Symbolism was a major literary element that is developed throughout The Color Purple. A model or image of God in the novel was a truly disturbing and yet a touching dedication to the female spirit and its search for equality, acceptance and independence. The meanings of names, clothes, quilting, occupations, power, and colors are only a few examples of the symbols used by the author to develop the characters of the story. No matter how hard and long Celies looks, it seems impossible to find love and happiness for herself. The purple color itself symbolized love while religion was often seen as offering a path of transformation-a way that leads through to happiness. In The Color Purple, Alice Walker used the symbolism of the letters to God,
The Black woman struggles against oppression not only as a result of her race, but also because of her gender. Slavery created the perception of Black inferiority; sexism traces back to the beginning of Western tradition. White men have shaped nearly every aspect of culture, especially literature. Alice Walker infuses her experiences as a Black woman who grew up in Georgia during the Civil Rights era into the themes and characters of her contemporary novels. Walker’s novels communicate the psychology of a Black woman under the Western social order, touch on the “exoticism of Black women” and challenge stereotypes molded by the white men in power (Bobo par. 24). In The Color Purple Walker illustrates the life of a woman in an ordinary Black family in the rural South; in his article “Matriarchal Themes in Black Family Literature”, Rubin critiques that Walker emphasizes not only that the Black female is oppressed within society, but also that external oppression causes her to internalize her inferiority. Every theme in Walker’s writings is given through the eyes of a Black woman; by using her personal experiences to develop her short stories and novels, Walker gives the Black woman a voice in literature. Walker demonstrates through her writings that the oppression of Black women is both internal and external.
Writers of all genres uses symbolism as a way to introduce objects or ideas that will expand and deepen the meaning of their writings. The title of Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple” could be considered a symbolism. Purple is the color that is said to represent imagination and spirituality. It helps the individual to get in touch with their deeper thoughts, feelings and inspires them to have high standards about themselves. Purple is said to be associated with the transformation of the soul. The main character of Walker’s novel was struggling with finding love and finding her purpose in life. The reader experience the transformation of Celie from a weak submissive young woman to an independent, businesswoman. The title was the perfect match for the context of the novel. Furthermore, the pants that Celie made, sold and eventually wore was a sign of liberation for
Change is the law of life. A person goes through different stages of life, and at every stage there is transformation in the personality of the person. This new individual is entirely different from the previous one. For this change, different circumstances and events are responsible. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane are two texts of feminism in which we find the theme of evolution among the life of the characters like Celie and Nazneen who, happened to highlight the oppression of women in universal phenomenon irrespective of caste, creed, culture and nation. My paper is an attempt to study these two characters and see how their personality is evolved because of the different circumstances of life.
Alice Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia on February 9,1944, she is the eighth and youngest child of Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker and Willie Lee Walker. He parents worked as sharecroppers. Not only did she grow up poor but in a violent and racist environment, this left a permanent impression on her writing.
Alice Walker is the pride of African Americans, who are considered as the most suppressed community within United States. She was born on 9th February 1944 in Georgia. She started her career as a social worker activist, followed by teaching and writer. She has secured many awards for her unprecedented works. The third novel of Alice Walker “The Color Purple” was published in 1982, which gave the real flight to her publications; as she received massive credits from around the world. Her works basically include short stories, novels and essays that are always evidently centered on the struggles and adversities of black women particularly in United States. Walker uses the writing as her standard to spread her voice and to process experiences of
The Color Purple is focused on a young fourteen-year-old girl named Celie who grown up fast in the South. Celie was raped by her father and gave birth to two children of her own. Celie was told her children died in childbirth. Her mother died leaving her and her siblings living with her father. Her father pushed her into marriage to a widower, which made her a stepmother to his children at a young age. She was abused physically and mentally, but not spiritually because her faith was in God. She addresses God in her letters. She had challenges in her life with her family and marriage. She became stronger and overcame different obstacles in her life with the help of her faith in God, sister Nettie who helped her learn how to read and write, before Celie's husband tried to attack, and rape her.
Alice Walker is an American author who wrote a controversial novel during the civil rights movement. This novel, ‘The Color Purple’, is based on the ideas of racism, sexism, and freedom. As an author, Alice Walker was very active in the civil rights movement and her childhood greatly influenced her writing. In her novel, Walker uses diary entries to create a musical sense which makes her novel connected and rhythmic. Also, Walker’s work embraces black culture and how people had to live during times of racial segregation. Alice Walker bases her characters on her own life struggles to convey a message to the readers of staying strong and having perseverance through challenges in life.
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is a good example of how black women’s sexuality is depicted in society. The film draws audience attention to the fact the black women's bodies were not desirable during slavery as we see Celie constantly being abused by the men in her life. In fact, this was the beginning of traumatic life experiences as she marries an abusive man while living in a racists environment. The turning point in her identity is when she meets her husband’s ex-lover, Shug. When they first met, they weren’t attracted to each other. Shug first words to Celie was “you sure are ugly”. As we may have noticed, Shug doesn't realise that Celie desires her sexually where she only wants to recover from her illness with the help of Celie. Despite
The Color Purple is an epistolary novel that tells the story of a young black girl, Celie, who is abused by her father and others, left with no other option but to confide in God and use writing as a way of journal therapy and to find her own sense of agency. In The Color Purple by Alice Walker, the author uses first person point of view to make evident to the reader Celie’s growth from an emotionally detached being who is not capable of making her own decisions to a full fledged person with her own sense of agency throughout the novel.
In Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Celie has many misconceptions of herself and her world. Due to her upbringing of pain and mistreatment, and her ignorance of a better world, Celie's image of herself and her own potential is very different from reality. The Color Purple, above all else, is the story of Celie's growth and self-discovery, which she achieves through her own commitment to herself and through the help of Nettie and Shug.
Enduring hardship is a part of life and something we all must go through. But, through overcoming these obstacles we become stronger and better people. We become more capable of improving our lives and the lives of those around us. They increase our endurance and what we are able to accomplish by pushing us to our limits. The Color Purple follows a journey towards independence and self-confidence through overcoming hardship. Sometimes a tragedy can help you discover something you didn’t even know you needed such as in Legally Blonde where main character Elle Woods—rich, outgoing, slightly ditsy sorority girl who had almost everything she wanted—inadvertently embarks on a journey towards gaining dignity and self-respect as a woman in the eyes
She never gives up fighting for her identity. She will not listen to her husband commands and will not be a burden. Lucy stone who was an abolitionist and suffragist lived during when the novels are set. In her diary she wrote about the times she was beaten by her father for not scraping the mud from the horse shoes. These kinds of situations were frequent during these times and we can see similar things happen in ‘The Color Purple’. Albert beats celie up for no reason, just to show he has more power over her and also to show that she’s not important. During this times black males were humiliated because of the colour of their skin, this meant that they had no way to fight back against the white with the fear of being lynched, therefore they took their anger out on their women. This meant that women experienced twice the oppression. However later on Sofia is arrested for irritating the major’s wife and forced into being a maid. Here we see how the position has changed from being a strong minded woman to a scared slave. This is in contrast with the idea of expanding the construction of gender roles in ‘The Color Purple’. Nettie describes the Olinka Women as living in a world dominated by men. Men use their language to clarify their dominance and shows how unimportant women
work for her as a maid, Sophia is brutally beaten by the mayor and six
has to be there, then all the minority has to do is pattern themselves after