Title: The Color Purple
Author: Alice Walker
Genre: Historical Fiction
Period of History: 1910-1940
The author and his/her times:
Alice Walker was born on February 9th 1944 and was born in Eatonton GA. She is the author of the novel, The Color Purple and was an American author, poet and self-activist. Also Alice Malsenior Walker is still living today and is currently 69 years old. Alice Walker was married to Melvin Leventhal and they were married to each other in 1967 and separated in 1977. Walker was the youngest in her family held with eight children and her parents were Tallulah Grant and Willie Lee Walker, who were sharecroppers. Then in 1961 Alice Walker left Eatonton for Spelman college, a prominent school for black women in Atlanta, on a state scholarship (Biography of Alice Walker). Furthermore she then transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and studied the involvement in civil rights.
Alice Walker was influenced to write this novel throughout her whole life. Walker had a connection with the characters Celie and Nettie, because she was mistreated like Celie and hardworking like Nettie. Also it inspired her to write the novel “The Color Purple”, because she studied civil rights. Also she got invited to the home of Martin Luther King Jr. Walker then worked for the New York City Department of Welfare. More so two years after receiving her B.A. degree from Sarah Lawrence she became a civil rights attorney. The story was a reflection on everything she learned throughout her literary career (Wikipedia On Alice Walker). One of Walker quotes stated, “One thing I try to have in my life and my fiction is an awareness off and openness to mystery, which to me, is deeper than any politics, race, or geographical loca...
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...away to Africa she becomes the nanny of Celie kids and at the ending they get reunited with their mother. So through all this it shows that god can work through mysterious ways and make anything happen.
Research/ literary criticism:
My reaction to this article was quiet agreeing. I agreed with many things stated in this article, the article explained the story exactly right. For example when it states the relationship between Shug and Celie because Shug was always there for Celie. The article did a really good job explaining the novel and gave a really good report. (The New York Times).
Additional comments:
Work Cited: www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Walker sparknotes.com/lit/purple/quotes.html http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/alice-walker-b-1944
Sparknotes.com/lit/purple/facts.html
Alice Walker’s love of Zora Neale Hurston is well known. She was the only one who went looking for Hurston’s grave. She describes her journey to get to the unmarked grave in her book, In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens. During that journey, Walker started to feel as if Hurston is family to her, an aunt. “By this time, I am, of course, completely into being Zora’s niece… Besides, as far as I’m concerned, she is my aunt – and that of all black people as well” (Ong). Walker’s book, The Color Purple, was influenced by Hurston and her works. Walker was greatly influenced by Hurston and her book The Color Purple has similarities to Hurston’s book Their Eyes Were Watching God.
In life in general, minor things can often have some powerful meanings, even if we do not take the time to see them. By example, the excitement of the first snow on Christmas Eve or a sunny day on your birthday or even when your favorite song plays on the radio when you enter the car. The Color Purple, a book written by Alice Walker, implicitly demonstrates this theory. Walker’s story takes place in the South of United States after the Civil War, in the same demographic place as Walker was born and raised. One of the main characters of the story, named Celie, lives an awful life does not bring any feelings of happiness in her heart. Celie’s view on the world is narrow. She does not see all the small things in her life that can make her happy every day, like the
Novelist Alice Walker the youngest of eight children; was born in an unprivileged family. At a young age, she was blinded in one eye by a BB gun misfortune; which caused her to be shy during her infantile years. A known bisexual feminist Walker has advocated rights for women since a young adult. Walker is known for her soul filled books, essays, and poems. Her past has a lot to do with the literature she writes as it is base of her life experiences and African American heritage. Some her famous writings are Prize-winning novel, “The Color Purple” which illustrates the bigotry African America women underwent, this book later became a movie that won film awards. Also in her assortments of writings is” In Love and Trouble”: Stories of Black Women
Alice Walker born in 1944 lived in a critical era of civil rights for blacks in
There are numerous works of literature that recount a story- a story from which inspiration flourishes, providing a source of liberating motivation to its audience, or a story that simply aspires to touch the hearts and souls of all of those who read it. One of the most prevalent themes in historical types of these kinds of literature is racism. In America specifically, African Americans endured racism heavily, especially in the South, and did not gain equal rights until the 1960s. In her renowned book The Color Purple, Alice Walker narrates the journey of an African American woman, Celie Johnson (Harris), who experiences racism, sexism, and enduring hardships throughout the course of her life; nonetheless, through the help of friends and family, she is able to overcome her obstacles and grow into a stronger, more self-assured individual. While there are numerous themes transpiring throughout the course of the novel, the symbolism is one of the strongest prospects for instigating the plot. In The Color Purple by Alice Walker, numerous symbols influence and drive the plot of the novel.
Alice Walker’s writings were greatly influenced by the political and societal happenings around her during the 1960s and 1970s. She not only wrote about events that were taking place, she participated in them as well. Her devoted time and energy into society is very evident in her works. The Color Purple, one of Walker’s most prized novels, sends out a social message that concerns women’s struggle for freedom in a society where they are viewed as inferior to men. The events that happened during and previous to her writing of The Color Purple had a tremendous impact on the standpoint of the novel.
was still as it had always been, it must be very hard to change a
(An evaluation on Everything Stuck to Him and how the ending makes the ending and the story clear.)
Most of Walker's fiction work is suffuse by her Southern background. Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia which is considered to be a rural town where most black workers work as lessee farmer. She was the eighth and the last child of Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker and Willie Lee Walker. Her parents were poor sharecroppers. In the summer of 1952 at the age of eight, she fell into a depression when her older brother accidentally shot her with a BB gun, causing her to lost one sight of her eye. (LLC n.pag) She later started to hidden herself from the other kids in her neighborhood. She explained, "I no longer felt like the little girl I was. I felt old, and because I felt I was unpleasant to look at, filled with shame. I retreated into solitude, and read stories and began to write poems." (Alice Walker) However later in her high school senior year in 1961, Walker got a rehabilitation scholarship to Spelman, a college for black women in Atlanta. In here, she became involved in the civil rights movement and associated in sit-ins at local business establishments. In her junior year, she transferred to another college in Bronxville, New York called Sarah Lawrence College and graduate there in 1965. In 1967, Walker married a Jewish Civil rights attorney, Melvyn Leventhal where she was an activist and teacher in Mississippi.
...etic, it incorporates humor with realism to accurately depict the lives of everyday people. She uses vivid imagery to provoke thought and emotions. Taylor at the end of the novel said “ [Turtle] watched the dark highway and entertained me with her vegetable-soup song, except now there were people mixed in with the beans and potatoes: Dwayne Ray, Mattie, Esperanza, Lou Ann, and all the rest. And me. I was the main ingredient” (Kingsolver 232).This quote is a metaphor, how all of them were like vegetable-soup, part of one, big family. Now that Turtle said it, it brings happiness and closure to the reader.
Shelton, Frank W. "Alienation and Integration in Alice Walker's The Color Purple." CLA Journal 28 (1985): 382-92.
The Color Purple depicts the struggle within the life of the female protagonist, Celie. Celie, a clear victim of abuse, narrates the story through a collection of writings that starts with her confession of “Dear God.” Celie’s story encompasses around her life and the characters that breaks the common gender depiction. The story heavily addresses the subject of social and behavioral standards for either men and women. It raises an issues on traditional marital subjects, family patriarchy, and social topics. In a traditional take of the family structure, the man often exhibits the dominant male figure head with the final say. The father provides the money and security for the wife and children as well as claim authority over the family. He becomes very work oriented and cares for the children only in times of need. On the other hand, the woman acts to be passive and pleases her husband. She plays a major role in raising and educating the children in every way possible. Often times, the woman takes a small part in maintaining a profession; although, she holds responsibility for all house work. The societal perspective of the patriarchal family system relies so heavily on gender roles that it becomes an expectation and the regulated norm. The Color Purple disrupts this gender norm by introducing characters that faces marital issues due to being the opposite of the typical gender role. Because they embody the opposite gender’s likely attributes, it becomes a questioning issue that leads to striving to live up to social norms or dealing with society disapproval. Within the progression of the novel, the women possess a sense of empowerment while as the men accept how things are in the world. The introducti...
Alice Walker's use of characterization in her novel The Color Purple depicts her main theme of female empowerment and the importance of maintaining an assertive voice. The tyrannical male characters, the victimized female characters, and the development of the protagonist, Celie, express Walker's firm views of female independence in a male dominated society. Her feminist views have been influenced by her experiences with discrimination as an African-American woman as well as her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. These experiences serve as an inspiration for developing the character Celie, a young black woman discovering her own sense of self while battling a male dependent environment. The progression of civil rights for black women that existed throughout the twentieth century mirrors the development Celie makes from a verbally debilitated girl to an adamant young woman. The expression of racism and sexism that evidenced itself during the postmodern era presented Walker with an opportunity to compose a novel that reveals her strong animosity toward discrimination. Without these outlets, Walker would not have had the ability to create a novel with such in-depth insights into the lifestyle of an immensely oppressed woman.
According to the bibliography portion of “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker, Alice was born in Georgia and attended Spellman College before transferring to Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Her first work was a book of poetry that was published while she was still in college. She moved to Mississippi and became a teacher and a civil rights activist. Walker’s work is known for highlighting the struggle of African American women during her time and in the past.
has to be there, then all the minority has to do is pattern themselves after