SPOILERS AHEAD
Alice Walker’s first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, looks at the consequences of Black subjugation in the South from 1920 until the Civil Rights Era, focusing on the Copeland family. The text exists in eleven segments, beginning when the protagonist, Brownfield, is a small child and ending upon Brownfield’s death at his father, the title character, Grange’s hands. The book is written in a third person omniscient point of view, primarily following Brownfield, but occasionally featuring the perspectives of those close to him, such as his wife, Mem, or his daughter, Ruth. Grange Copeland, though not physically present throughout the novel, is the catalyst for the plot.
It’s Grange’s inability to care for his son and Granges’ anger at the inability to progress in Southern society that causes him to abandon Brownfield at a young age to head North to New York City, a decision that ultimately is the cause for his wife’s suicide. On his own and fueled by his anger, Brownfield mirrors his father, even turning to the same woman, Josie, for sex and companionship until he gets married to Josie’s niece, Mem. Mem represents the idealized version of Brownfield’s mother from his youth, though she is more educated than his mother, Margaret. He connects with Mem as she teaches him to read and write, leading to their marriage and shared children. As with Grange, Brownfield takes on work and lives on the property of the same White man, Mr. Shipley. Just as Grange grew tired of being worked to the bone without anything to show for it, Brownfield grows resentful and becomes just as abusive to his own wife and children as Grange once was to Margaret and Brownfield. While Brownfield grows up, Grange is in New York, unable to find any more success than he had in the South. After a turn of events, he witnesses a pregnant White woman begin to drown and after she refers to him as a racial slur, he allows her to die. This event prompts Grange to return to the South and re-enter Brownfield’s life. Grange buys a farm with his newfound wife, Josie’s, money and begins spoiling his grandchildren with fruit and attention. After Brownfield snaps and murders Mem, two of Brownfield’s daughters are sent North to live with family while only the youngest, Ruth, stays behind and lives with Grange. Grange and Ruth’s bond grows as he teaches her everything he’s learned and advocates for her independence and education. This relationship marks the third life of Grange, after his first life with Margaret and his second life in New York. Both Grange and Brownfield’s lives come to a violent end at Grange’s hands after Brownfield tries to take Ruth from Grange after being released from prison for Mem’s murder.
Walker uses her characters as examples of victims, heroes, villains, and martyrs, all demonstrating how easily one can fall into a toxic, violent cycle of abuse and the challenges one faces when attempting to break the cycle. Walker humanizes horrors, showing the complexity of a Black family in the South, struggling to be seen as people. Toward the end of the novel, Walker instills hope through Ruth and the time period, the Civil Rights Era, as if to tell the reader that work must be done, but it will not be for nothing.
