Preview

Purple Book Blue Life: The Color Purple By Alice Walker

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
580 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Purple Book Blue Life: The Color Purple By Alice Walker
Purple Book Blue Life

“The Color Purple” written by Alice Walker, and published in 1982 won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1983. It illustrates the hardships and emotional trauma that came with growing up and living as an African-American woman. It also addresses many issues within american social culture and gender roles.
The novel centers upon the growth and development of a girl named Celie. She was raped at 14 by her own father and then forced into a marriage with a nefarious apathetic older man. Over time Celie learns to be soft spoken and submissive. The person she cares most about, her sister Nettie, is kicked out of her own home and thrown out of Celie’s home by her husband, because he had started to amass feelings for her but was shut down by her immediately. Sadly, Mr.had married Celie so that she could be a caregiver for his children and work for him even though she was very young. Since he is already in love with Shug Avery. He wanted Celie to believe that her sister was the only person that would ever love her thus giving him motivation to drive her away.
…show more content…
Thanks to Celie’s care, Shug is able to recover and the two women start a long term friendship. Over time, Celie learns to stand up for herself and gain self-respect. Celie worries in the course of the story when Avery decides to leave but in the meantime she promises to protect her and keep her from being abused. On the other side of things , Nettie finds a safe haven in the home of Samuel , a local reverent and his wife. They adopted two children who happen to belong to Celie and actually were taken from her before she married Mr. The entire family is later sent to Africa along with Nettie to work as

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The exposition of the novel tells the reader about Claudia and Frieda McTeer looking back at their childhood, particularly remembering Pecola Breedlove. The main conflict surrounds young Pecola as a target for abuse who wishes to be beautiful and feel loved. The rising action begins when the McTeer family took in Pecola after her father burned their house down. She soon left and returned to her family where many misfortunes took place. The only person to love Pecola enough to touch her was her father, Cholly; and the climax reaches when he rapes her and impregnates her. The resolution of the novel comes about when she loses her baby and goes out and asks Soaphead Church for blue eyes. This wish is achieved through Pecola’s madness and she now lives on the edge of Lorain with her mother.…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The syntax that Walker uses to represent Celie’s voice is often short, simple and lacking in description. ‘I am fourteen years old’ shows this. The almost constant use of short, simple sentences could indicate to the reader that Celie has a very basic understanding of written English. The lack of descriptive language used by Walker in Celie’s narrative voice could suggest that although these letters are addressed to God, only Celie will read them. This portrays Celie as a vulnerable character for various reasons. The use of short sentences indicates that Celie has a poor or non-existent formal education; this makes Celie seem vulnerable as the reader could think she is too unintelligent to understand her plight, this also induces a sense of pathos in the reader. The lack of description incorporated into her letters adds to the sense of vulnerability surrounding Celie as it could be interpreted by the reader that she has no one to turn to and she is alone to endure her struggle. When coupled with the sequential and chronological structure of her letters, the notion that, although Celie writes in an epistolary form, she has no one to turn to is intensified as it suggests to the reader that she doesn’t want to explain her situation to anyone.…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Shug was there her husband didn't beat her and treated her slightly different, slightly nicer. Celie's relationship with Shug started of with Celie seeing that mother-figure in her, ever since the first time she saw her picture. It evolves with them sharing everyday problems and feeling, doing everyday things together where they felt a sisterhood bond. The emotional and physical gap Celie felt ever since Nettie left her was fulfilled with the presence of Shug. When Shug found the letters Nettie had sent to Celie, that meant the world to her, Shug's value in Celie's like grew even bigger, making Shug become the saver of her lost relationship with the person she sacrificed for and loved the most. The culmination of Celie and Shug's relationship came when the feelings of sisters-love turned into something more. They turned to feeling of just pure love, the love which Celie was supposed to feel about her other half, about the man in her life but it turned out that it was a woman. A woman that made her happy, which was a feeling she had kind of given up on and didn't have hopes about. That sparkle of hope that was awaken by…

    • 691 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Color Purple” is an epistolary novel by Alice Walker exploring the life of Celie through letters to God and her sister Nettie.…

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    But, She can now take away her sister Nettie from Pa, but eventually gets kicked out of the house because she would not accept Mr.’s sexual advantages. Nettie promises to write to Celie, but unfortunately never receives any letters from Her. Celie’s life slowly starts to decline after her sister Nettie leaves. She was really the only person in her life who she could love and receive love back. Celie is a very defeated character, and she is very passive but we know from reading that she is telling her own story in these letters to God. Later in the book, many women come in to her life including her Daughter in law, and her Husbands Mistress, and these women practically help her break out of the constrains of life, and find joy. Sexism is a very big theme to this book. Some other themes include race, love, sexual identity, and femininity. Mr.’s mistress, Shug Avery, a blues singer comes to stay at their house and Celie finds herself sexually attracted to her. Soon, Celie and Shug find a stash of Nettie’s letters, which Mr. had been keeping hidden from her for years. These letters describe her life among missionaries in…

    • 410 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    They are implicit concepts around which imaginary works of literature revolve. The dominant themes of The Color Purple are female assertiveness, female narrative voice, female relationships, and violence. Female assertiveness is Walker’s way of delimiting women’s space. She liberates Sofia’s from submissiveness, making her a mouthy free spirit, a challenge to a powerful system. Shug is an adventuresome blue singer with fine taste and without limits on her sexual preferences. Nettie, too asserts herself by escaping her stepfather’s house rather than succumbing to his unwanted advances. Her escape take her all the way to Africa.…

    • 95 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Summary: The Color Purple

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Color Purple written by Alice Walker was written to show us how thing were during 1910-1940 around the world, especially for women. The author showed us that women living in male dominated ed world and the feelings they had to live with. Walker has done a great job of showing us the past for black women around the world through the main character and the writer of the letters named Celie. The Color Purple discusses prejudice and by analyzing Celie’s use of symbolism—of the God, the pants and the color purple.…

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Most commonly known for her work, The Color Purple, Alice Walker has been a prominent figure in both the African American and American community. Born on February 9, 1933 in Putnam County, Georgia, Walker, in many of her pieces, covers the telling experience during the Jim Crow Era. As the youngest of eight, family had been a major factor in her life. Her parents, Minnie Tallulah Grant and Willie Lee Walker were very hardworking people who tried their best to provide their children with a sense of pride and responsibility. While her had father worked as a sharecropper, Walker’s mother worked seventeen hour shifts as a maid to help send Alice to college.…

    • 407 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    This book is truly centered on the darkness of sexual abuse and the immorality of a man oppressing the will of females. This novel demonstrates the evil of black male patriarchy. Mr. Blank is the father of two young girls, Celie and Nettie, which he basically uses for his own disturbing desires. Not only does he try to sexually control them, but also he dehumanizes them by his mistreatment. Being merely children, he forces himself onto them very aggressively. Their daily experience is described by this quote: “ he start to choke me, saying you better shut up and get use to it. But I don’t ever get use to it. And know I feels sick every time I be the one to cook.” He also orders Celie around like a slave and threatens her into submission. Mr. Blank has also dedicated himself to draining every inch of self-confidence Celie has, which he uses to keep her weak. “Well next time you come look at her. She ugly. Don’t even look like she kin to Nettie. But she’ll make a better wife. She aint smart either, and I’ll just be fair, you have to watch her or she’ll give away everything you own. But she can work like a man.” Mr. Blank takes away their freedom as women to do as they wish and strive for success in life. He condemns them to a life of terror and…

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Amand Coyne

    • 369 Words
    • 1 Page

    While visiting her sister, Coyne talked to a mother of one inmate, names Stephanie. Mother narrates the situation how her daughter came into the prison. Another prisoner, who was at will of destiny at the wrong place and at the wrong time. Compared to Stephanie, Coyne’s sister spend first fife years with her son. Stephanie brought into the world her son, Elli, in prison and spends only first eighteen hours with him. Jennifer has visible better and closer relationship with Toby, on the contrary to Stephanie, Elli punch her in dace and run away.…

    • 369 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Color Purple is a novel written by Alice Walker. Walker is an essayist and poet who played a part in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. She had written two novels before The Color Purple, but most of her success came from the publishing of this book. Walker had suffered a terrible eye injury in her youth and her self-confidence decreased, which led her to find comfort in writing poetry. Her first experience with writing a story took place in 1965 when she graduated from college. From then on, Walker began to develop her writing career.…

    • 1411 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alice Walker writes her story, The Color Purple, as an epistolary novel. An epistolary novel is a book that is in the form of letters, written by the main character. In this case, it is written by Celie, the main character who is living in Georgia in the 1930’s.…

    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    However, when Harpo approaches Celie about how to control Sofia, Celie is bitter about the pity she sees in Sofia’s eyes so she tells Harpo to “Beat her” (p.36). After Harpo attempts to beat Sofia to make her listen to him and he instead is the one who comes away injured, she finds out that it is Celie who told him that it was the appropriate course of action. When questioning Celie about how she could encourage the abuse of another woman when she herself has been abused, Celie responds with, “I say it cause I’m a fool, I say. I say it cause I’m jealous of you. I say it cause you do what I can’t….Fight.” (p.40). Sofia exposes to Celie that the world is not binary and that women can fight back against abuse or oppression. Celie admires Sofia for her ability to be assertive and have a will that is not entwined with that of her husbands. However, this does get Sofia in some trouble when she is confronted with racism from the mayor’s wife and as a result ends up with a jail sentence of 12 years. While in jail Celie observes how different Sofia is and serves as a brutal reminder of the difficulties that come with fighting racism and resisting society’s perceptions of what is…

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alice Malsenior Walker was born February 9, 1944, in Putnam county located in Eatonton Georgia. Struggles of being a black woman in the 1960’s and a childhood accident would eventually help her write her most famous book The Color Purple. She would also go on to attempt to thank her brother for giving her confidence and courage to follow her dreams but he died before she had chance. Alice Walker’s work has made her an acclaimed book and poem writer. Alice’s work in both the civil rights movement in the 60’s and her inspiring books, have a huge impact on her present day career and overall accomplishments.…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Color Purple

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Once Celie is married off she begins her growth of becoming more than just someone to be abused, and to be walked all over. Celie had the bleakest of circumstances when she was growing up, yet she still had some choices and some freedoms, only she didn’t realize this. This realization came slowly from all the women that she meets. First is when she sees a woman with money,…

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays