Philomela In Ovid And Celie In The Color Purple

The 20th century was characterized by patriarchy and social values. This essay will compare how Philomela in Ovid and Celie in the color purple were raped, Philomela was raped by her brother in law and cut off her tongue to silence her and Celie on the other hand, and she also raped by her stepfather and silenced her. I will demonstrate this by showing how Philomela was raped and become a repetition in rapture and silenced again. On the other hand, Celie is also raped and but she moves away from the repetition in rapture as she get the opportunity to breaks away (unsilenced) violence and victimization and into taking control of her life and making her own choices.
The myth of Philomela and the Color purple show how women were victimized and censored by society where men hold power and women are excluded from it and stop women or silence them not to speak out. For instance, in Ovid Men have power over women and they are in control, as Tereus is given Procne to marry him because he protected Athens and Procne has no say or has no right to refuse the proposal. On the other hand, in the Color Purple, Celie’s stepfather treat her mother like an object as he keep her pregnant which lead to her death.

Celie becomes subjective about want she want in her life and she do this through the assistance of other female characters. Furthermore, she also do this through the writing and making friends with females. Alice walker gives celie an awareness on how to deal/manage her life and how she should act against discrimination. In addition, Celie is able to grow or breaks away from discrimination through the assistance of other female characters. As celie do this she begins to convey her feeling of living abusive life through writing letters, because earlier she was not allowed to speak out her feelings by her stepfather. However, as she transform she express her feeling by