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The Color Purple is a novel written by Alice Walker. The story’s setting is in Georgia. It focuses on how African-American women were treated in the United States during the 90’s. It also addresses issues on racism, sexism, and incest, most especially the social culture of lower class people .
In the story, most of the characters suffer many hardships especially poverty. Celie, the main character, had experienced a struggling family during her childhood. She together with her family lived in sub standard housing, separated from the Whites (litnotes.com). With this obvious division, it was certainly hard for them to wander around away from their village. They had their own cemetery, church, school and served in stores that practiced discrimination (litnotes.com). Black people were treated by Whites as if they were animals. There was also inequality in terms of education (litnotes.com). They went to school but only for a short while because of obligations of domestic labor. When Celie got married, she and her sister, Nettie, stopped going to school (litnotes.com). There were even offensive words said to them. There was a time when Celie’s sister Nettie went to Africa. A poor White character in the story said, "Niggers going to Africa now I have seen everything”. In these statements, we could infer that even the Whites who belong to the lower class consider themselves superior to Blacks, no matter how successful the Blacks are. It was then that, Bessie Smith, whom Shug falls in love with, dies as a result of being ignored in a White hospital (litnotes.com). Racial discrimination was indeed one of the hardships that the main characters experienced. Due to their race, the rest of insults followed. Social injustice and sexism are also prevalent. In Harpo and Sofie’s relationship, Celie’s parents Harpo beat Sofie. Celie’s father believed that a man has authority to beat his wife, because she was his wife. Her mother was also tremendously taken advantage of (litnotes.com).
Physical, sexual, and emotional violence also seemed to be dominant in the story (litnotes.com). Celie had been oppressed by men her whole life. She was sexually abused. She was raped by her stepfather, Harpo and with whom she has two children. Celie had also been through physical abuses, as she was always been maltreated by Mr. Harpo. She worked in the farm and did the household chores all at once when she got married to her husband (litnotes.com). She was even sold to marry a man, who does not need a wife but a servant (shmoop.com). There was also too much emotional abuse. Imagine that she was expected to accept her husband’s affair with another woman, Shug Avery, who sleeps with her husband on their family house together with her (litnotes.com). Aside from that, she was intentionally separated from Nettie, her sister for decades (shmoop.com).
Works Cited
Abrams, P. H. The Gift of Loneliness: Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Language Arts Journal of Michigan , 1985.
Edemariam, A. Free spirit. The Guardian, 2007, June 23. Web. 13 October 2014. <www.theguardian.com/books/alice-walker>
MICDS. American Race and Racism 1970 to Present. 2014. Print
Smith, K. Alice Walker's Makers Appearance Highlights Why She Wrote 'The Color Purple'. The Huffington Post, 2013 February 28. Web. 13 October 2014 <www.huffingtonpost.com/news/alice-walker/>
The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Web. 7 Nov. 2014. <http://www.shmoop.com/color-purple/celie.html>
The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Web. 7 Nov. 2014.<http://www.litnotes.co.uk/color.htm>
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. United States: Harcourt Books, 1982. Print.
Watkins, M. Some Letters Went to God. The New York Times, 25 June 1982. Web. 13 October, 2014. <topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/alice_walker/>
