...The Color of Freedom Life for black women in the early 1900s was difficult, not only because of racism and lack of women’s rights, but because of the subjugation they faced from the men in their lives and from society. In the novel, The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, the narrator is an abused black woman named Celie. Walker uses this unique protagonist to comment on the racism, sexism, and abuse of women that was so prevalent in the early 1900s. Walker used Celie’s inner monologue (in the form of letters to God and her sister Nettie) to convey the overarching message of the novel; the power of finding that inner voice that leads to freedom from the oppression of society’s expectations. Celie started off the book as a powerless victim of the men in her life with no voice. Walker uses Celie’s first person point of view to tell her life story of abuse and submissive silence. Celie’s only form of communication about her thoughts and feelings are through letters to God that are brief at first but then are more complex as Celie gets more confident and finds her voice. In the beginning, Celie’s inner voice had been beaten into silence at an early age by her abusive step-father and later by her husband with emotional and physical abuse. She survived by “[not] fight(ing)… stay[ing] where (she) told” and staying silent letting her step father believe that she is” too dumb to keep going to school” (Walker 2.254, 3. 342) Celie was only able to find her voice once she stood up to her husband...
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...FILM CRITIQUE: THE COLOR PURPLE 1 The Color Purple Devon Murraine ENG225: Introduction to Film Instructor: Kayla Ward October 20, 2012 [no notes on this page] -1- The Trials and Tribulations of life 4 The Color Purple “The Color Purple” is a 1985 American drama film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the eighth film directed by Spielberg and based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Alice Walker (Walker, 1996). The film tells the story of a young African American girl named Celie and shows the problems faced by African American women during the early 1900s; including poverty, racism, and sexism. The character Celie transform as she finds her self-worth through the help of two strong female companions. 2 1 1. “The Color Purple” (italics) [Angela Trodello (TA)] This movie has a great representation of characters where mentioning the talented Whoopi Goldberg and the famous Oprah Winfrey. These characters represent in the movie oppressed women who have surmised by their husbands and society. Whoopi Goldberg as Celie, Is more of the quiet type, a woman who lives under the pressure and demands of the man but Oprah Winfrey as Sofia, is more of a strong type, she believes in equal rights with the men. 3 2. companions. The intro needs a thesis statement. Introduce the elements of film-making that you will analyze. How do they affect your critique? [Angela Trodello (TA)] 3. men. How does their acting contribute to the mise-enscene? [Angela...
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...Elements of fiction “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker The Color Purple is an epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. It was later adapted into a film and musical of the same name. This novel is making arguments on the topic “racism and sexism”. The Color Purple is an extraordinary novel that’s full of surprises. Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on female black life in the 1930s in the southern United States, addressing numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture. Alice Walker’s biography [pic] Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1994, in Eatonton, Georgia. Living in the racially divided South, Walker attended segregated schools. She graduated from her high school as the valedictorian of her class. With the help of a scholarship, she was able to go to Spelman College in Atlanta. Later, she switched to Sarah Lawrence College in New York City. While at Sarah Lawrence, Walker visited Africa as part of a study-abroad program. She graduated in 1965—the same year that she published her first short story. After college, Walker worked as a social worker, teacher and lecturer. She became active in the Civil Rights Movement, fighting for equality for all African Americans. Her experiences informed her first collection of poetry, Once, which was published in 1968. Better known now as a novelist, Walker...
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...The Color Purple Walker, Alice- 1982 Alexis Moss Alice Walker wrote The Color Purple (book titles in italics) to give her insight of men, women, love or the lack thereof, physical, mental, and verbal abuse. The men within this book were very powerful. It would be safe to say that the men were slave owners, and the women were the slaves. Celie was the main character of the book, and she endures every form of abuse from individuals in her life that should have been showing her love. Everyone abused her except her sister Nettie, whom she found herself trying to protect from their father. Celie’s mother abused and cursed her, even while being on her sick bed because her husband desired to have sex with Celie more than her. Walker uses this unique protagonist to comment on the racism, sexism, and abuse of women who was so prevalent in the early 1900s. Walker used Celie’s inner monologue (in the form of letters to God and her sister Nettie) to convey the overarching message of the novel; the power of finding that inner voice that leads to freedom from the oppression of society’s expectations. The plot takes place over a 30-year period in the reconstruction South of Georgia. They live in a rural farm community and were a hotbed of activity for civil rights and suffrage. This book was written from the other side of racism, from the victim’s point of view forcing the reader to see the result of bigotry. Racism not only affected Celie’s life but also the life of her friend Sofia...
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...Stacy Jackson C. Liegh McInnis ENG 105-09 December 7, 2011 Critical Analysis of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple Alice Walker wrote The Color Purple to give her insight of men, women, love or the lack thereof, physical, mental, and verbal abuse. The men within this book were very powerful. It would be safe to say that the men were as slave owners and the women were treated as slaves. Celie, being the main character of the book, endures every form of abuse from individuals in her life that should have been showing her love. Everyone abused her except her sister Nettie, whom she found herself trying to protect from their father. Celie’s mother abused and cursed her, even while being on her sick bed because her husband, Celie and Nettie’s father, desired to have sex with Celie more than he did with his wife (Celie’s mother). Marriage is a union between a man and a woman although in today’s society in some states it could be man and man or woman and woman. However, within the traditional marriage, the man is said to be the head of the household, especially within the Christian faith. Marriage consists of God, the husband, and then the wife which is how it was intended to be. In this context, historically, the men within a marriage ruled or oppressed the wife. The wife had to do whatever her husband demanded of her. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple explains the marital oppression of women, which included an older widowed man who is given a younger unattractive wife by her step-father...
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...14 years old. My first initial thought after watching The Color Purple was that the book itself, an award-winning novel. The movie is about a African American woman by known as Celie, who is trying to survive and discover herself in her reality. There is no one that helps her, no one to talk to her, and no one to educate her on life. From beginning to end you can see Celie’s role as a wife and mother change from dependent and weak to independent and strong. It is even sadder when Celie’s husband, Albert, treats her like dog scrap. Albert is displayed as an abusive partner who repeatedly beats and rapes her until his satisfaction. The whole novel is centered around a woman’s life and how she survived life in the early 1900’s. A lot of Domestic Violence occurred when women would be “out of line” in the household. The man had full rights in the past to physically “punish” their wives. Men would exploit the fact they made money and use it against women. Women were also just given into marriage to different social classes. Usually the richer could choose whoever they wanted as their wife or slave. Married life was painful for Celie. She had to raise Albert’s children, take full control of any house chores, endure unenjoyably intimate nights with her husband, and take unnecessary beatings from him. Women would be sexually harassed and abused throughout their lives and it was represented in the movie. In the movie Celie’s first letter to God, we learn that she has been raped by...
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...The Color Purple is a great story of resilience and overcoming great oppression. Alice Walker tells a story a young black woman who was raped as a teen by her stepfather and beaten, also later beaten by her husband. With the help of new friends and her sister Nettie, Celie learns how to use her voice and stand up for herself and not just be a doormat. This novel explores the effect of strong female relationships which are essential for Celie’s development into a independent woman. As the novel is written in a series of letters to God and Nettie by Celie, the characters in the novel are uniquely introduced. The Color Purple would make a great addition to the AP English 12 curriculum, students would learn about the strength of the human spirit. At the beginning of the novel Celie is voiceless against her abuse and has learned how to survive but soon from Nettie and her new friend Shug gains a voice through the power of strong female relationships. Throughout the novel, Celie has been discriminated for who she was, and didn’t accept herself. She was always used for, and had a male dominating her. In the novel, there were several characters that changed Celie, and it were women that were very close to her. Her sister Nettie was a big influenced to her and Shug. In the story, Shug has helped her overcome Mr.____ and not be taken granted for. On pg. 186, it states that she is leaving Mr.____ and going to see Pa. This part of the story, Celie is taking charge and leaving Mr.____, showing...
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...The Color Purple The Color Purple describes the obstacles and progression of the chief character Celie, an unschooled teenager who is the object of mistreatment. In a series of writings to God, Celie narrates her life as she evolves from a timid mistreated spouse to a self-assured liberated woman. Celie’s story fundamentally begins as a consequence of her ill-treatment. As a fourteen year-old girl, she is repetitively physically and sexually abused and then told that she is ugly. As a result, Celie chooses to maintain her continued existence by being silent as well as invisible. The novel starts with the memory of her father’s order that Celie remain quiet about his abuse of her, “You better not tell anybody but God. I’ll kill your mammy” (Walker 1). In her first letter to God, she asks for direction for the reason that she does not comprehend all that is happing to her. In her early teens, she is carrying her second baby. Celie’s father turns to her for fleshly gratification since his wife, Celie’s mother is sick. Celie believes her father took her first baby and murdered it in the woods. She then assumes the second child will endure the same fate, “He took it. He took it while I was sleeping.” “Kilt it out there in the woods; kill this one too, if he can” (Walker 2). However, her baby was not murdered and Celie suspects that as an alternative, her father sold the baby to a married couple, “but I don’t think he kilt it. I think he sold it to a man and his wife over Monticello”...
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...United States, was born in Eatonton, Georgia. She was the eighth and last child of Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker. Her parents were sharecroppers, and money was not always available as needed. At the tender age of eight, Walker lost sight of one eye when one of her older brothers shot her with a BB gun by accident. This left her in somewhat a depression, and she secluded herself from the other children. Walker felt like she was no longer a little girl because of the traumatic experience she had undergone, and she was filled with shame because she thought she was unpleasant to look at. During this seclusion from other kids of her age, Walker began to write poems. Hence, her career as a writer began. Walker found the love of her life in 1967, a white activist civil rights lawyer named Mel Leventhal, and they married him in 1967. A year later she gave birth to their daughter, Rebecca. It was not until she began teaching that her writing career really took off. She began teaching at Jackson State, then Tougaloo, and finally at Wellesley College. Walker was involved in the Civil Rights Movement and spoke for the women’s movement, the anti-apartheid movement, for the anti-nuclear movement, and against female genital mutilation. She also started her own publishing company: “The Wild Trees Press”, in 1984. Walker refused to ignore the tangle of personal and political themes and produced five novels, two collections of short stories, numerous volumes of poetry, and two books...
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...COLOR PURPLE: LIFE OF CELIE Margaret Njigua Northshore Community College Psychology 118 Professor Stanga April 14, 2014 The Color Purple is a novel that was written in 1982 by Alice Walker. It was later adapted into a film and musical of the same name. Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on the life of women of color in the southern United States and addresses numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture. Born in 1895, Celie who is the main character was raised on a farm in a small town in Georgia where formal education took a back seat to physical labor and household maintenance, and the Church was the main focal point of socialization among local town members. The Color Purple chronicles the startling tragedy and triumph of Celie in her struggle for self-empowerment, sexual freedom, and spiritual growth in the early twentieth century. Its winter 1909 and Celie is fourteen years old. Her step-father, who she thinks is her real father, sexually and verbally abuses her. He impregnates Celie and she gives birth to a girl, whom he steals...
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...My paper will focus on how Alice Walker’s The Color Purple questions the notions of gender. In the article “Feminism” Carolyn Perry states that “Feminism differs from the women’s movement in that it moves beyond the political and economic issues at heart of the women’s movement…, such as tearing down the hierarchical structure of sex and gender roles and changing the way people view men, women, and gender”(255). She believed that it wasn’t a such thing as “a women’s place”(255). In The Color Purple Alice Walker shows us that women can over come oppression and become stronger if they believe they can. Unlike Celie in The Color Purple, Alice Malsenior Walker had a fairly happy childhood. She was the last of eight children born by her parents. She began 1st grade at the age of four and was very successful. She was very happy with her life “…until an accident (a brother shot her with a BB gun) blinded her in one eye and made her feel ugly”(Taylor2614). After the accident her grades began to fall because she was unhappy and the children at her school began tease her. After having surgery on her eye, She regained her confidence and graduated valedictorian of her class. The Color Purple took place in a time where women believed that the man was in charge. Back then women weren’t allowed to express their opinions. In the first sentence of The Color Purple, Walker shows us how Celie’s stepfather would rape her and threaten her to do what he wanted. “You better not never tell no...
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...What are the purposes of Nettie’s letters in ‘The Color Purple’? Nettie begins to write to Celie, from the first letter you can see that she is writing close to Standard American English. Nettie is a key character in ‘The Color Purple’, Walker wants to show the parallels and contrasts between Celie and Nettie- there are remarkable similarities and significant differences. Celie is the primary Narrator, but Nettie becomes the secondary narrator. Her first letter shows that she is able to voice other characters. Nettie has been saved by Celie from a young age, and she is aware of this. The two sisters have a strong bond, Nettie has a more developed education than Celie. Nettie acknowledges the sacrifices that Celie has made for her-“I think about the time you laid yourself down for me”. Alice Walker uses Nettie to explore to some extent the links between African American heritage and their relationship with Africa. Nettie learns that Africans were sold to the West because Africans “loved money more than their own brothers and sisters”. Nettie is important to the novel, for the news that she gives Celie about Olivia and Adam help to keep the children alive in Celie’s heart. She explains that after leaving Celie she went to the Reverend’s place and discovered a girl who had the same facial features as Celie- “she had your eyes set in your face”. Nettie’s letters convey that the two sisters had a very different upbringing. Nettie has had greater freedoms, she has had a more...
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...The Color Purple by Alice Walker The Color Purple is a series of letters written mostly by the main character, Celie, to God. The plot takes place over a thirty year period. In the beginning Celie is a fourteen year old, African American girl who lives with her dying mother, father, and sister, Nettie, in Georgia. Celie’s father, Alfonso, rapes her and eventually she has two children by him, she believes the first one he killed, and the other he sold. Celie’s mother dies, and her father brings home a new wife. Nettie begins dating this man, Mr. __, but their father will not let him marry her. He claims that Nettie is smart and needs to stay in school and that she could be a teacher someday. Instead he says that Mr. __ can marry Celie, calling her ugly and dumb, but good with children. So Mr. __ takes his time to think about it, but since he really needed a mother for his children he agrees to marry her. He treats Celie like an object; he rapes and beats her, while his children boss her around like a slave. Nettie runs away from home to Celie and Mr. __’s house. Mr. __ compliments Nettie right in front of Celie, but Nettie passes the compliments on to her sister. Mr.__ then says that Nettie cannot stay in his house, because she rejects him. Mr. __’s sister, Kate, comes to visit and tells her to stand up for herself, and fight back. Mr. __ son, Harpo, struggles in his relationship with his wife Sophia. Harpo wants Sophia to obey him like Celie obeys Mr. __. Sophia is a strong...
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...Homosexuality has been a controversial topic throughout all of humanity. Many societies have condemned the practice of same-sex love and have tried to cure it throughout the decades. Many claimed it is often seen as “unnatural.” Gay relationships—especially lesbian relationships—are not often addressed in media and if they are, are usually dismissed, such as in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. The typical argument tends to be whether Celie was indeed truly homosexual and would identify as such, or if she was a victim of homosocial desires due to the abusive male relationships built in her past. Despite this argument, it seems difficult to believe that Celie is simply a victim to abusive men and powerful women. Although Shug Avery has an intoxicating power over men that can probably inspire any woman to follow in her footsteps, it seems to be more than simply being “inspired” to get Celie attracted to women. Celie showcases her sexual and romantic attractions with the character, Shug very early on in the novel. She addresses this attraction in her early...
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...The Color Purple Sherelle Rozier English 2001 South University Thesis: Celie, an abused child and wife, Shug, a strong independent woman who was once a town whore, and Nettie, the sister of Celie who left the United States to become a missionary teacher. All these strong women need affection and love, and bond together to find their own voice. Celie’s story is about an abused child and wife who finds her independence. Celie was a slave to her husband and his children. Celie is able to gain her own security with the help of Shug and her sister Nettie’s letters. Celie finds independence and courage after years of abuse and other incredible obstacles. Nettie’s story is about a woman who left the United States to study becoming a missionary and hopes one day to reunite with her sister again. Nettie finds a good family and leaves the United States. B. Nettie keeps writing letters, hoping her sister will one day read them. III. Shug’s story is about a strong independent woman who was once the town whore and seeks love from men and helps Celie find love and courage to live on her own. Shug’s father did not want her to sing sinner’s music. B. She is known as a whore, but she presents herself as a strong and determined woman . In the novel The Color Purple, Alice Walker creates a woman who faces struggles and hardships as a child and as an adult. This story is narrated by Celie, the main...
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