Gender Roles In The Color Purple By Alice Walker

“He say, I tell her one thing, she do another. Never do what I say. Always backtalk”(35). In the book, “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker, we see different people who do things that others wouldn’t do. People who don’t follow the “normal” way or the “traditional” way of doing things. There are many people shown in this book who don’t follow the “traditional”gender roles. They try to fight it or just don’t agree with it and do what they aren't supposed to. Three people in particular stick out to me.

The first person is Sofia. She is a hard working, strong headed girl who doesn’t like to follow what women should be doing. She fights back and talks back when she thinks that she isn't being treated right. She also says whatever is on her mind

When Sofia married Harpo, he couldn’t get her to do what he wanted. She always did what she wanted and said what she wanted. But one day Harpo went to Celie for advice and she told him to beat her to make her listen. So, because of her advice Harpo does just that but just ends up getting beat up by Sofia instead. Celie says, “Next time us see Harpo his face a mess of bruises. His lip cut. One of his eyes shut like a fist. He walk stiff and say his teef ache. I say, What happen to you, Harpo? He say, Oh, me and that mule. She fractious, you know” (36). I think that what happened before this is that Harpo tried to do what Celie said to do but he got beat up because he didn’t expect Sofia to fight back. She didn’t want to just sit there and take the beating so she fought back. In order to not get embarrassed he came up with the lie that she just went crazy in the fields and he ended up getting hurt trying to get her in the house. Another time that Soifa fought back was when she and Harpo were at home. Celie came over for something but ended up getting a front row seat to them fighting. “But it's Harpo and Sofia. They fighting like two mens” (37) A little bit later in the fight Celie describes one of the scenes that she saw saying, “She stand there in her slip. She never blink a

When we first see Shug Avery she is sick and is getting taken care of by Celie and Mr. ____. One day when Mr. ____ was in the room with Shug Avery she tells him, “Turn lose my goddam hand, she say to Mr. ____. What the matter with you, you crazy? I don’t need no weak little boy can’t say no to his daddy hanging on me. I need me a man, she say. A man. She look at him and roll her eyes and laugh” (47). She says this to Mr. ____ with no hesitation. Normally no man would take this from someone that they are caring for and they would either beat or kick them out for this level of disrespect but, Mr. ____ just takes it, says nothing, and backs up into the corner of the room. It was also not common or normal at all for a woman with “traditional” views or ideas to speak to a man like this. Women would have normally spoken to men with the utmost respect as they were the head of the household and the people who cared for them. Later on in the story she gets into another relationship with Grady and she ends up basically being the breadwinner in their relationship. When we first meet Grady we see that Celie and Mr. ____ do not like him one bit and are upset that Shug Avery is in a relationship with him. Celie and Shug have a small conversation about how they met and Celie mentions that, “She buy Grady anything he think he want” (109). The “traditional” gender