Abuse in The Color Purple
The Color Purple, written by Alice Walker, is an evocative novel, where a young woman encounters several hardships. Hardships that not only put her down but also challenge her. Living in a patriarchal society, she has become a victim of both her father’s and her husband’s abuse. Told from the perspective of a poor and uneducated black woman named Celie, the epistolary novel explains her everyday feelings and thoughts about the society she lived in. There were multiple forms of abuse that Celie endures that highly impacted the way she viewed men.
The novel begins with Celie at the age of fourteen. She encounters her abusive stepfather, who at that time she knew as her father. It was him that in the first letter abused
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Her comparison to nature shows the dehumanization of Celie, and how she no longer sees herself as a person but more like a tree. By Mr.___ dehumanizing Celie, it affected her individuality, her self-esteem, her personality, and her future actions. In the Breaking the Silence article, it states that “what Celie records – the degradation, abuse, dehumanization – is not morally repulsive, but it invites spectator readers to generalize about black people is the same negative ways they have gone on for centuries.” Not only does it show what Celie endures, but what the rest of the women around her did, and “Celie’s life symbolize[s] the more or less subtle operations of patriarchal power in the lives of women everywhere” (Sveinsdóttir 16). The dehumanization was achieved through the multiple forms of abuse. In the end, she demonstrated her capacity of being able to be an independent woman just like many.
Entering marriage, Celie was to give up everything. She was separated from her two children and Nettie and is left “…completely alone in a world where everyone she loves has been taken away from her and she is forced into a loveless and abusive marriage,” a marriage that does not allow her to have the right to speak up (Sveinsdóttir 13). Silence had devoured Celie and she is forced to not speak up. It was unusual and disrespectful for a woman to speak up or raise their voice to a man. This was one
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Throughout the novel, Celie was the one physically being abused, but she understood why and tells Harpo that “Wives is like children. You have to let ‘em know who got the upper hand. Nothing can do that better than a good sound beating” (Walker 35). She depicts the common use of cruelty and the normality of it in her society. Her acceptance proves that the “male qualities of power, dominance, and control” overrule women and allow them to create the “traits of submission, obedience, and servitude” (Abrams 29). In the society she lived in, it was traditional for women to be oppressed by men. “…It is [like] men that hold the power and women have to bend to that power”, Celie copes with the several hardships, and does what she is told (Sveinsdóttir
The woman in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and the woman in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire both struggle with discrimination. Celie, a passive young woman, finds herself in mistreatment and isolation, leading to emotional numbness, in addition to a society in which females are deemed second-rate furthermore subservient to the males surrounding them. Like Celie, Blanche DuBois, a desperate woman, who finds herself dependent on men, is also caught in a battle between survival and sexism during the transformation from the old to the new coming South.
Alice Walker grew up in rural Georgia in the mid 1900s as the daughter of two poor sharecroppers. Throughout her life, she has been forced to face and overcome arduous lessons of life. Once she managed to transfer the struggles of her life into a book, she instantaneously became a world-renowned author and Pulitzer Prize winner. The Color Purple is a riveting novel about the struggle between redemption and revenge according to Dinitia Smith. The novel takes place rural Georgia, starting in the early 1900s over a period of 30 years. Albert, also known as Mr._____, and his son Harpo must prevail over their evil acts towards other people, especially women. Albert and Harpo wrong many people throughout their lives. To be redeemed, they must first learn to love others, then reflect upon their mistakes, and finally become courageous enough to take responsibility for their actions. In The Color Purple, Alice Walker effectively develops Albert and Harpo through redemption using love, reflection, and responsibility.
... Celie’s life she would have never overcome her oppression and hardships. With the wonderful women who all displayed different qualities, Celie would never have been able to become a self reliable woman. Celie started as a shy, passive woman and turned into a woman who can rely on herself and who is not oppressed by the power of men.
Both Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants and John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums portray oppressed female characters in the early 1900s. In Hemingway’s short, Jig is oppressed by her lover known only as “The American,” whereas, the main character in The Chrysanthemums, Elisa Allen, feels the weight of oppression from society (male dominated) as a whole. Although the driving force of the two women’s subjugation varies slightly, their emotional responses to such are what differentiate the two.
The opening line of the story starts with “You better not never tell nobody but God” which Celie’s stepfather tells her after he rapes and abuses her at the age of 14.She was a downtrodden,objectified young girl who was robbed of her freedom. Notwithstanding throughout the novel we witness her character growing and changing as a result of finding uplift and comfort from making pants. This activity with the help of Shug and her sister Sophia influences here life drastically. For Celie pants symbolises independence.
The novel begins with the intense and graphic description of Celie being raped by her father. During this violation Celie states that, “When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying You better shut up and git used to it. But I don’t ever get used to it” (Walker 1). The very specific dialect that Walker uses in these three short sentences creates a very grim and severe tone that helps deepen the understanding and severity of Celie’s situation. A sense of inferiority is established through Celie’s father’s demand that she must “get used to it” because he is the superior male and she must listen to him. Walker uses this tone to immediately establish the traditional gender roles that are woven throughout the novel. In addition to the male’s
Two of the major instances of sexual abuse present in the novel involved both Mr. Henry with Frieda and Cholly with Pecola. The incident with Mr. Henry, while very serious...
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.
When it comes to women who will do anything a man says in fear of something happening to them, the evidence is clear for Celie. In letter 5 of the book Celie’s step dad beat Ceilie for winking at some boy in church.
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.
Her later letters communicate this idea,“ Now that my eyes opening, I feels like a fool. Next to any little scrub of a bush in my yard, Mr.____’s evil sort of shrink . . . You have to git man off your eyeball, before you can see anything a’tall,” (197). Celie also recognises that religion confines her to the role of a dutiful wife obedient of her husband. At one point, Celie, angered with the notion of being beholden to any man, she declares that “The God I been praying and writing to is a man.
For the majority of the novel, Celie was never told she was or could be beautiful by men, she was told how much of nothing she was to them. Beauty was something Celie learned was for women who enjoyed having sex, something for women who had confidence, which was something she could never feel for herself. She was constantly mis treated and told what to do by men like her father and Albert. The book opens with her being raped by her father. He tells her to tell nobody but God, and she begins to be scared of saying “no” to men, she feels she needs to take the abuse, Celie would “be wood” because wood does not feel pain. Her father dominates and makes Celie feel like she was bad, like she did something to deserve this. She felt she was worth little because she should allow her father to do thing like this to her. She felt controlled, dominated and therefore subordinate to men. Her self worth had gone from little down to nothing, and she was told by her father how ugly she was.
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. The novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker is the story of a poor, young black girl, growing up in rural Georgia in the early twentieth century.
If we analyse the story instead of the narrative perspective can we see that the main reason of Celie's insecurity is caused by the way she is treated by men. She is sexually abus...
One of the most popular works by Walker was, The Color Purple. In this Alice Walker story, the reader meets a girl named Celie. In this novel, Walker takes the reader on a journey through much of Celie’s life. While taking the reader through this tale, Walker draws attention to a number of social aspects during this time period. Through Cilie’s life, Walker brings to light the abuse and mistreatment of African American women from 1910 through the 1940’s. “Women were also regarded as less important than men-both Black and white Black women doubly disadvantage. Black women of the era were often treated as slaves or as property” (Tavormina page 2...