Theme Of Discrimination In The Color Purple

Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, is about the severity of discrimination and its effect on an individual. This illustrates the idea that discrimination and prejudice can ultimately curve someone's view of the world around them. Through motifs in the novel, the point of view of the characters, and the foils seen in the characters, we can see this theme take effect through the main characters in the novel.

Alice walker used the motif of sex to define and represent the relationships between the characters to convey Celie’s distortion on the world around her because of these relationships. In her early years when Celie was just 14, she was raped by her thought to be father and was put through traumatic experiences. When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying “You better shut up and git used to

it” (Walker 1). In the quote it is easily seen that Celie is violently abused and therefore scarred greatly from her experiences. So from the beginning Celie hadn’t ever seen men as kind or caring, but violent and disrespectful, and this thought that she grew up with would stick throughout her life.
In the middle of the novel Celie is introduced to sex more and more. With her new forced husband Albert, she is used for sex almost every night. She talks to Shug about her experiences and how she has never actually had real sex, it’s just always her husband doing his business. When talking to Shug she says,
“Naw,” I say. “Mr._______ can tell you, I don’t like it at all. What is it like? He git up on you, heist your nightgown round your waist, plunge in. Most times I pretend I ain’t there. He never know the difference. Never ast me how I feel, nothing. Just do his business, get off, go to sleep.” (Walker 76)
In this part of the novel it is evident that Celie does not enjoy sex and never has. She doesn’t think of it as anything special unlike most other women, and she doesn’t think of it as odd either. This is a perfect example of how being discriminated upon can ultimately affect your view towards the world as she is abused and taken advantage of by Albert. This is a very big part of her life and it is much different than what other women are used to, so because of this we can make an inference that Celie’s views have changed because of Albert’s discrimination as well.
Towards the middle and end of the novel we see Celie and Shug Avery’s relationship mature and grow immensely. We know that Celie has always thought of her as beautiful, but never did we guess they would end up together for a long period of time. After Grady and Albert leave together one night, Shug and Celie sleep together.
She say, “I love you, Miss Celie.” And then she haul off and kiss me on the mouth. “Um”, she say, like she surprise. I kiss her back, say, “um”, too. Us kiss and kiss till us can’t hardly kiss no more. Then us touch each other. “I don’t know nothing bout it,” I say to Shug. “I don’t know much,” she say. Then I feels something real soft and wet on my breast, feel like one of my little lost babies mouth. Way after while, I act like a little lost baby too. (Walker 113)
Celie has never had a real sexual experience until this point in the novel. Her first real experience was also with a woman and not a man. This contributes to the theme that discrimination and prejudice can ultimately curve someone's view of the world around them because it can be thought that her sexual feelings towards men were almost completely diminished from her abuse. On the other hand, Shug, who is female, was caring towards Celie and didn’t abuse her. That is why we see Celie having a stronger relationship with Shug.
The first person subjective point of view of this novel helps illustrate this idea that discrimination and prejudice can curve someone’s point of view through Celie’s life and her experiences. This specific point of view contributes to the unreliable nature of Celie, the honest and serious tone of the novel, and the importance of the story Celie has to share from the discrimination she had to suffer with.
Celie is very honest throughout the novel especially when it comes to her emotions and life with Shug, but she is unreliable and bias towards the men in her life. Throughout her life, men have victimized, discriminated, and abused Celie. She is uneducated and pulled out of school because her step dad thought it was unnecessary for Celie to be educated, the first time I got big Pa took me out of school. He never care that I love it. Nettie stood there at the gate holding tight to my hand. I was all dress for first day. “You too dumb to keep going to school,” Pa say. “Nettie the clever one in this bunch” (Walker 9). Pulling Celie out of school doesn’t do anything but increase her ignorance towards the world and the men around her. She learns from what she sees and experiences. Albert beats Celie often and treats her more as an object and when Harpo goes to Celie for advice with his own relationship, Celie tells him to beat her and show more force. She says this because this is what she believes is the norm, believing that men beat their wives and are all the same when comparing Albert and her step dad, two important men in her life. This ignorance creates the unreliable nature of Celie towards men.
Celie is in a serious situation throughout the novel when she’s living with her step dad and Albert. Although Walker includes a couple of funny moments in the novel, the general tone is serious. The point of view through Celie contributes to the tone because of the situation she is in and her honesty to God, Shug, and Nettie. Celie’s life isn’t the best due to being discriminated, especially before she met Shug, and there’s not much she can do about it; She is poor, ugly, and black. If she tried to do something, she could be beaten as she was ordered to work all day while Albert sat back and relaxed. I don’t say nothing. Feel like I felt when Nettie left. She come over and put her hand on my shoulder. “He beat me when you not here,” I say. “Who do,” she say, “Albert?” “Mr. _____,” I say. “I can’t believe it,” she say. She sit down on the bench next to me real hard, like she drop (Walker 75). This is the first time Celie told someone about Albert beating her. Before she opened up to Shug, her only way to express her emotions, feelings, and honest stories were in letters to God. She later begins to open up to Shug and Nettie, telling them everything. This contributes to the tone because the reader feels bad for Celie and has a deeper understanding of the situation Celie is in.
Unlike Celie, Nettie completed her education and had the opportunity to travel to different parts of the world. In her letters to Celie, she talks about important topics such as religion, politics, women’s rights, and civil rights with perfect grammar.
The Olinka do not believe girls should be educated. When I asked a mother why she thought thus, she said: “A girl is nothing to herself; only to her husband can she become something. What can she become?” I asked. “Why,” she said, “the mother of his children. But i am not the mother of anybody’s children, I said, and I am something. You are not much…” (Walker 156)
In this quote, she talks about women’s rights in the Olinka Tribe which can be somewhat compared to the rights of women in the United States during this time as well, something seen as important.

Nettie isn’t the only one with an important story to tell though, even though Celie is uneducated, she has an important and powerful story to share as well. Walker chooses Celie as the narrator with this first person subjective point of view to show that it doesn’t matter if you’re black, uneducated, poor, etc., everyone has an important story to share. Her experience with women’s rights and discrimination influence this powerful story.

The foils in The Color Purple represent the two different lifestyles women held, which illustrated how discrimination can change someone's view on the world. Walker highlighted how different Celie was due to her experiences by having some of the minor characters be a foil to her. Both Shug and Sofia are foils to Celie throughout the novel because they are complete opposites to Celie. Celie had a difficult upbringing filled with discrimination and prejudice and therefore acts and sees the world around her differently than Shug and

Celie.
The first main foil in the novel to Celie is Shug. Shug has many characteristics that Celie never had. Shug is outgoing, sexual, and powerful. In addition, she always seems to attract the men around her.
Shug Avery was a woman. The most beautiful women I ever saw. She more pretty then my mama. She bout ten thousand times more prettier then me. I see her there in furs. Her face rouge. Her hair like somethin tail. She grinning with her foot up on somebody motoca.r (Walker 20)
This quote shows the reader how pretty and outgoing Shug really is. By Celie saying that Shug is grinning with her foot up on somebody’s motocar illustrates to the reader that Shug is very confident. She is dressed very feminine, in furs and with her hair all done, yet in front of everyone she has her feet up and is smiling. In addition, “She be dress to kill, whirling and laughing (Walker 20)” also demonstrates Shugs confidence and outgoing spirit. In contrast, Celie is the exact opposite from Shug. Celie is quiet and does not embrace her femininity like Shug does. “I trail long behind them on the street. I don’t have nothing to offer and I feels poor (Walker 29).” This quote shows the reader the way the Celie feels about herself. She does not have the self confidence like Shug does. She views herself and thinks everyone else sees her as a poor, ugly, black girl, not as a beautiful, strong woman. Growing up Celie was always told what to do and told that she wasn’t good enough to be important. Do to her harsher childhood she views herself and the world differently other people and Walker chose to highlight this by having Shug be her outgoing and confident foil.
The other foil Walker chose to highlight in this novel is Celie and Sofia. Sofia is a main foil to Celie because Sofia is a fighter. “She say, All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles.. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men. But I ain’t never thought I’d have to fight in my own house! (Walker 52)” This quote demonstrates how big of a fighter Sofia is. She grew up standing up for herself and fighting for her safety. She even fights now in her own household and stands up to her husband, Harpo. On the other hand, Celie does not fight or stand up for herself at all. “Well, sometime Mr.____ git on me pretty hard. I have to talk to Old Maker. But he my husband. I shrug my shoulders. This life soon be over, I say. Heaven last all ways (Walker 39-40).” This expresses Celie’s detachment that she has with her life. She does not fight for herself, instead she just takes whatever harshness and punishments Mr. ____ gives her and counts down the days until she’s dead. This drastic contrast between how Sofia fights for her life and how Celie is just waiting for her life to end illustrates that different upbringings and people view the world differently based on their past experiences.
In the end we can see the effect of discrimination and prejudice and how it can ultimately curve someone's view of the world around them. This affects the novel as a whole through Walker’s use of literary elements.