In the novel Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo, Ntazake Shange uses magic as a means of empowerment that in turn challenges societal expectations in the youngest character, Indigo’s, coming of age. Throughout the course of the book whenever Indigo displays an action or trait that would typically be considered “crazy” or “unusual,” the phrase “the south in her” follows. While this explanation for her quirky display of character initially indicates that “the south” being a part of her has a negative connotation, I think Shange is ultimately trying to depict how empowerment can be generated in the claiming and reconstructing the meaning of words. The challenging of linguistics as a social construction in turn negates societal judgements that often breed insecurities in adolescent minds.
When Indigo is introduced, these characteristics of imagination and her deep connection to the magical world are prominent. Her relation to her personally constructed world and the communal world, causes worry and a sense of disapproval from her mother. Shange writes that Hilda Effania “would shake her head the way folks do when they hear bad news, murmuring ‘Something’s got a hold of my child, I swear. She’s got too much south in her” (Shange 2). But this outside look of disapproval cannot penetrate Indigo’s aura of magic. She creates a world where color is beautiful and radiant, while the societal world is colorless, if not mostly white, and oppressive. It makes sense why she does not want to see the world as it is.
Despite her body’s physical maturation, her mind stays child-like. Her world empowers her as a black girl, while the societal world does nothing but neglect and oversee people like her. Thus, she wants nothing to do with this world. In fact, she completely ignores it. “I didn’t make up white folk, what they got to do with me? I ain’t white. My dolls ain’t white. I don’t go round bothering white folks!’ ‘That’s right, they come round bothering us, that’s what I’m trying to tell you…’ ‘Well if they bothering you so much, you do something about ‘em’” (Shange 18). Indigo strictly lives in the world of her creation, all else has no purpose to her. She is a composition of her imagination and magic, and this alone fulfills her. A life in her mind allows for the acquisition of all that she has been deprived of in the material world.
Questions:
Is it possible to align (without conformity) the individualistic mind with that of the societal’s communal mind, or does happiness only manifest when the latter is ultimately ignored?
Do you think Shange’s depiction of the mind as beautiful through imagination and magic challenges the stigmatization of mental illness?