Rape, Resilience and Survival: A Feminist Study of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

Abstract

This study examines the portrayal of rape and sexual violence in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982), focusing on how women’s bodies are depicted as sites for the exertion of masculine power. Drawing on Susan Brownmiller’s seminal work Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (1975), the research foregrounds sexual violence as a mechanism of patriarchal domination and female subjugation. In Beloved, Sethe’s repeated assaults and the theft of her breast milk expose how slavery weaponized sexual violence to obliterate both bodily autonomy and maternal identity. The Color Purple further intensifies this discourse, as Celie’s repeated rapes at the hands of her stepfather reduce her body to an object of control, yet her eventual reclamation of voice and selfhood resists such dehumanization. Engaging with Brownmiller’s concepts of rape as an “act of power” and the male organ as a “weapon,” this analysis shows how male dominance is inscribed on the female body through acts of sexual violence that seek to instill fear and enforce submission. At the same time, the narratives highlight forms of resilience and survival—whether through Sethe’s radical maternal protection or Celie’s eventual empowerment—that complicate victimhood and suggest spaces of resistance. By exploring the intersections of rape, resilience, and survival, this study contributes to a feminist understanding of sexual trauma in African American literature, demonstrating how these novels expose the structural violence of patriarchy while affirming women’s enduring struggle for resistance and empowerment.