Quote 1
Harpo
say, I love you, Squeak. He kneel down and try to put his arms round
her waist. She stand up. My name Mary Agnes, she say.
This passage is from Celie’s forty-first
letter. Squeak has just returned from an unsuccessful attempt to
release Sofia from prison. The prison warden raped Squeak, and she
returns home battered and torn. However, Squeak is not defeated,
and she makes an important act of resistance when she decides to
reject the belittling nickname, Squeak, that Harpo has given her.
She insists on being called by her given name, Mary Agnes. By renaming
herself, Mary Agnes resists the patriarchal words and symbols that
Harpo has imposed upon her. Walker repeatedly stresses the importance
of language and storytelling as ways of controlling situations and
as the first steps toward liberation. Just as Shug renames Celie
a virgin, and just as Celie reverses Mr. ______’s words to say,
“I’m pore, I’m black, I may be ugly and can’t cook. . . . But I’m
here,” Mary Agnes renames herself to show her refusal to let the
man in her life gain interpretive control over her.
