Dehumanizing Power Structure

“Dear God,

They put Sofia to work in the prison laundry. All day long from five to eight she washing clothes. Dirty convict uniforms, nasty sheets, and blankets piled way over her head. Us see her twice a month for half an hour. Her face yellow and sickly, her fingers look like fatty sausage.

Everything nasty here, she say, even the air. Food bad enough to kill you with it. Roaches here, mice, flies, lice and even a snake or two. If you say anything they strip you, make you sleep on a cement floor without a light.

How you manage? us ast.

Every time they ast me to do something, Miss Celie, I act like I'm you. I jump right up and do just what they say.

She look wild when she say that, and her bad eye wander round the room” (Walker 88).

This passage exemplifies a shift in characterization in Sofia. Sofia is no longer the defiant, outspoken individual that managed to get arrested for just that reason. One can tell that Sofia is out of her element when Celie mentions that Sofia looks "wild". There is irony in that because prisons are intended to punish for wrongdoings and hopefully make the individual realize that they may need to make changes in their life. Prisons are an establishment of civilization. Uncivilized, wild societies do not have prisons and thrive on instinct and human nature. And yet, Sofia has turned "wild" while in prison. The author may be hinting at how prisons of that degrading nature do nothing for an individual but make them feel less than human.

The imagery here hints at the similarities of a food warehouse, a dark storage room, that is quite often unclean and has vermin infested with it. The description of "food bad enough to kill you", "roaches here, mice, flies, lice, and even a snake or two", and "sleep on a cement floor without a light" describes an abandoned food warehouse. Humans don't live in food warehouses, so it is almost as if the whites place black "criminals" in a place that dehumanizes them. The simile of "her fingers look like fatty sausage" furthers this analogy.

The food warehouse analogy has the effect of presenting this idea of power structure between blacks and whites to the reader. Whites, in the time period in which this novel takes place, definitely have the upper hand in society and pride themselves on keeping it that way. In some cases throughout the novel, white actions seem rather unconscious, as if they act this way because its normal and see no wrong in it. But on the other hand, degrading actions such as beating Sofia to a pulp must somehow resonate with white law enforcement that this is inhumane. However, they choose to do it anyway. This power structure is a constant battle that blacks have to live with, and passages such as the one above present just how awful it is to the reader.