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Alice Walker's Impact On The Color Purple

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Renowned author Alice Walker comments on society when she says,“Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.” In the novel, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, the author gives insight on life in rural Georgia in the early 1900’s for black women. The author also highlights the negative impacts of societal roles on the novel’s characters and shows how the characters grow and develop due to societal pressure and relationships. Alice Walker effectively illustrates the importance of relationships by highlighting the positive and negative impacts relationships have on character development.
Alice Walker’s use of Celie and Mr._’s relationship in the novel The Color Purple is used to highlight the negative impact the …show more content…

The novel’s setting of rural Georgia in the early 1900’s effectively draws on the hardships of black American women during the novel’s time era. There are many societal standards men and women are held to because of the novel’s time era. Walker illustrates the theme of gender roles in the novel’s setting when she makes Harpo tell Celie about Sofia, saying,”She do what she want, don’t pay me no mind at all. I try to beat her, she black my eyes”(62). Harpo tries to fit in with the time era’s gender roles by physically abusing his wife Sofia, however, Sofia fights against the gender roles, not allowing herself to be abused by Harpo. Sofia’s ability to break free from her negative relationship with societal gender norms allows her to be free and her true self. The emphasis on the oppression of women due to the novel’s time era lets readers further understand the human experience, as readers get insight into the fight against oppression by breaking free from societal gender roles. The author’s use of the words,”she do what she want” highlights Sofia’s ability to escape from the confines of gender roles, as she will do whatever she wants in life, no matter how much oppression she is faced with as a black woman living in the South. The negative relationship between Sofia and gender roles created from the novel’s setting empowers Sofia to break away from oppressive stereotypes, therefore letting her be independent. The novel’s setting shows the positive impacts negative relationships, such as societal gender roles, can have on its

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The boy gives her the impression that he knows she gains from his struggle, “I don’t know if I am in his power…or if he’s in my power” (14-18). The woman possibly begins to question the idea that the boy is actually living in a subservient white world and wonders who actually has the power now as they sit face to face in person. The woman may be at the top of the social pyramid but is now held at the mercy of this boy who sits across from her. This portrays that there are undistinguished lines between black and whites and leads the woman to doubt if her fortune and social position can defeat the boy’s hostility towards her.

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She details her experience realizing she was, in fact, a Black woman, which meant she was automatically considered, by society, inferior. This revelation was particularly jarring due to her unracialized upbringing, and she challenges this conviction to its essence. Instead, she bases her identity on the environmental factors that occur around her.

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Alice Walker is considered a Revolutionary for many people because of the struggles she fought through as an African American woman, novelist, and activist living in the mid to late 1900’s. Alice Walker shows how women have struggled in America with having similar and equal rights to white men. She also shows how African Americans struggle with the same problems when it comes to achieving similar or equal rights to a white male. In the novel, “The Color Purple”, written by Alice Walker, the main protagonist, Celie, learns to find her own voice and own self worth through a series of obstacles that she had to overcome throughout her journey; similar to the way Alice Walker also had struggles of being an African American woman during the mid to

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"The Color Purple," a novel by Alice Walker, is a powerful story that explores the life of a black woman named Celie who faces various forms of oppression and abuse in the early 20th century rural South. Over the course of the novel, Celie undergoes significant character development as she navigates through challenges, discovers her inner strength, and finds her own voice. Through her relationships, self-reflection, and personal growth, Celie transforms from a submissive and voiceless individual to a resilient and empowered woman. At the beginning of the novel, Celie is portrayed as a timid character who has experienced years of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse from her father and later her husband.

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The Color Purple by Alice Walker should be kept in school libraries because it conveys the importance of family, shows examples of overcoming hardship and discusses serious topics such as rape and death. The Color Purple is an inspiring, beautiful, and powerful read for teens. The Color Purple is important for teens to read because its most prominent theme is how family sticks together through thick and thin, and it talks about the value of it as well. Within the first 20 pages of the book, Celie is separated from her sister, Nettie.

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To effectively communicate with her audience, Walker largely relied on imagery to depict and capture the immense brutality and struggles African-American women endured in the South amiss the mid-1900s. The vivid compilation of letters throughout The Color Purple contained many unsettling descriptions, which indeed aided in driving the plot line. Without the use of the literary element, readers would not adequately understand the circumstances and setting in which the dynamic characters lived in. In one of her initial letters, whom she addressed to God, Celie retold an incident involving her recurring abuse from Mr. ______.

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Other literary critics like Calvin Hernton view, The Color Purple, as a neo-slave narrative, in which the oppression of the African American community is swapped by gender oppression, where African American women are the slaves of the African American men (Hernton,

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Family Through According to Alice Walker Alice Walker had a lot to say about family in her book, The Color Purple, in this book family had loose conditions and was often inter tangled. Celie’s friends and family were remarkably confusing and complicated at times, because many people were sleeping with people they were not married to and that was married to their friends. However, no family is perfect, so why would this one be, in the end it was all Celie and everybody else really needed.

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Finding fulfillment in life is something everyone struggles to achieve no matter their circumstances. It becomes exponentially more difficult when a person leads a life riddled with misfortune and imperfect situations. In Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple, Celie struggles with abusive relationships and expectations to be subservient. She is unable to find happiness in these situations. Despite the struggles of her life, Celie becoming increasingly independent gives her an increasing amount of contentedness in her life.

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Literary Analysis: The Color Purple Every individual learns something new or different every day, whether it is somebody’s favorite color or learning something new about yourself. Many people can either learn from their hardships and past experiences, while others may learn from other people’s past through stories or guidance. Throughout the novel, The Color Purple written by Alice Walker, the main character, Celie, learned how to love herself, that everyone makes mistakes, and face her fears.

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For example, Celie becomes socially, economically and spiritually free, she sins love, dignity, and respect. This paper has analyzed how the characters in The Color Purple arouse their self-consciousness, through sisterhood and encouragement, love and help from their partners. The author demonstrates how the characters escape degradation caused by mistreatment by men and finally win dignity. The paper recognizes that Celie utilizes sisterhood to gain liberation, sexual identity independence, and freedom.   Works Cited Thyreen, Jeannine. "

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but they forgot to thank the black hands whose excessive toil had built the country. In The Color Purple, the touchy as well as realistic magnum opus of Alice Walker various shades of black life have been brought into the forefront. The subordination of a

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