In the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker, the main character, Celie, grows from being a scared and obedient wife to a strong and confident when her sister Nettie, Sofia and Shug Avery show her that she is a person worth of love and happiness by giving he strength and confidence. First off, Nettie is one of the first people to help Celie to realize her worth. Since they are sisters, Nettie has been teaching Celie things her whole life. One of the best things that Nettie has done for Celie was teaching her to read. By trying to teach her reading, she gave her something that no one could take away: knowledge. This knowledge also served as a statement in a sort of rebellious way because women, let alone women of color, were not supposed to Shug comes into Celie’s life being a judgmental diva who thought she was above Celie. After getting to know Celie, thought, she begins to become softer and more human and shows Celie that she is worth much more than what she is. After beginning to form a bond with Celie, Shug is about to leave, until she finds out that of the book and Shug says to Celie, “Oh Miss Celie, she say, and put her arms around me. Us sit like that for maybe a half hour. … I won’t leave, she say, until Albert won’t even think about beating you.” (Walker, 1982, 75/76) This shows that Shug wants the best for Celie, and that she really cares for her, and Shug Shug was willing to give up going back to her luxurious life and career to be with Celie. On multiple occasions in the book as well, Shug share close and intimate moments with Celie, in which she serves as a mother, sister and lover to her, all things she never had. Conclusively, the characteristics greatly contrast with her qualities at the end due to the help from Nettie, Sofia and Shug Avery, who show her how to be strong and confident in herself despite her troubling
Alice Walker’s love of Zora Neale Hurston is well known. She was the only one who went looking for Hurston’s grave. She describes her journey to get to the unmarked grave in her book, In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens. During that journey, Walker started to feel as if Hurston is family to her, an aunt. “By this time, I am, of course, completely into being Zora’s niece… Besides, as far as I’m concerned, she is my aunt – and that of all black people as well” (Ong). Walker’s book, The Color Purple, was influenced by Hurston and her works. Walker was greatly influenced by Hurston and her book The Color Purple has similarities to Hurston’s book Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Within The Color Purple by Alice Walker, women are treated as inferior to men therefore they must obey them. Through the strength and wisdoms Celie gains from other women, she learns to overcome her oppression and realize her self worth as a woman. The women she has met throughout her life, and the woman she protected since young, are the people that helped her become a strong independent woman. Sofia and Shug were there for Celie when she needed someone to look up to and depend on. Nettie was able to push Celie to become a more educated, independent person. The main source of conflict in this book is Celie’s struggle with becoming an independent woman who needs not to rely on a man. Throughout the book we see her grow as a person and become independent in many ways through her experiences with the powerful women in her life.
Doaker- A forty seven year old, tall, patient man that has a lot of respect for others. Even though he caves into people he is still a respectable figure.
A tragic character is someone who experiences misfortune in courtesy of poor judgment, fate or a conflicted personality. In the tragedy, Antigone, there is a heavy debate over whether Antigone or Creon is the tragic character. Creon can be classified as the tragic character of the play because he has been affected the most due to his decision of sentencing Antigone to death. For instance, a fight emerges between the king and his son, Haimon, as a result of his harsh punishment. Also, he lets his pride get in the way which triggers the suicide of Haimon and his wife, Eurydice. By the end of the tragedy, Creon is forced to live through the painful death of his family, thus being the tragic character because he suffered the most.
The opening line of the story starts with “You better not never tell nobody but God” which Celie’s stepfather tells her after he rapes and abuses her at the age of 14.She was a downtrodden,objectified young girl who was robbed of her freedom. Notwithstanding throughout the novel we witness her character growing and changing as a result of finding uplift and comfort from making pants. This activity with the help of Shug and her sister Sophia influences here life drastically. For Celie pants symbolises independence.
By educating herself she was able to form her own opinion and no longer be ignorant to the problem of how women are judge by their appearance in Western cultures. By posing the rhetorical question “what is more liberating” (Ridley 448), she is able to get her readers to see what she has discovered. Cisneros also learned that despite the fact that she did not take the path that her father desired, he was still proud of all of her accomplishments. After reading her work for the first time her father asked “where can I get more copies” (Cisneros 369), showing her that he wanted to show others and brag about his only daughters accomplishments. Tan shifts tones throughout the paper but ends with a straightforward tone saying “there are still plenty of other books on the shelf. Choose what you like” (Tan 4), she explains that as a reader an individual has the right to form their own opinion of her writing but if they do not like it they do not have to read it because she writes for her own pleasure and no one else’s. All of the women took separate approaches to dealing with their issues but all of these resolutions allowed them to see the positive side of the
When Shug enters Celie’s life it becomes a pivotal moment in the movie Color Purple. Shug enters Celie life at a time when all Celie is, is a shell of who she should be. Celie is looking for some way meaning to life. Some way to escape the life she lives in. Shug becomes her escape. Unknown to Celie, they are similar. They are both facing struggles and challenges. Celie found a reason to fight. She realized that world held wonderful things...
Celie went through an amazing transformation throughout the course of the story and nobody played a larger part in this transformation than Shug. She helped Celie to realize her full potential as a person, and she aided her in overcoming her greatest fears and obstacles in life. Without Shug, Celie may have never seen Nettie again and would have been miserable for the entirety of her life. Celie learned that she was able to stand up for herself even against a man. Shug taught her that it was okay to love someone even if it was not considered to be “normal”.
Events leading to Celie taking control of her life began with Celie’s relationship with Shug Avery. Shug Avery embodied confidence and what it looked like for a person, particularly a woman to use their voice and defend themselves. Celie desired to inherit traits like Shug and realized how great it would be if she took control of her own life and writes, “My life stop when I left home, I think. But then I think again. It stop with Mr. ______ maybe, but start
In The Color Purple by Alice Walker, numerous symbols influence and drive the plot of the novel. One of the most important symbols that Walker incorporates into the plot is the letters written by Celie to either God or Nettie, signifying the power of voice. The epistolary format of the novel itself enables readers to understand Celie, whose letters are initially addressed to God. After being raped by her stepfather at the age of fourteen, he tells her to “never tell anybody but God” (Walker 1); thus, Celie’s original letters are presented more as confessions and prayers. This first letter itself “initiates the story of Celie's unrelenting victimization” (Bloom, and Williams 77-88), and the audience notices that the way in which Celie narrates the events occurring in her life over the course of the next several letters lacks sentiment and opinion....
The relationship between Shug and Celie cuts very deep. Both of them help each other become what they really need to be. Both Celie and Shug were very oppressed people. Celie was oppressed by her lack of caring, and by her lack of self esteem. Shug is caught in other people's image of her. She is not free to become what she really wants to be, which is a loving member of a loving family, which she never really had. This is shown by the quote on page 125-6. "(Mama) never love to do nothing had to do with touching nobody, she say. I try to kiss her, she turn her mouth away. Say, Cut that out, Lillie." Celie freed Shug from the role that everybody wanted her to fit into, and Shug freed Celie from the psychological bonds that were keeping her from making of her life what she wanted it to be, by being a mixture of friend, idol, lover, and teacher.
Throughout The Color Purple, Alice Walker conveys the importance and the power of female friendship in all forms. It shapes and forms the strong bond of female companionship as means of refuge from oppression, male dominance and a world full of violence perpetrated against women which the female protagonists wish to break free from. Walker constantly reminds the reader of the gruelling pursuit of identity that all are in search for, both in Africa and America. For females to gain equal recognition as individuals who deserve fair and just treatment in a patriarchal society where, as Albert states “Men suppose to wear the pants” in society. In conclusion, not only leading Celies personal growth as an independent woman but also to the extraordinary establishment of a female solidarity network within the novel.
For the majority of the novel, Celie was never told she was or could be beautiful by men, she was told how much of nothing she was to them. Beauty was something Celie learned was for women who enjoyed having sex, something for women who had confidence, which was something she could never feel for herself. She was constantly mis treated and told what to do by men like her father and Albert. The book opens with her being raped by her father. He tells her to tell nobody but God, and she begins to be scared of saying “no” to men, she feels she needs to take the abuse, Celie would “be wood” because wood does not feel pain. Her father dominates and makes Celie feel like she was bad, like she did something to deserve this. She felt she was worth little because she should allow her father to do thing like this to her. She felt controlled, dominated and therefore subordinate to men. Her self worth had gone from little down to nothing, and she was told by her father how ugly she was.
The novel follows the protagonist, Celie, as she experiences such hardships as racism and abuse, all the while attempting to discover her own sense of self-worth. Celie expresses herself through a series of private letters that are initially addressed to God, then later to her sister Nettie. As Celie develops from an adolescent into an adult, her letters possess m... ... middle of paper ... ... bservations of her situation and form an analysis of her own feelings.
If we analyse the story instead of the narrative perspective can we see that the main reason of Celie's insecurity is caused by the way she is treated by men. She is sexually abus...