Celies Constructed Colors The Color Purple

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Celies Constructed Colors The Color Purple

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In Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, the character Celie first speaks about color when Mr. ______’s sister takes her shopping. She admires a woman she knows only by a photograph (Shug Avery) and she wants a dress that she thinks Shug might like. “I think what color Shug would wear,” she writes. Although Celie has never actually met Shug she invinsions how she would dress. The colors Celie chooses for the woman she doesn’t know and eventually the color of her own dress come from her constructed views about men, women, sex, and power.

The first color Celie imagines Shug would wear, purple, says a lot about Celie’s original perception of Shug. While Shug’s strength and attitude become apparent at first meeting, Celie instantly recognizes these characteristics from the picture in which Shug has one foot up on an automobile and has on furs and red rouge. In addition to this being the first picture Celie has ever seen, Shug’s pose and wardrobe cause Celie to associate her with the color purple. “She like a queen...

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