Possessing the Secret of Joy

Alice Walker’s novel Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) focuses on Tashi, a minor character from Walker’s earlier and more famous novel, The Color Purple, who marries Adam, Celie’s son. In The Color Purple, Tashi undergoes the traditional African rite of female circumcision and facial scarring; Adam also has his face scarred to show his devotion. Walker uses a different storytelling approach in this novel, which is composed of several lengthy interior monologues broken up by occasional letters received by the characters. Tashi, who struggles with mental illness, is an unreliable narrator.

At the start of the novel, Tashi says, “I did not realize for a long time that I was dead.” Then she tells a story about an unloved female panther forced into an unhappy co-marriage with a male and a female panther that are in love with each other, and how the unloved panther eventually commits suicide. Olivia, Tashi’s sister-in-law and lifelong friend, takes over the narration, explaining that Tashi often uses stories like these to communicate. Tashi then describes being in psychoanalysis and telling the story of her sister, Dura, who once put a burning twig into her mouth and then cried for help, but none of the adults helped her. Tashi expresses hope the doctor will cure her. Adam, Tashi’s husband, discusses not remembering the first time he met Tashi, and how his childhood memories of Tashi do not match those of Olivia. Adam is uneasy that his memories may not be accurate.

Tashi and Olivia relate the story of Tashi’s female circumcision, which Olivia passionately opposed. Tashi was saved from the procedure by Christian missionaries who viewed the practice with horror, but she finds herself feeling disconnected from both her American culture (where she has taken the name Evelyn Johnson) and her African roots.



Olivia tries to convince Tashi not to undergo the procedure, performed by the Olinka tribe’s Tsunga, but Tashi goes through with it, in part because of her conflicting feeling about the two cultures she feels torn between—her African roots and her new life. Tashi is haunted by the terrible memories of her sister Dura’s circumcision, performed by the famous Tsunga, M’Lissa. Dura’s circumcision was botched and Dura died in horrible pain. Tashi was initially happy to have escaped circumcision, but finds that she feels incomplete and shunned by other Olinka women who view her as not a woman because she has not undergone the procedure. Tashi wishes to connect to her culture—though not forced to undergo the procedure, she is strongly pressured by the attitude of the other people in her tribe. Tashi decides to have the circumcision despite the dangers of doing so as a teenager; usually, the operation is performed on very young children. M’Lissa also performs Tashi’s circumcision.

Tashi’s mental state devolves after the procedure. She is haunted by the memory of her sister, saying repeatedly that she hears Dura’s screams in her ears. She comes to view her sister’s circumcision as a murder and blames M’Lissa for the crime. As it is revealed that Tashi is in prison, it becomes clear that she has suffered a break from reality stemming from the horrors of the circumcision, which is very painful and causes her unending physical problems in its wake, problems which Olivia assists her with, refusing to abandon her despite her fierce disagreement with what Tashi has done.

Tashi recalls the trial, and how the men who officiated had no sympathy for her experience. This sort of misogyny and chauvinism is shown to be part of the culture of the Olinka people, who do not believe in educating women, and who teach women from a young age to be dutiful to their husbands and not seek independence of thought or action.



Adam finds Tashi after the procedure in a rebel camp, bound, her wounds festering. Remembering her as a quick-witted, cheerful girl, he rescues and marries her. He brings her to the United States, but Tashi’s mental state degrades. She is not the same girl he remembers; physically she is challenged due to the incompetent way M’Lissa sewed her up after the procedure. Adam takes a mistress, fathering a son with her.

Tashi seeks help from psychiatrists but finds no relief. Returning to Africa in search of respite, she meets M’Lissa again, who has become a celebrity. Tashi reaches a breaking point upon seeing this woman whom she feels murdered her sister and has ruined her own life. Tashi believes she has found a way to honor her culture—meting out justice by killing M’Lissa and burning her body.

Tashi’s unreliable nature makes the chapters told from other characters’ points of view essential to understanding what happened and in what sequence. Walker’s unblinking descriptions of the circumcision procedure are gruesome and difficult to read, but serve the purpose of making the horror and brutality of the practice clear even to those who are not familiar with the African cultures that practice it.