The Color Purple, by Alice Walker Essay - 1969 Words

The Color Purple by Alice Walker is an epistolary novel criticized for its immoral and sensitive issues, such as incest, rape, and physical abuse. The story takes place in the early 1900s in the South, and symbolizes the unmerciful social, emotional, and economic hardships that African American women faced. The protagonist of the story is Celie, a woman who has been abused since her youth and documents her struggles through letters written to God and eventually to her sister Nettie, who is a missionary in Africa. Her sister’s experiences in Africa are a direct correlation to Celie’s life in America and emphasizes key themes in the novel, such as sexism, racism and power struggle, and the importance of women working together to overcome†¦show more content†¦Albert raises Harpo to believe that women are like animals, something to be domesticated and tamed. He tells him, â€Å"Well how you spect to make her mind? Wives is like children. You have to let ‘e m know who got the upper hand. Nothing can do that better than a good sound beating† (Walker, 37). Harpo’s inferiority in comparison to Sofia is a result of his failure in gaining control over his wife by physical power, so he has no alternative measures to suppress his wife. Through Nettie’s letters the reader then becomes exposed to another independent female by the name of Tashi. When Adam disapproves Tashi’s idea of getting the tribal scarring done, she turns his back to him and gets it done without his consent. Tashi also like Sofia, highlights how men in the novel have a desire to be controlling over women and how as the world is changing, so are women. Neither Tashi nor Sofia do what is expected of women at that time, and rebel against male-oriented power. In Africa, â€Å"The Olinka do not believe girls should be educated. A girl is nothing to herself; only to her husband can she become something† (Walker, 155). The men of the Olinka vill age are afraid that if woman gain an education, there is the possibility they may diminish the misogynistic power structure in their tradition. Consequently, the women will noShow MoreRelatedThe Color Purple By Alice Walker1355 Words   |  6 PagesDecember, 2015 Just A Single Purple Wildflower In A Field Of Weeds Alice walker once said, â€Å"No person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended. Or who belittles in any fashion the gifts you labor so to bring into the world.† The color purple has timelessly been used to convey pictures of power and ambition, it is also associated with the feeling of independence. The Color Purple is the story of the constantRead MoreThe Color Purple By Alice Walker710 Words   |  3 PagesThe Series of unfortunate events in The Color Purple The Color Purple by Alice Walker starts off with a rather graphic view of a young black woman denominated as Celie. Celie has to learn how to survive her abusive past. She also has to figure out a way she can release her past in search of the true meaning of love. Alice walker wrote this book as an epistolary novel to further emphasize Celie`s life events. From the beginning of the novel Alice Walker swiftly establishes an intimate contact withRead MoreThe Color Purple by Alice Walker1192 Words   |  5 Pagesas a novel containing graphic violence, sexuality, chauvinism, and racism, The Color Purple was banned in numerous schools across the United States. Crude language, brutality, and explicit detail chronicle the life of Celie, a young black woman exposed to southern society’s harshness. While immoral, the events and issues discussed in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple remain pervasive in today’s society. The Color Purple epitomizes the hardships that African A mericans faced at the turn of the centuryRead MoreThe Color Purple by Alice Walker675 Words   |  3 Pagesthe world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.† Straight from the mouth of Alice Walker this quote was spoken in order to point out that fact that none of God’s creatures were put on this Earth to be someone else’s property. Alice Walker is an African-American novelist and poet who took part in the 1960’s civil rights movement in Mississippi. Walkers creative vision was sparked by the financial sufferingRead MoreThe Color Purple by Alice Walker921 Words   |  4 PagesAlice Walker’s realistic novel, The Color Purple revolves around many concerns that both African American men and women faced in an era, where numerous concerns of discrimination were raised. Religious and gender issues are confronted by the main characters which drive the plot and pa int a clear image of what life may possibly have been like inside an African American home. Difficulties were faced by each and every character specifically Celie and Nettie who suffered heavy discrimination throughoutRead MoreThe Color Purple By Alice Walker1540 Words   |  7 Pages Alice Walker is an award winning   author, most famously recognized for her novel   The Color Purple ;aside from being a novelist Walker is also a poet,essayist and activist .Her writing explores various social aspects as it concerns women and also celebrates political as well as social revolution. Walker has gained the reputation of being a prominent spokesperson and a symbolic figure for black feminism. Proper analyzation   of Walker s work comes from the   knowledge on her early life, educationalRead MoreThe Color Purple By Alice Walker3360 Words   |  14 Pagesâ€Å"Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender† (Yahwon). Alice Walker views herself as a womanist. Although a womanist and feminist are similar, the two terms are not exactly the same. According to Professor Tamara Baeouboeuf-Lafonant: [Womanism] focuses on the experiences and knowledge bases of black women [which] recognizes and interrogates the social realities of slavery, segregation, sexism, and economic exploitation this group has experienced during its history in the United States. FurthermoreRead MoreThe Color Purple by Alice Walker1100 Words   |  5 PagesThe Color Purple by Alice Walker is a story written in 1982 that is about the life struggles of a young African American woman named Celie. The novel takes the reader through several main topics including the poor treatment of African American women, domestic abuse, family relationships, and also religion. The story takes place mostly in rural Georgia in the early 1900’s and demonstrates the difficult life of sharecropper families. Specifically how life was endured from the perspective of an AfricanRead MoreThe Color Purple by Alice Walker926 Words   |  4 PagesThe award-winning novel, â€Å"The Color Purple† by Alice Walker, is a story about a woman going through cruel things such as: incest, rape, and physical abuse. This greatly written novel comes from a very active feminist author who used many of her own experiences, as well as things that were happening during that era, in her writing. â€Å"The Color Purple† takes place in the early 1900s, and symbolizes the economic, emotional, and social deprivation that African American women faced in Southern statesRead MoreThe Color Purple By Alice Walker1495 Words   |  6 PagesThe Color Purple, is a novel written by the American author Alice Walker. The novel won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and is also regarded to be her most successful piece of work. It has developed into an award winning film and was recently made into a Broadway play. The story continues to impress readers throughout the decades due to its brutal honesty. The novel successfully and truthfully demonstrates what life was like for black women during the early twentieth century. The book discusses