Abstract
In the present paper, the issues of female sexuality and abuse in the framework of generational development are analyzed. The studied topic refers to the characters of Tyler Perry’s screening of the famous feminist play of 1970s “Four Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” by Ntozake Shange. In this context, the main aim of the present essay is to make psycho-social analysis of the one of the main characters named Tangie in respect to her relationship with her mother Alice and sister Nyla. In this context, all three characters and their interconnection are analyzed in the framework of psychoanalysis and social perceptive. Then possible theory of the situation explanation and improvement is explained. Finally, the meaning of Tangie’s orange color is outlined. Appropriate conclusions are given in the end of the paper.
Key words: sexuality, abuse, development, psychoanalysis, subconsciousness.
Orange for the Hope of Love
Psycho-social analysis.
Tangie – daughter of Alice and elder sister of Nyla
Alice – mother of Tangie and Nyla.
Nyla – daughter of Alice and younger sister of Tangie
In the development, human individual comes through numerous stages and transitions. On each stage, conditions of the surrounding environment become significant factors of the normality or abnormality of individual’s development and transformation into a normal member of society. The disorder in an individual’s development takes place when the person whom a child should trust and who should take care of the child becomes the enemy and main violator of child’s development and future mental integrity. In this context, the most vulnerable are small children, particularly girls. Even more vulnerable are black or colored girls who have to fight not only their sexuality and family abuse but also social ignorance to their problems and even trustworthiness of their words. In the present essay, analysis of female sexuality and abuse in the framework of generational development are analyzed. The studied topic does not refer to existing females but to the characters of Tyler Perry’s screening of the famous feminist play of 1970s “Four Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” by Ntozake Shange. Although the characters are fictitious, they depict real, existing problems black women face every day of their lives – struggle for themselves, their femininity, sexuality; fight against harassment, abuse and family violence and the right to be self-sufficient individuals. In this context, the main aim of the present essay is to make psycho-social analysis of the one of the main characters named Tangie in respect to her relationship with her mother Alice and sister Nyla. In this context, all three characters and their interconnection are analyzed in the framework of psychoanalysis and social perceptive. Then possible theory of the situation explanation and improvement is explained. Finally, the meaning of Tangie’s orange color is outlined. Appropriate conclusions are given in the end of the paper.
Psycho-social analysis.
Tangie
The main problems of Tangie are that she could not overcome her sexual abuse trauma and find the way to cope with her sexuality. In this context, the implications of her sexual trauma would be analyzed and the problem of self-hate and lack of feelings.
In order to start analysis of Tangie’s problems and difficulty in relationship with her family, it is essential to emphasize her life style and its conditionality. Tangie is a beautiful young black female, who works in the bar and lives her life on the edge of self-misunderstanding and hatred to herself and men. The mixture of these attitudes is conditioned by the sexual abuse experienced by her in the early teens, when her grandfather had approached his way with her. That terrible experience had deprived her of innocence and childhood and of the sacral meaning of motherhood – Tangie got pregnant and had to make an abortion. In her further sexual and personal life, she continues to have sporadic, one-night relationship with men. From the first glance, it may seem that she has managed to overcome her childhood trauma, since she did not become a lesbian and is not afraid of all men after what had happened to her, but her self-perception and attitude to men is more troublesome than it may seem (Moore & Fine, 1999).
Tangie’s sexual abuse trauma.
Self-hate and lack of feelings.
Tangie’s psychological condition is a mixture of self-hate and hate to men as an embodiment of her abuser. In a certain sense, she blames herself for what had happened. We are not sure what exactly reaction of Alice, her mother, was, although she had taken care of her during the abortion period. In any case, Tangie did not get timely help and could not understand that it was not her fault both in case of abuse and abortion (Bassin, 1999). Although she had comprehended that it was crucial to kill that fetus, subconsciously her maternity instinct was against it. In this context, she also blames herself for that abortion, and she understands that she will never be able to break the wall built inside her, and she will never be able to have a child and a normal family, mainly because she is not normal, she is deeply damaged inside (Robinson, 2007).
Alice
Alice is Tangie’s mother. Her main problems include the same lack of feelings as in case of Tangie. She had also substituted warmth of family relations by religion. Alice suffers from deprivation of sexuality and lack of self-esteem. Those problems are analyzed in the further paragraphs.
Complexity of mother-daughter relationship.
In the context of all mentioned above, it is crucial to analyze the relationship of Tangie and Alice. From the beginning of the movie, we find out that their relationship is not an easy one and that Alice is confronting Tangie about money for the education of her younger daughter Nyla. From this episode, we understand that there is no strong mother-daughter bound between Alice and Tangie. The main reason is the sexual abuse which Tangie had suffered in her childhood. She blames her mother for not doing anything to prevent that, she does not state that directly, but all her confrontations with mother are dictated by this (Robinson, 2007). Tangie’s subconscious blaming of her mother is later transformed into conscious blaming and despising of Alice, when she told Tangie that she was also sexually abused by her father, Tangie’s grandfather. Although this was supposed to unite two women, they ended up blaming one another. Tangie could not stand the thought that her mother knew what monster her grandfather was and still did not protect her, which, frankly speaking, was a justified argument (Moore & Fine, 1999).
Substitution of family by religion.
Another thing which created the gap between Tangie and Alice is Alice’s turn into evangelism and viewing of reality only in black/white colors. Tangie could not accept her mother, who after all what happened to both of them and Nyla, was still thinking in terms of good and evil and even morality. Lack of Alice’s comprehension of Tangie’s problems and moralizing on the topic of sporadic sexual contacts were also distancing Tangie from her (Moore & Fine, 1999). Another reason why Tangie was distancing from her mother and family was the “good” image of her sister Nyla, who was often opposed to her own appearance as a “bad” one. Alice’s reluctance to resolve the problem of Tangie and inability to fight her guilt for what had happened to Tangie made her idealize her younger daughter, who was good already because she did not experienced what Alice and Tangie did (Robinson, 2007). Subsequently, her desire to hide behind religion and morality had created a difference in attitude to her daughters and a subsequent wall between two sisters.
Deprivation of sexuality.
At this point, it is essential to look deeper into Alice’s psychology. Among all three women of her family, she is the one to experience the most of sexual abuse and family violence. Her father did not only sexually abuse her, he even gave her to the white men in order his granddaughters not be ugly as Alice. In this context, she was not only denied of her sexuality, beauty, self-esteem and ownership over her body, she was deprived of her soul and human nature in general (Moore & Fine, 1999). Subsequently, it is not a surprise that she finally turned to God in search for spirituality and relief. The problem was that by turning to a spiritual realm of evangelism, Alice had rejected everything material and sexual in life, including her daughters as females, possessing sexuality and femininity (Bassin, 1999). Since Alice was deprived of a normal sexual development, she could not provide her children with the security and proper sexual education. As a result, Tangie was sexually abused by her grandfather and Nyla got pregnant. The last statement does not mean that Alice is the reason why Tangie was abused, but her maternity feelings were never on their peak, since just as Tangie she could not create strong bonds with anyone, even her daughters (Robinson, 2007). On the other hand, I think that Alice was also blaming Tangie for her origin and birth itself. We can only guess that Tangie’s father was that white man who took her by her father’s order. In this context, Tangie was a reminder of both her father and the other man. From the religious perspective, she might have felt that Tangie was a sin of the violation over her (Moore & Fine, 1999).
Nyla
Nyla had no problems with sexual abuse or psychological traumas like her mother and sister. She was exploring her sexuality as any other young girl did. Her problem was lack of sexual education and awareness of her sexuality, which was a result of her mother’s and sister’s problems with the sexuality and abuse traumas.
Exploration of sexuality.
In between those two damaged women, there was a girl who had no burden of sexual abuse and victimization – Nyla. She was described as an energetic, young girl, who was discovering her sexuality and femininity through the first sexual act with the boy she liked, and whose amazing smile was so attractive. Nyla’s sexual experience was entirely different from the one of her mother and sister, before she got pregnant, of course. At this point, her life turns upside-down from mother’s favorite daughter to the one who makes an abortion and hears moral talks from entirely insane woman who, in fact, is the mother she loved. This pregnancy showed her what it is like to go through hell, just as her sister did, and what it feels like to be condemned by those who you cared for. In return, Nyla begins to blame Tangie for her heavy abortion and everything in general, which is partly true, since Tangie had offered her this option (Bassin, 1999). The way Tangie had expressed the idea and the fact that she did not go with Nyla show the numbness of her feelings and certain satisfaction that mother’s little angel is not an angel anymore. No matter how horrible this may sound, but this is the result of making a difference between two children and not treating the consequences of sexual abuse (Bassin, 1999).
The confrontation between three women and difficulty in their comprehension of personal sexuality and psychological problems were depicted on the general background of their social status and place of black women in society, in general. The difficulties and ordeals those women had to go through were taking place under conditions of money lack and entire social insecurity of their position. Tragedies of their lives can be viewed through the social system’s inability to help those in need. First of all, community members and social services were not there to protect Alice from her father and treatment as an object by another man. At the time when all that happened to her, black women were not considered even equal in rights with men, while white women already had some elaboration of their rights (Moore & Fine, 1999). Secondly, there was no one to protect Tangie and give her appropriate psychological treatment after abuse and abortion. She carried the burden of her trauma until adulthood. Finally, there was no social services to give Nyla needed sexual education, since her mother had failed to do that; and there was no one to help her with the abortion except for a drunk abortionist in some dirty part of the local ghetto (Moore & Fine, 1999). Through all those examples, society is seen as careless and indifferent to the problems and sufferings of those women.
Family treatment.
In the context of the situation described above, the most suitable approach to its treatment would be a combination of individual and common psychological sessions based on the general theory of psychoanalysis developed by Sigmund Freud. Theory of psychosexual development would be the most applicable in this context. First of all, it should be emphasized that this theory suggests that from birth each person has instinctual sexual libido, which develops from birth to maturity in five stages (Robinson, 2007). During each stage, a certain erogenous zone is responsible for the world perception and inner confidence development. Thus, there are oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital stages. Each stage corresponds to the formation of a certain feature of individual’s character, contributing eventually to a formation of an all-sufficient individual (Moore & Fine, 1999). On the other hand, when certain trauma or malfunction occurs, traumatic implications take place.
The reason why this theory was chosen for treatment is that, during individual and common psychological session with the family, the sources of their current problems would have to be explained to them on the regular basis of trauma-sexuality dependence and inability to get over it. In other words, the specialist would have to explain those women the course of sexual development and how it should be treated in cases of traumatic experiences. In the context of psychosexual development, the most crucial points would be Alice’s attitude to her daughters during their oral stages of development, whether she was breast-feeding and wanted them on the first place. The oral stage is crucial for the development of self-confidence and independence (Robinson, 2007). Another stage relevant for this family would be the latent stage (6 – teenage years). This is the time when general perception of sexuality is formed and socially acceptable patterns of behavior are formed. Since traumas had occurred at this time in all three cases, the social and personal life implications are vivid in all three cases. Thus, it would be crucial to explain the connection between traumas and social behavior of family members, meaning why Alice went for religion, why Tangie was sleeping around and why Nyla got pregnant. All those issues are explained by the mentioned theory. Under a proper treatment, those women could understand themselves.
Meaning of the orange color.
The reason why Tangie has the orange color is that orange blossom symbolizes purity, innocence, eternal love and final marriage. In this context, orange color corresponds to Tangie’s hopes and things she was deprived of. She was an innocent and lovable child, full of positive, radiant energy just as the orange color itself. She was pure as any little girl can be. She had her own dreams of a handsome prince whom she would meet one day. Like all girls, she believed in fairytales and happy endings (Bassin, 1999). All monsters were defeated in the end of the story. On the other hand, the reality turned to be entirely different from the imaginary land of pink dreams. Her purity and innocence were taken by dirty hands of the man who was supposed to be her protection from the monsters of the outer world. Her child’s trust in goodness and happy ever after was betrayed, and her hope was taken.
Without a stable ground and protection, Tangie could not develop in a normal way. Her femininity and sexuality were violently taken from her. She could not build any relationship since she had no feelings to anyone. She had lost all sensibility during the abuse. Her “orange” hopes of eternal love and family were gone with that blood. In other words, her orange blossom was torn off before its full bloom and not to speak before the fruits of her femininity and sexuality were ripe. Tangie was deprived of her future by the sexual abuse, inability of her mother and society to help her overcome that event (Moore & Fine, 1999).
Conclusions.
Overall, it can be concluded that Tangie’s behavior and relationship with her family and men in her life are conditioned by her sexual abuse and inability to overcome that event both morally and physically. The orange color symbolizes her innocence and hopes for eternal love and happy marriage, of which she was deprived. All three members of the family suffer from the denial of their sexuality and femininity, and inability to regain them under the current conditions. Although they all are trying to find their way of coping with circumstances, they fail because, without mutual understanding and concern, no trust and self-respect can be gained. Thus, they are doomed to circle around in search of themselves. One of the options of the problem resolution is appropriate help of the specialist who would be able to explain them the essence of their misunderstandings and mutual blaming.
References
Bassin, D. (1999). Female Sexuality: contemporary engagements. Northwale, NJ: J.
Aronsosn.
Moore, B.E. & Fine, B.D. (1999). Psychoanalysis: The Major Concepts. London, LD: Yale
University Press.
Robinson, E.S. (2007). Practical Psychology. La Vergne, TN: Lightning Source Inc.
