Denis Margalik
Ms. Norman
ENG3U1
17 November 2013

THE POWER FOUND IN PURPLE
Empowerment is what separates the success found in people. It is what uplifts people’s hopes and dreams and their strengths in life. Empowerment is found in the novel ‘‘The Colour Purple’ which was written by Alice Walker. In this novel, Walker demonstrated how self-judgement may be put aside. That memories of the past may be changed for the better and that you can always strengthen your courage, no matter where you start. The novel ‘‘The Colour Purple’’ written by Alice Walker, reveals that people with low self-esteem, who are negatively influenced by their surroundings and judgements, can overcome their problems and embrace their empowerment. Celie, who is the main character in this novel, would always judge and doubt herself, until her discovery of her empowerment changed her personality. She would always look up to people and think she is at the lowest of lowest in terms of beauty and other characteristics. Such as one day when she saw a portrait of the singing phenomenon, Shug Avery, she said, ‘‘She bout ten thousand times more prettier than me’’ (6). She would never compliment herself; instead she would just bring herself down and continuously tell herself that she wasn’t beautiful, or smart or even useful. But as soon as she was getting older she started to gain more experience and independence in her life, and would start to change. Celie would change her beliefs and perspective of life to realize that, that was what was holding her back. She would start to realize that what she believed in never helped her the way she wanted to. So she changed her perspective of her beliefs and told Nettie, her sister about it, ‘‘I don’t write to God no more’’ (192). At that moment, Celie finally figured out that she shouldn’t rely on God to help her. She discovered that God may support you but in order to bring happiness to yourself, you yourself have to take action. From that point on in Celie’s life, she finally did start taking action for herself and step by step, changes were happening. Celie finally opened up her inner power and realized she was finally happy with herself. Everyone she loved in which who she knew loved her too, came home to where she freely said, ‘‘And us so happy. Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt’’ (288). This was the first time in Celie’s life where she complimented herself along with everyone else, and where she finally realized she was happy. With the empowerment Celie found, she was able to slowly change her life around. From self-doubting herself, to taking actions to make her life happier, then it already was. Celie’s past experiences and relationships with men would scar her memory, but her change in personality would make her think of men differently. She would have bad memories with men, which she thought would remain with her forever. When she was a teenager, she would be raped by her step-father multiple times, forcing her to be more comfortable around women because as she said, ‘‘I look at women, tho, cause I’m not scared of them’’ (5). This would lead her to a path of always being afraid of men, and would lower her courage against them. Though as she grew older and started to build her inner strength, she started to become stronger mentally and change her personality. Celie would realize her life wasn’t going well so she would finally stand up for herself. For her whole life she would always fear Mr.____, her husband. But at one point, she just had enough and let her true self out, ‘‘You a lowdown dog is what’s wrong, I say. It time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need’’ (199).This was a milestone for Celie because she finally let everything back out on Mr.____. She realized at that moment what power she was missing, and how good it felt to finally open up like that. So from that moment on, Celie’s life would change and because of that, so would her thoughts for men as well. She would later come back to meet Mr.____ and actually understand that men are normal people too. She would talk with him when he asked her to marry him again, as Celie replied, ‘‘…Naw, I still don’t like frogs, but let’s us be friends….’’ (283). This showed that Celie still doesn’t like men but can now put up with them. Celie would finally stand up for herself, once she found her empowerment, and because of that she is no longer afraid of men, but only disliked them. Celie’s courage was at rock bottom until it became greater once she found the empowerment in herself. Celie had no courage whatsoever, that she had to be told to become braver. She one day got a letter from her sister Nettie which said, ‘‘You’ve got to fight and get away from Albert. He ain’t no good’’ (126). Nettie wasn’t the only one who had told Celie to become braver. People such as Shug who cared for Celie would help and support her until she became stronger. So with the help from Shug and Nettie, Celie tried to boost her courage. Celie would start to feel a change and realized in order to make things right, she had to become stronger mentally. She would start to understand that her life wasn’t so great. So when she felt something uncomforting, she would accept it, instead of ignoring it. Such as when Shug was having fun with Mr.____, Celie would feel angry and wanted to, ‘‘…choke her, slap Mr.____ face’’ (119). This showed the change that Celie started to feel, grow inside of herself. Her courage would start to grow, that she realized that it was time to take action for herself. Celie finally noticed that instead of pleasing everyone else, it was time to please herself. Her confidence level would reach its maximum, causing her to burst out on everyone and call them things such as, ‘‘… a lowdown dog…’’ (199) and ‘‘…rotten children…” (200). Celie had enough of everyone’s judgement and used her inner power and empowerment to send her message. Courage may be a synonym for empowerment, but Celie’s courage came from finding her empowerment, in order to put her first.
In the novel “The Colour Purple” written by Alice Walker, she showed how finding empowerment can make anyone overcome any problems in their life such as raising their self-esteem, ignoring their negative pasts and surroundings, and building their inner courage. Celie was able to solve all her problems through a long process and period of time. But in the end, all of her changes could’ve been solved short and quickly. She raised her self-esteem just by changing her perspective of herself. She changed her view of men just by understanding who they really were. And she changed her courage level, from low to high, just by realizing that she had to think that she came first. So for Celie, the main solution that she discovered was that she had to look at the bigger picture. And that is what Walker tried to tell us through this novel. That we are living life to close to what it actually is. And that we are living in the moment, instead of backing up, and looking at what is ahead!