder under worse conditions for even less. Walker demonstrates that the ultimate destruction of Brownfield's goodness occurs when he realizes his life is trapped in the same destructive cycle as his father's: this seemingly inescapable cycle of sharecropping extinguishes all of Brownfield's hope.

Walker presents a harrowing example of the harsh reality of economic neo-slavery through the perspective of Grange, who is helpless as he listens to his wife, Margaret, being assaulted by his white employer, Shipley:

"Grange, save me! Grange, help me!" she had cried the first time she was taken by [Shipley]. [Grange] had drowned her cries with whiskey, convincing himself that he was not responsible for his wife's unforgivable plight. He blamed Margaret and he blamed Shipley, along with all the Shipleys in the world ... his hatred of Shipley's whiteness exonerated Grange from his own guilt, and his blackness shielded him from any feelings of shame that threatened to arise within him.

Here, Walker illustrates that the white man remains a slave master. Just as during formal slavery, the master claims both the labor of the black man and violent sexual access to the black woman's body. Grange, similar to Brownfield, has internalized the stereotype of the black man as a slave, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, protecting him from his own shame. Grange perceives himself as powerless against the white man, and thus renders himself powerless. Walker reveals how some black men shift blame for their inaction onto black women and white men, instead of taking responsibility for their own actions or inactions. Racial hatred from the black man transforms into gendered violence. Believing themselves unable to confront the white man, both Grange and Brownfield direct their anger towards their wives, venting their frustration through domestic violence. This violence first extinguishes the love between Grange and Margaret, and between Brownfield and Mem, eventually leading to Margaret's death in despair and Mem's murder at Brownfield's hands.

Paradoxically, however, there is an underlying tone of hope in the book. Walker envisions possibilities for the future, ways to break free from the destructive cycle of economic slavery, and paths to finding and maintaining love, which she portrays as a powerful force essential for not only happiness but the very survival of the characters. This hope is subtly indicated in the title of the work: Grange Copeland has a third life, a third opportunity to take responsibility for his actions and to atone for some of the wrongs he has committed.

Literary Precedents

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In her collection of essays titled In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens (1983), Alice Walker frequently acknowledges her debt to Zora Neale Hurston, a novelist, playwright, and anthropologist of the Harlem Renaissance. Walker notes that Hurston's writing instilled in her a sense that black cultural heritage is a valid, affirming, and valuable aspect of one's identity, a perspective she found missing in the protest fiction of authors like Richard Wright. Walker's focus on black men's misdirected anger towards black women and her quest for a model of love between women and men devoid of sexism reflects Hurston's themes in Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). The development of Grange Copeland through his affection for his granddaughter Ruth can be likened to the growth of Hurston's protagonist Janie. Throughout the novel, Janie rejects all models of marriage based on female subservience, achieving financial independence and a public voice that a sexist society would otherwise deny her.

Walker's examination of the destructive effects of economic and racist oppression in the South, along with the urban North's failure to fulfill its promise as a haven for southern rural blacks, can be compared to Richard Wright's semi-autobiographical novel Black Boy (1945). Although, as mentioned earlier, Wright's work lacks the celebratory tone found in Walker's writing, he nevertheless underscores the destructive power of institutionalized racism that continually jeopardizes the potential for celebration and future happiness in Walker's work.

When focusing on the oppression inherent in the sharecropping system, it is useful to both compare and contrast Walker's depiction of black suffering with John Steinbeck's portrayal of suffering white sharecroppers in Oklahoma in The Grapes of Wrath (1939). In Steinbeck's novel, characters attempt to escape the oppression of sharecropping by moving to the promised land—not the North, but the West. In California, Steinbeck's characters find that their poverty forces them into dire conditions and severe exploitation as near-slave laborers, with wealthy white Californian landowners showing as little regard for their rights as Mr. J. L. shows for Brownfield's family in Walker's novel.

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