Essay on The Color Purple by Alice Walker - 1129 Words

The story of The Color Purple begins with a fourteen year old girl named Celie who was raped repeatedly by her step-father. The only one she was told to speak to was God, so she did this by writing him daily letters. The book starts out in the first letter with Celie describing how and why she is pregnant with her second child. This child was the result of her getting raped by her step-father, Alphonso. At the time, Celie believes that Alphonso is her real father because that is what her mother has always told her. Her mother ends up dying shortly after, and her step-father brings home a new wife. Although he has a new wife, he continues to abuse and rape Celie. Celie never saw her children for they were taken away from her by Alphonso†¦show more content†¦Harpo is the son of Albert, and he belonged to his fathers first marriage. Harpo tries to beat his wife, Sofia, so that she will be as obedient as Celie. However, he soon learns that Sofia is a strong woman and wont take a ny beating from anyone. She leaves Harpo, takes their children, and goes to live with her sister. To Celie, Sofia is just another hero who can speak for herself and not be afraid of any man. After many long months with no word from Sofia, Harpo knows she isnt coming back home. He decides to move on with his life by turning their house into a saloon and asks Shug, who is a talented popular singer, to come sing for him. The saloon does well and everyone seems to be happy. Harpo found another girl by the name of Mary Agnes, but goes by Squeak. One day while Sofia was in town the mayors wife starts making small talk with Sofia about coming to work for her as a maid, which was the wrong thing to say. She fights back and gets put in jail for sassing the mayors wife, and for knocking the mayor down. Being in jail breaks Sofias spirit and she wouldve died if her friends had not figured out a way to get her out. They got her a job working as a maid in a white womans house. This was exactly w hat she never wanted to become, a white womans maid. She regains her health, but her spirit is still broken. Celie and Albert didnt love each other, theyd married for convenience, or at least AlbertShow MoreRelatedThe Color Purple By Alice Walker1355 Words   |  6 PagesDecember, 2015 Just A Single Purple Wildflower In A Field Of Weeds Alice walker once said, â€Å"No person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended. Or who belittles in any fashion the gifts you labor so to bring into the world.† The color purple has timelessly been used to convey pictures of power and ambition, it is also associated with the feeling of independence. The Color Purple is the story of the constantRead MoreThe Color Purple By Alice Walker710 Words   |  3 PagesThe Series of unfortunate events in The Color Purple The Color Purple by Alice Walker starts off with a rather graphic view of a young black woman denominated as Celie. Celie has to learn how to survive her abusive past. She also has to figure out a way she can release her past in search of the true meaning of love. Alice walker wrote this book as an epistolary novel to further emphasize Celie`s life events. From the beginning of the novel Alice Walker swiftly establishes an intimate contact withRead MoreThe Color Purple by Alice Walker1192 Words   |  5 Pagesas a novel containing graphic violence, sexuality, chauvinism, and racism, The Color Purple was banned in numerous schools across the United States. Crude language, brutality, and explicit detail chronicle the life of Celie, a young black woman exposed to southern society’s harshness. 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Walkers creative vision was sparked by the financial sufferingRead MoreThe Color Purple by Alice Walker921 Words   |  4 PagesAlice Walker’s realistic novel, The Color Purple revolves around many concerns that both African American men and women faced in an era, where numerous concerns of discrimination were raised. Religious and gender issues are confronted by the main characters which drive the plot and pa int a clear image of what life may possibly have been like inside an African American home. Difficulties were faced by each and every character specifically Celie and Nettie who suffered heavy discrimination throughoutRead MoreThe Color Purple By Alice Walker1540 Words   |  7 Pages Alice Walker is an award winning   author, most famously recognized for her novel   The Color Purple ;aside from being a novelist Walker is also a poet,essayist and activist .Her writing explores various social aspects as it concerns women and also celebrates political as well as social revolution. Walker has gained the reputation of being a prominent spokesperson and a symbolic figure for black feminism. Proper analyzation   of Walker s work comes from the   knowledge on her early life, educationalRead MoreThe Color Purple By Alice Walker3360 Words   |  14 Pagesâ€Å"Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender† (Yahwon). Alice Walker views herself as a womanist. Although a womanist and feminist are similar, the two terms are not exactly the same. According to Professor Tamara Baeouboeuf-Lafonant: [Womanism] focuses on the experiences and knowledge bases of black women [which] recognizes and interrogates the social realities of slavery, segregation, sexism, and economic exploitation this group has experienced during its history in the United States. FurthermoreRead MoreThe Color Purple by Alice Walker1100 Words   |  5 PagesThe Color Purple by Alice Walker is a story written in 1982 that is about the life struggles of a young African American woman named Celie. The novel takes the reader through several main topics including the poor treatment of African American women, domestic abuse, family relationships, and also religion. The story takes place mostly in rural Georgia in the early 1900’s and demonstrates the difficult life of sharecropper families. Specifically how life was endured from the perspective of an AfricanRead MoreThe Color Purple by Alice Walker926 Words   |  4 PagesThe award-winning novel, â€Å"The Color Purple† by Alice Walker, is a story about a woman going through cruel things such as: incest, rape, and physical abuse. This greatly written novel comes from a very active feminist author who used many of her own experiences, as well as things that were happening during that era, in her writing. â€Å"The Color Purple† takes place in the early 1900s, and symbolizes the economic, emotional, and social deprivation that African American women faced in Southern statesRead MoreThe Color Purple By Alice Walker1495 Words   |  6 PagesThe Color Purple, is a novel written by the American author Alice Walker. The novel won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and is also regarded to be her most successful piece of work. It has developed into an award winning film and was recently made into a Broadway play. The story continues to impress readers throughout the decades due to its brutal honesty. The novel successfully and truthfully demonstrates what life was like for black women during the early twentieth century. The book discusses