Christopher
Webb
Mr.
Saxton
B4
English 11 H
10
October 2012
General
Information:
I
read The Color
Purple
by Alice Walker because my mom recommended it to me as a fantastic
read and because Alice Walker is an American author. The
Color Purple
was published in 1982.
Genre:
The
Color Purple fits into the
category of drama. Drama focuses on the human struggle by employing
brutally realistic events as the setting for the emotional
development of a character. Miss Celie undergoes an intense
transformation while living in the southern United States as she
undergoes events that question all she has ever known. Alice Walker
addresses difficult topics such as incest, sexual orientation, and
rape to ultimately change Miss Celie and the way by which she
perceives herself and her surroundings.
Summary:
Miss
Celie begins as a fourteen-year old girl living in Georgia. She gives
birth to two of her father's children who Miss Celie's father gives
away to a good Christian family. Miss Celie's father finds Miss Celie
a husband named Mr. ______ who already has three children of his own
from a previous marriage. They marry, not out of love, and Miss Celie
takes care of Mr. ______'s children. Miss Celie and Mr. _______ have
sexual encounters almost every night, but Miss Celie claims virginity
because the experiences bring her no pleasure. After so much sexual
and verbal abuse, Miss Celie turns to Shug Avery, Mr. ______'s lover
of the past, who helps her to gain self-confidence as well as the
letters that he has withheld from her. Eventually Miss Celie gains
enough confidence to tell Mr. _____ what she really thinks of him and
she and Shug move to Tennessee where Miss Celie opens a clothing
store. Miss Celie returns to her home as a successful businesswoman
to find that Mr. _____ has changed. She inherits her childhood home
after the death of a family member, Alphonso, and regains custody of
her two children.
I
learned that people can change. Alice Walker showed me that it may
take a lot and it may not always come in the way that one would hope
or expect, but that change does happen. I also learned that
stereotypically, men act like idiots towards women and that this has
to stop for the progression of mankind to continue.
Theme:
Oppressed
individuals can overcome difficult challenges such as domestic
violence and remove themselves from unfortunate circumstances by
forging strong friendships and uniting themselves with others to gain
voice and worth.
Golden
Passages:
“You
got to fight them, Celie, she say. I can't do it for you. You got to
fight them for yourself. I don't say nothing. I think bout Nettie,
dead. She fight, she run away. What good it do? I don't fight, I stay
where I'm told. But I'm still alive” (Walker 22).
This
passage illustrates the attitude that Celie has towards doing
anything that will improve her plight or anything that will benefit
her in general. The abuse that she experiences causes her to believe
that life has no greater purpose than survival. Men take advantage of
Celie's willingness to work and her naiveness in all things sexual
and exploit her as an object; as such, Celie treats herself as an
object which should experience no gratification nor pleasure and
which should demand nothing. People do not respect Celie partly
because of her femininity and her ethnicity and partly because she
does not value or respect herself. Respect from others closely
follows the respect of one's self, and because nobody has ever taught
Celie that she has value or worth, she does not respect herself.
Celie has trouble expressing herself to others because she worries
that they too will use her as just another means to advance
themselves and their interests in the eyes of others. This difficulty
results from a horrific past of domestic violence that Celie accepts
as a normal part of life.
“All
womens not alike, Tobias, she say. Believe it or not. Oh, I believe
it, he say. Just can't prove it to the world” (Walker 59).
Women
in The Color Purple
receive much of the same treatment from men. Men abuse them, violate
them, and take advantage of their womanly parts while refusing to
become involved with their emotions and personalities, the things
that truly define them. To Mr. ______, Celie merely presents herself
as a way for him to release his sexual needs. It would not matter to
him if she had slept with a hundred other men, so long as she sleeps
with him. Similarly, Harpo marries Sofia more because tradition would
have him do so than because he truly respects and desires her as a
person. Once he does marry her, he desires dominion over her in order
to maintain his ego and to gain respect from his father, not because
he cares about Sofia. Generally then, men act towards women in The
Color Purple
mechanically and without any thought at all. Sofia turns to Shug
because all of the men in her life prove to her that they are not
worth the effort; Sofia knows that she can find compassion from a
fellow female.
“Used
to be when he touch me I'd go all out of my head. Now when he touch
me I just don't want to be bothered. Once he git on top of me I think
bout how that's where he always want to be. She sip her lemonade. I
use to love that part of it, she say. I sued to chase him home from
the field. Git all hot just watching him put the children to bed. But
no more. Now I feels tired all the time. No interest” (Walker 69)
“He
never ast me nothing bout myself. He clam on top of me and fuck and
fuck, even when my head bandaged. Nobody ever love me, I say”
(Walker 117).
Sofia,
the speaker in the first quote, expresses disappointment in her
decline in interest in sex. The eventual failure of Harpo and Sofia's
marriage depicts the reality that marriage cannot be founded on
physical lust only, but also on affectionate emotional interest and
love. However, whereas Sofia once found making love to Harpo
enjoyable, Celie never enjoys it because to her, Mr. ______ performs
an act of violence on her each time it occurs, not one of love. He
alienates her from the experience and thus, makes her just another
means of accomplishing his purpose of pleasure. Miss Celie eventually
learns to enjoy the sexual experience with Shug, but only because
they share deep, sisterly bonds and confide everything in each other.
These bonds extricate Celie from the cycle of domestic violence and
give her the strength and confidence to demand more from Mr. _______
and from life in general.
“Naw,
I think I feel better if I kill him, I say. I feels sickish. Numb,
now. Naw you won't. Nobody feel better for killing nothing. They feel
something
is all. That better nothing nothing” (Walker 151).
“Yes,
Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make
faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice
tat tress do everything to git attention we do, except walk?”
(Walker 204).
Throughout
The Color Purple,
Celie consistently expresses feelings of apathy. Her drab lifestyle
may requite such an attitude, but it seems more likely that a person
given Celie's circumstances would act angrily or with a violent
attitude towards life. The reason for Celie's indifference towards
the outcome of her life presents itself in the amount of time that
men have oppressed Celie. Celie has learned that she copes better
with trials when she removes herself from difficult situations, thus
creating a separate sphere of aloofness in which to retreat. People
often find it difficult to come to terms with themselves without the
assistance of a confidante. Perhaps this explains why people
sometimes confide very personal and confidential things in utter and
complete strangers: they have nobody else in whom to divulge their
secrets.
“Let's
make quilt pieces out of these messed up curtains, she say. And I run
git my pattern book. I sleeps like a baby now” (Walker 44).
Originally,
Celie advises Harpo to beat Sofia because Celie believes that
domestic violence solves the problems in her marriage to Mr. ______.
However, Miss Celie feels intense remorse once she sees the physical
evidence of Harpo abusing Sofia. From that point on, Miss Celie and
Sofia enjoy a friendship forged by common environments and
challenges. Interestingly, the two women do not discuss their
difficulties much, but rather choose to focus on lighter, more
pleasant things, escaping into a world of their own creation. People
tend to find companionship in those who experience similar things as
them because they feel that they can empathize with one another more
easily and subsequently, feel better about their situations.
“Well,
us talk and talk bout God, but I'm still adrift. Trying to chase that
old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I
never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do
that?) not the color purple (where it come from?). Not the little
wildflowers. Nothing” (Walker 204).
This
passage suggests a shift in Celie's perception of God. She admits to
imagining God as an “old white man” at one point, but now she
begins to recognize the beauty of everything around her and connect
it to the ultimate figure of deity. The color purple often symbolizes
royalty or majesty, so Celie's association of God with purple
signifies that Celie now views God as royal and majestic. Celie once
believed God to be some distant figure far from involved in her life,
but the dear friendship of Shug brings new perspective on life to
Celie. Celie's attention to the little things and interest in details
that once seemed insignificant to her reflect the impact that
somebody taking a genuine interest in her have on her and her outlook
on life.
Rhetorical
Analysis:
The
Color Purple,
by Alice Walker, demonstrates the transformative powers that one
person can wield; individuals have the power to completely alter
lives, whether their own or that of a friend, for the better, much as
Shug does to Miss Celie. This power largely results from the
willingness of a person to communicate with other people around them.
Shug helps Miss Celie to realize that human beings need and deserve
the love that often accompanies this communication to achieve
happiness. Although Celie may find love in an atypical way, once she
does, she realizes that life has much more to offer than mere
survival. Alice Walker uses the concept of diction to demonstrate
that strong voice coupled with the ability to assert selfhood can
combat oppression effectively.
Undoubtedly,
Sofia gains her voice first. Walker chose a particularly strong
expletive for Sofia: “Sofia say, Hell no. She say, What you say?
Sofia say Hell no” (Walker 90). Sofia repeats the phrase a third
time to the mayor's wife and receives years of jail time for her
insolence. In this case, Sofia's voice cost her years of quality time
with her children and eventually her marriage. However, it does help
the overall progress of civil rights, which in turn, fights
oppression of racial minorities across the United States. Sofia's
boldness in her refusal to watch Miss Millie's children advances the
battle against persecution and establishes her as a strong female
amongst a world dominated mainly by men.
As
a result of Sofia's bravery, Squeak also gains a voice. After a
violent rape by the prison warden, Squeak begins to demand respect
from Harpo. “Harpo say, I love you Squeak. He kneel down and try to
put his arms round her waist. She stand up. My name Mary Agnes, she
say” (Walker 102). Squeak, a particularly weak character, endures
just as much abuse as the other female characters. She requires
respect from a man who ultimately has the power to cause her great
harm. Her courage earns her safety from Harpo and a better
relationship in the end.
Conversely,
Celie finds her voice not by herself, but with the help of her dear
companion Shug. Shug, the flamboyant woman who commands respect from
all, barrels into Celie's world and undermines all of the weakness
that has become ingrained in Celie's mind. She encourages her to ask
for more and gives her a good reason to live. Celie can eventually
express her thoughts well enough to humble Mr. ______ for his years
of abuse. Shug strengthens Celie to such the extent that Celie gains
independence and leaves the shackles of Georgia behind.
The
voice of women plays a major role in The
Color Purple.
Sofia, Squeak, and Celie all discover their true worth on their
quests to stand up for themselves and acquire the respect that they
deserve. And in acquiring that respect, the women battle the cycle of
oppression so that those that follow them do not have to experience
the same challenges that they did.
