How Did Alice Walker Use Abuse In The Color Purple

The Role of Abuse in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple: Throughout history, man continues to make decisions, whether they may be harmful to others or not. In older times, society found it acceptable to beat women and order them around as though they are slaves and pets, doing as they will. It was more often portrayed that African women were the subjects of their husband’s wrath if they refused to do as told, whether the abuse occurred as physical, mental, or verbal. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple effortlessly portrays that men commonly overrule women within the African American society when abuse was completely acceptable. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple takes place down in Georgia, somewhere around 30 years before World War II began. Since African Americans were originally introduced to America,

The main character, Celie, faces both abuse and maltreatment throughout The Color Purple from several influential men in her life: her stepfather, her husband, and her stepson, Harpo. In the beginning of the book, Celie already faces a life changing encounter with her stepfather, as he sexually abuses her at a young age, without realizing what effect it had on her until later on. In Claudia Durst Johnson’s “Women’s Issues in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple” she explains the aftermath and damage that is done to Celie “Celie is told after her rape by her (presumed) father: “You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.” Cellie is silenced by an external source, and like Morrison’s and Naylor’s protagonists, she experiences the nullification and subjectivity internal voice allied with rape by the myth of Philomela” (60). After Celie’s rape by her stepfather, she is shushed by him and only presumes it as