The Color Purple Research Paper

The Color Purple: A Woman in a Man’s World February 9, 1944, Alice Tallulah-Kate Walker was born in a rural county in Eatonton, Georgia, unknown to the world at this time but “she would become a woman of deep sensitivity” (Bates). Alice grew up in an environment full of racism and poverty. These two factors, along with her passion for gender issues, remain a large part of her narratives. Her role in literature took a high position in not only women studies and African American literature but also American literature as well (Bates). Alice Walker is a very well known and respected author. She is an accomplished American poet, novelist, and activist. Beginning her career in writing in 1970, The Color Purple is the third novel she wrote, for

The novel developed into an acclaimed film directed by Steven Spielberg in 1985, starring Whoopi Goldberg as protagonist Celie Harris. The novel and film shadow Celie's life in the early 20th century in the south of America, and her struggles with poverty, racism, sexism and violence, and the female friendship that empowers her. Published in 1982, this historical piece of literature shows “women who achieve wholeness out of oppression” (Bates). Not only does this novel represent the struggles of African American women, it involved the African culture, women, and effort to demonstrate what these women encountered in their daily lives and magnified how they tried to break the barrier between men and women (Berlant 15). The novel opens with Celie, the protagonist, as a poor black, uneducated fourteen-year-old girl who is forced into marriage with a man much older than she is, after the cruel abuse she takes from her stepfather Alphonso. Her hardships are documented through letters she writes to God and her thought to be dead sister, Nettie. The oppression of Celie and all other African American women during this time was very common politically, socially, and economically. This

The father, husband, brother, or male lover (Juneja 24) often controls relationships between loved ones. Celie, threatened by the man she knows as her Pa, Alphonso, raped her repeatedly not only hurting her body but her mind as well (Henderson 70). While he abused Celie, he told her, “You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy. He start to choke me saying you better shutup and git used to it. But I dont never git use to it. And now I feels sick every time I be the one to cook. My mama fuss at me an look at me. She happy, cause he good to her now. But too sick to last long” (Walker 8). The man that raised her as his own impregnates Celie due to the daily abuse. She is, as a result, subjugated to the point where she cannot even admit to what he has done after own ailing mother asks what has happened to her when she acknowledges that Celie is pregnant. She uses God to cover the misuse, which is why she writes her letters to him, ultimately, because she is subconsciously obeying what Alphonso told her to do (Henderson