The Desire For Selfhood In The Color Purple By Daniel Ross

The Color Purple describes the life of Celie, a woman searching for her voice when stuck in a cycle of abuse. Celie’s abuse started at a young age with her step-father, Alfonso, who molested her because her mother was too ill to satisfy his sexual pleasures. Celie writes letters to god because her father told her that she was to never tell anyone but God of the abuse, because it would upset her mother. In “Celie in the Looking Glass: The Desire for Selfhood in the Color Purple” by Daniel Ross, Ross conveys the universal theme of the Color Purple; finding the courage to speak out. Ross states, “Celie 's language exists through much of the book without a body or audience, just as she exists without a self or identity.” (Ross) Celie gets pregnant and has two children, both of which Alfonso takes from her after they are born. Celie is then forced to marry a man that she has no attraction nor feelings for. Celie is then abused and molested by her husband and is seen as “merely a servant and an occasional sexual convenience.” (Parvathy). Celie, along with many other women

In “Psychoanalytical Criticism and Hamlet”, Murfin reflects on Freud’s theory stating, “the powers motivating men and women are mainly and normally unconscious” (Murfin). One of Freud’s most famous theories was the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. In the unconscious mind are emotions we have repressed, such as the depression that Celie feels in her everyday life of abuse. Celie feels as though she is merely existing and not living, but without knowing how to change her life around and having no hope, Celie represses her feelings while they eat at her mind. In “A View From Elsewhere” by Linda Abbandonato, Linda comments on the type of character Celie is, “She is an ‘invisible woman,’ a character traditionally silenced and effaced in fiction”