The Color Purple Analytical Essay

Harm has inflicted the black community and race in many ways. Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, shows the violence put on the African American race and women during the early twentieth century. Walker demonstrates life during these hard times and how some things still haven’t changed; making the violence and harm inflicted on the black community a major theme of the story. The stereotype of violence inflicted on and in the black community, clearly shown through the characters in The Color Purple, helps achieve the author’s educating purpose.
The black community has their own cycle of violence that we can relate to the characters and relationships in The Color Purple. Black Southerners formed their own small community in the white dominated society but they still destroyed themselves from within this community by abusing and hurting their women. Women living in this black community got mentally, physically, and sexually abused by their fathers, husbands, and other men. While this behavior remains very inappropriate and wrong, the women felt nothing could stop the men from their horrible actions. Sofia and Celie, two main characters in The Color Purple, had experienced pain and harm, especially by their husbands. Having a father who sexually and physically beat her, Celie had never had an easy life. Celie explains her incidents with her father in her diary, “He never had a kine word to say to me. Just say You gonna do what your mammy wouldn’t.” (Page 1). From then on, things only continued to get worse and Celie soon began getting beat and sexually abused by her new husband, Mr. _____. Celie viewed these actions as the normal part of life and better than death. Celie explains to Mr. ____’s sisters, “I don’t fight, I stay where I’m told. But I’m alive.” (Page 22) Mr. _____’s son, Harpo, also physically beats his wife, Sofia. Sofia won’t take this kind of harm though. She decides to fight back and stand up for her rights. This worked out for her with Harpo