The Color Purple is a novel that falls under the genre Historical fiction. It is consisted of letters to god. We read Celie’s letters in order to understand the story. The author, Alice Walker, composed Celie’s letters in an illiterate way. She showcased Celie as a poor, uneducated African American woman. Hence, Celie’s letters contained slang, and a significant amount of grammatical errors. This novel is told in the first person point of view. Celie narrates the novel, sometimes so does her sister, Nettie. Celie tells her stories in the letters she writes to god and Nettie. At first Celie would only talk about what she does, sees and how she feels. Later her thoughts become more complex as she observes the world and brutality that surround …show more content…
Since the story is Celie’s private letters that she writes to god, the story is confidential. In this privacy state she is able to let out any feelings that she wants, and any attitude that she wants to embark in. She also confesses easily because she is simply writing a journal. This novel is about tragedy and hardship. The novel is set in Georgia’s rural towns. The time period that it is placed in is around the period of 1910 to 1940. The major conflict that exists in this novel is the treatment Celie gets. Many men always abused her. They beat her, rape her and leave her. She has does not value herself any longer and she feels no sense of self worth left in her. Celie had regained self-confidence through her relationship with Shug Avery who had taught Celie about God, and love. The author, Alice Walker, uses letters to create a specific novel. She uses a rural farm as her setting and she uses themes of racism and female abuse as her writing nature. She has developed such a strong story, and the characters used brought her story to life. The characterization was strong, each character had its own lesson to learn, and they had all been approached with encouraging friends. Each character had to learn self worth through a series of challenging journeys. As the story came to an end, the women began to stand up to their abusive husbands and
She had to live a life of ignorance and isolation until a women named Shug Avery came into her life. She opened Celie’s eyes to see the world in different ways and Celie admired her for that. Being a black women in the early American 1900’s was a life full of keeping your mouth shut, just to stay alive. As Celie grows up, she learns to be free from society's standards for women like her. By following the pathway full of symbols presented to her by her inspiration and Christ-like figure, Shug Avery, Celie was able to live the life she wanted.
There’s rape, death, and many other aspects covered in the book. In this first page, readers are immediately met with a rape scene. While this is shocking to many, Celie recovers and gets through it. She was born with all odds against her, but she is a strong and selfless woman. Celie becomes prosperous and content, and the book executes a joyful end that is satisfying.
Before Nettie loses up on reaching her sister who left, she understands “whether God will read letters or no, I know you will go on writing them; which is guidance enough for me…When I don’t write to you I feel as bad as I do when I don’t pray, locked up in myself and choking on my own heart” (Walker 130). In a sisterhood as solid as the one like Nettie and Celie, writing letters to each other without reaction and pleading God are enough to keep the two sisters together strongly, however physically isolated by a
Celie from the very beginning of her life in the novel she is left with a family that cares for nothing about her. Her parents are dead, her sister was taken away and she is left emotionally alone. Steinbeck and Walker demonstrate that commitment to man is the primary dream for individuals within society. Lennie's inability to think for himself
This quote means that Celie is taking the role of her mother, as Celie’s mother is ill and is unable to do what Pa wants, so he turns to Celie. Raping, abusing and making her do work. Celie is a 14-year-old girl living with her sister,
Her faith is weakened at a certain point but then she starts to develop a new perception of God, she begins to see God as a universal being with no gender and race who is present everywhere and in everything that we love or do. She is now able to see God through people, nature, sex, and in the color purple. Alice Walker also gave importance to the value of female bonds and relationships or sisterhood as a means of coping and social support against the alienation experienced by Celie and other black female characters in the novel. Celie’s friends, mainly Shug and Sofia helped her to find her voice and stand up for herself. As the novel progresses, Celie develops strength and eventually gains her freedom towards the end.
Celie 's constant search for the truth may be the most amazing characteristic of this beautiful character. Celie is at the bottom of the social hierarchy in the South because she is poor, she is black, and she is female. As a female she is abused by her step-father and by her husband. She lives in a patriarchal social system that does not value a female except as a sexual object and a laborer. Celie looks for ways to stand up for this unfair system.
In the book Celie is a young girl near 20 when she gets married. She is writing letters to God and going through her emotions, thoughts, and feelings on the way. By the end with knowing Shug Avery and Sofia she learns to embrace her womanhood and stands up to Mister. In the end she states, “And us so happy. Matter of fact, I think this the youngest I ever felt.”
Shug helps Celie find the letters her sister had been sending over the years since Albert made Nettie leave. Albert had hide the letters from Celie in a box under the floorboards in the closet. Shug showed Celie the love she had been lacking in her life. Near the end of the story Celie finally acquires enough courage to stand up to Albert at the dinner table. Celie defends herself and says the things she’s been holding back.
At the end of the book, Celie said that everyone is contented and that she felt younger than ever before; this shows that Celie had dropped her fear and kept her faith. Learning is inevitable. In The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Celie learned a lot of life lessons throughout the novel. She learned to be compassionate by getting the love that she deserved from the people around her, she also learned that forgiving others for their mistakes and dropping her fears will lead to peace and freedom of
She states that “I don’t write to god no more, I write to you.” to Nettie in letter seventy-three shortly after. This is a significant turn in Celie’s spiritual journey as she abandons God – which she deemed unhelping and unresponsive, in favor of her sister who has always been there for her as a source of comfort to her from the beginning. Celie began to turn away from religion and begins to search the spaces of spirituality in her life, which are namely Shug and Nettie. When Shug describes her journey from religious to spiritual and how she discovered her spiritual state became the ultimate turning point in Celie’s development away from stiffly structured religion.
women live in a pain and anger from their date of birth although De Beauvoir believes in her book the Second Sex that woman’s inferiority in society is a result not of natural differences but of differences in the upbringing of man and woman. Celie begins with her inner conflicts and thoughts inside herself. First, she is rejected by the society because of her dark skin as she is an African Amerian black women. Then, she starts with a
Dear God,” revealing that she no longer sees God as a distant figure with which she feels she has little or no connection. Conflict- Celie feels worthless and all alone after being abused by several men in her life. She doesn’t have anyone to
It aims at building up a new ground for expressing female voice. The text is in complete conversational format rather than being a narration of events. Through her letters, Celie tells her audience something that they already know. She primarily subverts, deconstructs and eventually reconstructs the mainstream patriarchal discourse that has kept her and many of her kind at the periphery. The letters create a productive space where the hitherto oppressed voices are finally heard.
In the beginning of the story, Celie explains her life. She has a sister named Nettie, a very sick mother, and a father. Celie is abused mentally and physically by both her father and mother, Celie's mother eventually dies. Celie is raped by her father and gets pregnant twice. One baby was "killed" by her father in the forest, and the other she thinks was sold to some white family.