Redemption in The Color Purple Alice Walker grew up in rural Georgia in the mid 1900s as the daughter of two poor sharecroppers. Throughout her life, she has been forced to face and overcome arduous lessons of life. Once she managed to transfer the struggles of her life into a book, she instantaneously became a world-renowned author and Pulitzer Prize winner. The Color Purple is a riveting novel about the struggle between redemption and revenge according to Dinitia Smith. The novel takes place rural Georgia, starting in the early 1900s over a period of 30 years. Albert, also known as Mr._____, and his son Harpo must prevail over their evil acts towards other people, especially women. Albert and Harpo wrong many people throughout their lives. To be redeemed, they must first learn to love others, then reflect upon their mistakes, and finally become courageous enough to take responsibility for their actions. In The Color Purple, Alice Walker effectively develops Albert and Harpo through redemption using love, reflection, and responsibility. Through the course of the novel, Albert is an appalling husband, father, and person. He treats his wife, Celie as if she is his slave from the beginning of their arranged marriage; he expects her to cook three meals a day, and take care of his many children from his previous marriage. Albert does not begin to realize the pain he is causing, or at least try to make himself change until Celie leaves him. “You a lowdown dog is what’s wrong, I say. It’s time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body is just the welcome mat I need…” (Walker 207). It took words as powerful as these for him to become aware of the fact that he did not love or resp... ... middle of paper ... ...). In The Color Purple, Alice Walker efficiently develops Albert and Harpo through three key aspects of redemption: love, responsibility, and reflection. Albert and Harpo are both practically forced to recognize how they were treating people; Albert with Celie’s speech, and Harpo with the way Sofia beat him up. Next, the two reflect on their errors in life. How they both mistreated their wives, and suppressed them. Then they gain the bravery to apologize to the people they realized that they really do love, and be forgiven (Walker 231). Albert and Harpo learn a valuable lesson throughout the years; one they will surely never forget. Alice Walker proficiently shows the development of two new people, through redemption using love, reflection, and responsibility. Works Cited: Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. 1982. New York: Pocket, 1985.
Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Interpretations: Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publisher, 2000. Print.
Virginia's relationships throughout her life contributed, not only to her literature, but the quality of her life as well. Perhaps the greatest influence in Virginia's life is her mother, Julia Stephen. "Julia Stephen was the most arresting figure which her daughter [Virginia Woolf] tried to resurrect and preserve" (Gordon 4). Woolf, a manic-depressive, found herself constantly searching for approval. "Virginia needed her mother's approval in order to 'measure her own stature" (Bond 38). Battling with a sense of worthlessness, Virginia's mother helped her temporarily rid herself of self-criticism and doubt. This however was short-lived. When Mrs. Stephen rejected Virginia, she felt her mother's disapproval directly related to the quality of her writing. "Virginia Woolf could not bear to reread anything she had written… Mrs. Stephen's rejection of Virginia may have been the paradigm of her failure to meet her own standards" (Bond 39). With the death of her mother Woolf used her novel, To the Lighthouse to "reconstruct and preserve" the memories that still remained. According to Woolf, "the character of Mrs. Ramsey in To the Lighthouse was modeled entirely upon that of her mother" (Bond 27). This helped Virginia in her closure when dealing with the loss and obsession with her mother. Although Virginia clung to the relationship with her mother, she favored her father, Leslie Stephen. Virginia resembled her father uncannily in character traits, in her writing and self-doubts, in her great and malicious sense of humor, in her marriage, in her frugality, in her fear of aging, and in her social consciousness. (Bond 59) They were both extremely outspoken while sparing no one's feelings with their comments. Virginia and Leslie both had strong personalities and rapid mood changes. Woolf portrayed her father, like her mother, through characterization in To the Lighthouse. Mr. Ramsey captures her father as a man of "baffling mutability, a lightening switch from the most lovable of men, to a 'famished wolfhound' and back again" (Gordon 22). This portrayal of Leslie Stephens relates to his uncontrollable rages and mood swings. Leslie Stephen not only controlled Virginia's mental development, but her intellectual development as well.
Ruch & Julkunen (2016) further define empathy is attempting to put ourselves in another person’s place to understand their sentiment. This gives us the ability to perceive the service users views and feelings. According to David Howe (2013) if there is no empathy this can this can make it difficult for the conversation to flow consequently the service users’ needs could be overlooked this would make it difficult to sense the service user’s emotions. However Tsang (2016) disputes that empathy can constrain the ability to understand a person or their sentiment due to language, or ethnic differences. These can be barriers making it difficult to understand the person and the empathy can be
Empathy is imperative to teach kids from a young age in order to help them recognize mental states, such as thoughts and emotions, in themselves and others. Vital lessons, such as walking in another’s shoes or looking at a situation in their perspective, apprehends the significance of the feelings of another. Our point of view must continuously be altered, recognizing the emotions and background of the individual. We must not focus all of our attention on our self-interest. In the excerpt, Empathy, written by Stephen Dunn, we analyze the process of determining the sentiment of someone.
Empathy, is a self-conscious characteristic human beings hold that allows them to understand another individual’s situation and feelings (Segal, Cimino, Gerdes &Wagaman, 2013). In regard to ho...
American psychologist Carl Rogers first introduced the meaning behind empathy and its importance in the health care profession. He defined empathy as “to perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the “as if” condition” (reference). Empathy encompasses the person as a whole, and having the ability to engross one self into the individual 's perspective while maintaining your own emotions in check (reference). Many theorists have attempted to analyze this concept from many different angles such as, Hoffman (1981) argued that the body responded in a natural way and as a largely involuntary vicarious response to affective cues from another person. For example, when viewing facial distress during an encounter the body may respond with similar feedback producing matching emotional occurrence (Decety & Jackson, 2015?). This could be interpreted as a role of autonomic function that is vital to “cognitive functions and emotion regulation” (Decety & Jackson, 2015) thus, not even being aware that empathy is being displayed. While others such as Batson et al (1997) referred to cognitive resources being utilized in role taking
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Harcourt Bruce Jovanovich, Publishers. New York, San Diego, London, 1992
Walker brought most of the horrific and even sickening scenes of the book to life, with the help and influence of society in history. One of the greatest influences to have an effect on Walker's style of writing and especially The Color Purple, were instances from slavery and prejudice. The whites owned and empowered America during the time of slavery. They had no respect for any other race, which they thought of as substandard. As Lean'tin Bracks stated, blacks were considered to be racially inferior, and they were used for the exploitation of the white culture. The whites used the black people as animals, and made them do their every bidding. Blacks and whites were separated form each other and this segregation of the two races barred blacks from legal and economic access, and they were put to punishment by the white culture. Interaction between the two races rarely occurred other than specific affairs or whites intruding on blacks. There were no penalties to pay by whites, therefore intrusions were common, and they took advantage of the African-Americans. The intrusions varied from breaking and entering to rape and murder for no apparent reason (84). Walker used this basis of racism to grip the reader and take them through a story of a women, who survives physical, verbal, and emotional abuse, everyday.
In southern place of Rural Georgia there were racial issues. Walker discuss stereotypes that Celie went through as the daughter of a successful store owner, which ran by a white man Celie did not have no right to. The black characters and community were stereotyped through their lives to have human rights (Walker 88-89). Walker engages the struggle between blacks and whites social class, blacks were poor and the whites were rich. This captures the deep roots of the south discrimination against blacks. African-American women went through misery, and pain of racism to be discriminated by the color of their skin. Another major racist issue Hurston represent in “The Color Purple” is when Sofia tells the mayors wife saying “hell no” about her children working for her, Sofia was beaten for striking back to a white man (Walker 87). Racism and discrimination in the black culture did not have basic rights as the whites instead they suffered from being mistreated to losing moral
Alice Walker is the pride of African Americans, who are considered as the most suppressed community within United States. She was born on 9th February 1944 in Georgia. She started her career as a social worker activist, followed by teaching and writer. She has secured many awards for her unprecedented works. The third novel of Alice Walker “The Color Purple” was published in 1982, which gave the real flight to her publications; as she received massive credits from around the world. Her works basically include short stories, novels and essays that are always evidently centered on the struggles and adversities of black women particularly in United States. Walker uses the writing as her standard to spread her voice and to process experiences of
The Color Purple by Alice Walker is the story of a poor black woman living in the south between World War 1 and World War 2. This was at a time when, although slavery had ended,many women were still virtually in bondage, and had to put up with many conditions that was reminiscent of the days of slavery. The problem was that they had to endure being treated like an inferior being by their own families sometimes, as well as from the white people that lived there. It was a life that was filled with misery for many black women, and they felt helpless to do anything about their situations.
Women have battled for centuries to be equivalent to men. In “The Color Purple," Alice Walker illustrates the theme of women’s heartache, racist acts, and complications of a day to day woman. The Color Purple took place during a demeaning era to not only African American women but African Americans in general were treated inhumane. African American women submitted themselves to controlling men due to the belief of that’s how it should be. During this time, women were used for manual and sexual labor. They were referred as one’s property, hardly spoken of or treated like human-beings. Women faced lack of self-love and identity therefore the definition of love was clouded.
Octavian Augustus is known as the first, and one of the greatest, Roman Emperors ever. Octavian enabled the long, peaceful time of the Pax Romana by changing Rome from a fragile, crumbling republican government to a mighty empire. Octavian’s government was strong enough to withstand weak emperors who mismanaged the Empire as well. His changes proved to be the cornerstone of the greatest empire the world has ever seen.
Empathy is like reading a story; although the events in the story aren't happening to us, we are still connect emotionally to them. If a character in a story we like is hurt, we feel bad for them, but oppositely if a character we hate is hurt, we feel relieved or even glad. Whether we like the protagonist or antagonist we have the natural ability to feel an emotional connection to others like us. Agreeing with the article”Empathy is an actually a choice” by Daryl Cameron, because of this instinct to choose a certain type of person to connect with, empathy is a
Empathy, at the turn of the century, was described as a “unique combination of cognitive effort and bodily feeling, thought to characterize aesthetic feelings,” and had been described as so for many years, much like, sympathy. Empathy, however, broke off from the word sympathy and has since been deemed differently as, “moral activity and a more specific physio-psychological process in how our brain is hardwired,” but empathy and sympathy are still thought to share key features in the 20th century, and society couldn’t be more wrong in using the word empathy so loosely. Sympathy is merely and understanding of one’s emotional state, where empathy is the extreme sense, awareness, and feeling of another’s emotional