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Title: The Color Purple Summary
Description: The Color Purple in an epistolary novel which is written in 1982 by American author Alice Walker. In 1983, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. In 1985, the book was made into a film directed by Steven Spielberg.
Description: The Color Purple in an epistolary novel which is written in 1982 by American author Alice Walker. In 1983, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. In 1985, the book was made into a film directed by Steven Spielberg.
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The Color Purple
Presentation:
The Color Purple in an epistolary novel which is written in 1982 by
American author Alice Walker
...
In 1985, the
book was made into a film directed by Steven Spielberg
...
The
epistolary form can add greater realism to a story because it mimics
the workings of real life
...
Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the novel depicts the life story
of Celie as a black and poor girl living under the conditions of racism,
poverty and sexism
...
Celie starts to express herself at the age of fourteen through letters
she has written to god about the pain of being repeatedly raped by a
man she thinks is her father
...
The act of writing quenches Celie’s experiences and
reactions
...
In portraying Celie’s vernacular, Walker employs present tense verbs
to create an impression that what is being narrated is happening in
the here and now
...
Celie writes out of despair as a means of survival in a misogynistic
oppressive environment
...
Through the act of writing Celie aims to have a distinctive voice, as a
means of self-assertion, which is repressed by male presence
...
The epistolary form depicts Celie’s emotions and inner self following
her experiences
...
The men in Celie’s life dehumanize her basing her worth on her
ability to serve them
...
She is a substitute of his dead wife and he is a man
who proves to be as abusive and oppressive as her stepfather
...
And she clean
...
” Celie thus is estimated for her use-value
...
So she
addresses letter to God seeking a replacement for her lack of female
confidantes
...
Celie seeks answers from an external source, more specifically to a
version of God created by white society
...
Celie shares openly with god her private thoughts, even those who
are against traditional Christianity
...
” Indeed; writing results in a tangible product, it proves
the presence of the writer and writing signifies the progress of one’s
life and existence
...
Writing is a
male enterprise
...
The epistolary form portrays her life story through giving a written
testimony as a form of action and change
...
In her life outside the letters, Celie must accept mistreatment
...
Celie’s description of
her mistreatment and abuse is characterized by detachment
...
The listener
to her trauma comes to be a participant of the traumatic event as
he/she has to feel the victim’s victories, defeats and silences
...
In The Color Purple, female characters share
experience of suffering and their common struggle to survive and
face the misogynistic society with all its manifestations such as
oppression, violence, abuse and the objectification of women
...
Sophia’s
audacity against her submissiveness and her attitude toward life
make Celie begins to question her own passivity
...
Hence, Celie tells Sophia, “you
do what I can’s […] I’m so ashamed of myself
...
The two women’s common experience of
suffering allows Celie to identify with Sophia
...
Celie begins to piece together the first fragments of a more stable
subjectivity
...
Celie and Sophia quilt
making initiates a process of healing since the two characters are no
more passive victims who are torn
...
Celie’s decision to make quilt is thus the turning point in her life as it
marks her own empowerment via connection with other women
...
When Shug says Celie is “still a virgin” because she has never had a
satisfying sex life, Shug demonstrates to Celie the renewing and
empowering capacity of storytelling
...
Celie finds the god in herself as Shug Avery, an empowered woman,
tells her that “God is inside [her] and inside everybody else
...
Gender, Language and Power:
In this novel, Walker as a womanist attacks patriarchal oppression
and expresses her concern about gender roles in her characterization
and plot development
...
Many characters in the novel break the boundaries of traditional
male or female gender roles
...
Nettie’s picture of Olinka as a patriarchal society enlarges the
construction gender roles
...
Marriage is the only goal for a woman, for “only her man she become
something
...
It reveals the hierarchical structure of Olink’s community
...
Celie and Nettie are empowered by letter writing
...
Nettie provides Celie much needed emotional support and serves as
her teacher
...
Celie describes her as being “Solid
...
”
Sophia challenges all attempts to force her into submission and
passivity and she defends her right to freely exist
...
Shug Avery facilitates Celie’s journey to heroic selfhood
...
Shug teaches Celie a new language through which she is able to
create an alternate context for her developing self
...
In this regard, a womanist is a
“woman who loves women, sexually and/or non-sexually
...
”
As Celie records in her letters to God, she and Shug eventually
interact like sisters
...
She expresses and allows herself to feel the pain and learns to
channel her emotions in service to her successful Bildung
...
It is quite significant that Celie’s enterprise is also a gendered one
...
In the scene in which Celie and Mister sew pants together, Walker
depicts a joint effort made by man and woman doing a gendered job
...
Religion and Pantheism:
In the early parts of the novel, Celie sees God as her listener and
helping hand, yet Celie does not have a clear understanding of who
God is
...
Shug
invites Celie to imagine God as something radically different, as an
“it” that delights in creation and just wants human beings to love
what it has created
...
” But after
Celie has chased her patriarchal God away and come up with a new
concept of God, she writes in her last letter, “Dear God
...
Dear Everything
...
” This
reimagining of God on her own terms symbolizes Celie’s move from
an object of someone else’s care to an independent woman
...
Quotes from the Novel:
Celie loving herself and her new life after leaving Albert and
inheriting her mother’s house
...
”
Celie’s conversion from a monotheistic view of God to more
pantheistic outlook, and spiritual rebirth as she sees an entirely
different god
...
”
“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field
somewhere and don't notice it
...
“My heart broke
...
” Oprah Winfrey
Women’s independency:
“It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree
independent of men
Title: The Color Purple Summary
Description: The Color Purple in an epistolary novel which is written in 1982 by American author Alice Walker. In 1983, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. In 1985, the book was made into a film directed by Steven Spielberg.
Description: The Color Purple in an epistolary novel which is written in 1982 by American author Alice Walker. In 1983, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. In 1985, the book was made into a film directed by Steven Spielberg.