Amanda Bożek
Mrs. Halicos
English 101
24 April 2017
The Color Purple Author: Alice Walker
Alice Walker's The Color Purple constructs an intricate mosaic of women joined by their love for each other, the men who abuse them, and the children they care for. Celie, the protagonist and narrator of The Color Purple, is a poor, uneducated, fourteen-year-old black girl living in rural Georgia. Celie starts writing letters to God because her father, Alphonso, beats and rapes her. Alphonso has already impregnated Celie once. Celie gave birth to a girl, whom her father stole and presumably killed in the woods. Celie has a second child, a boy, whom her father also
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I may have got somethin in my eye but I didn’t wink. I don’t even look at mens. That’s the truth. I look at women, tho, cause I’m not scared of them. Maybe cause my mama cuss me you think I kept mad at her. But I ain’t. I felt sorry for mama. Trying to believe his story kilt her” (Walker 6). Through this experience Celine refers to the fact that she fears men because of her past relations with them, for example, Celine’s step-father refers to her as, “a dumb, poor, and ugly girl” (BookRags 2009). Being that she is always neglected by the men in her life, she has grown to resent them. The main conflict in The Color Purple is the sexism present throughout the book. This can be seen in Celie’s marriage to a man who beats and abuses her simply for being his wife, this is all in part due to the mentality men impose of women and dominate the society with. Our male dominated society refuses women's access to social mobility or to enjoy freedoms experienced by men. Similarly, Celie is unable to fight back against men in the beginning of the book. Even as her sister Nettie begs her to take a stand and defend herself, Celie says, "I don't fight. I stay where I'm told. But I'm alive," (Walker, 29). As a woman, Celie is used to submitting to men, knowing it as the only way to live through the terrible rape and abuse of her