The Color Purple Research Paper

Darren Driscoll

Mrs. Richardson

Diverse Voices (D)

March 27, 2018

The Color Purple Sacatic

1. In The Color Purple, women are portrayed as lesser to men in the book. Examine how the reason of women being portrayed as beneath men is because of their gender or because of their ethnicity.

In the book The Color Purple, main female characters in the book are portrayed as lesser to men, but not just because of their gender, also because of their ethnicity. Throughout the beginning of the book, were being assaulted, taken advantage of and made it seem like none of them had any rights. This reminds my of a Quote from Oprah’s speech at the Golden Globes which was “brutal power of men”. This quote shows how men in our society today still has more

That being said, in the beginning of the book Mr.____ treated Ceilie horribly because she was ugly, unattractive and wasn't a good wife in Mr.____ eyes. Throughout the book Mr.____ still treated Celie with no respect by sleeping with other women like Shug and abusing her when no one is around. However later in the book, Celie finally stands up for herself by telling Mr.____ off in front of everyone at dinner before Celie and Shug moved to Memphis. Although, Celie hated Mr.____ for everything he did to her, she still forgave him in the end. This was shown in 87 letter and on page 267, that says “Mr.____ seem to be the only one understand my feeling.” The quote shows how Celie started to become friends with Mr.____ for becoming a new man and understanding that everyone has feeling a right as a human, no matter their gender or race. This reminded me of Oprah’s speech at the Golden Globes on how “a new day is on the horizon”. Oprah was talking about how men will soon see that all women are just as strong and smart as men, where Mr.____ finally realized that Celie is an important person to the

In the book, Celie was portrayed as weak, scared and confused told she is ugly by men and others. Celie had no idea what true beauty was, she had her own ideas of what beauty was but it kept giving her pain and hard roads to follow. However, that all changed when she became friends with Shug and Sofia. Shug and Sofia taught Celie true beauty isn't judged by how someone looks, its about being and having confidence in yourself to be the best you. In the 87 letter and on page 276, Mr.____ says “Shug act more manly than most men. I mean the hindmost, he say. You know Shug will fight, he say. Just like Sofia. She bound to live her life and be herself no matter what.” When reading this quote might shock you but reading that Mr. ____ being nice to women is shocking. However the quote identified that having strong and independent women in Celie’s life helped he become strong and independent in her own way. So when she can look at herself in the mirror, she sees a beautiful women that can do anything she wants too. This is a good example from the #MeToo article saying “The waitress in the diner may never stand up and say #MeToo - and that’s fine. But I want her to know that the global ‘me too.’ community we have created has space for her too.” This demonstrated how women like Shug and Sofia can inspire other