Conflict in "The Color Purple"

Theme #1 Alice Walker uses several different techniques in her writing to get her point across to the reader. The use of conflict in the novel, “The Color Purple”, helps the author portray how society was during this time. The main conflict brought up in “The Color Purple” is based on the society’s views of gender, race, and ageism. The American society in the south was heavily one-sided on these topics, as the author describes in this book. Women during this time are looked down upon and unappreciated. Females are seen as objects that should cook, clean, and have babies for their husbands. The majority of relationships between husbands and wives are this way, but there are exceptions. Harpo and Sofia seem to swap roles in their relationship, reluctantly for Harpo. Sofia repairs the house and does “man” work. She is a strong, independent woman and Harpo has a hard time with this. Harpo only has his father as a role model of how to treat women and his father does not set a moral standard. Harpo attempts to follow his father’s example and hit Sofia, but she does not put up with it and Harpo comes out with a black eye. Harpo continues his attempt at being dominant over Sofia by binge eating in order to get bigger than she is. Harpo is not able to grasp the idea that women are capable of “manly” tasks because that is not how he was raised. Another conflict that arises is Shug Avery’s controversial career. Most women did not have careers in this time because they were completely dependent on their husbands. The rare working women were typically employed as nannies or housekeepers, not such provocative professions like Shug’s. The general public looks down on Shug and acts as if she is dirty because she has an irregular job. Mr. ___’s father and the priest both talk about Shug as if she is nasty and unclean. It is not only America’s society that has gender conflicts; Africa, during this time, portrayed similar gender roles. The Olinka do not believe that women