Alice Walker's The Color Purple

¶ … Color Purple

This book by Alice Walker is a very intense, poignant and critical look at the life of a poor black woman in the twentieth century. It shows all the hard and difficult situations that a poor black woman faces in the course of her life. The book criticizes the way these women were treated in the early part of the twentieth century and how these women should try to regain the confidence that they have lost. In "The Color Purple" she describes the life of Celie and how she matures into a woman of great confidence and strength with incredible determination to fight back and achieve her desires and be able to live with the people that she loves.

In the beginning we meet Celie in her poor surroundings with many children, a very sick mother and an abusive father. Celie is abused and beaten by her father and is shown to be carrying her second child by him. The novel does not tell everything about any of the characters and is written in a series of letters by Celie to God. She writes to God because she believes that she can only tell him about what she is feeling, as there is no one whom she feels loves her. And she believes that God is the only one who will understand her. She knows that her younger sister loves her but she is too young to understand her pain and suffering.

The general theme of the book is the self-destruction of the black community by oppressing their weak women in the period where they should have united against the overall practice of discrimination of the white population. The characters are all black women who have been oppressed by the males in their family as well as their husbands. The men of the family have to deal with oppression of the whites in the society and when they return to their homes they in turn abuse their women physically, mentally, verbally and spiritually. The men do not consider that their homes are a haven for them from all outside influences and they can relax and let go of the feelings of frustration and inadequacy that they feel but it turns out to be the opposite and they exercise their control by behaving in this way towards the women.

The main character is Celie and in the beginning she is shown as a young, naive and innocent 14-year-old who has experienced a lot and has borne two children from a man she thinks is her father. He abuses her and tells her that she cannot tell anyone about what he does. She feels unloved and worthless. She is then married to a man who is even worse than her father and she feels disgusted with herself. Her life changes when her husband's lover comes for a visit and teaches her to speak for herself and makes her realize that she is worth something. She is encouraged to leave her husband and start her life all over again with the people she cares about.

The author describes the strengths and weaknesses of the characters clearly in a very realistic storyline shown by the setting of the novel in a period of our history where there were such conditions in almost all the communities. It shows that weaknesses can be overcome by a little encouragement from loved ones and the person gains the self-confidence needed to face challenges and overcome hardships and make difficult decisions with determination and strong willpower.

It is seen that her husband was very abusive, even more than her father had been and tried to hurt her as much as he could. He even tried to hurt her spirit by hiding the letters and she is not able to believe that where she says "Mr.____ mean sometimes, but he not that mean"(Walker). This is a conflict in her that she thought that he was not such a bad human being and she never expected that he would do such a thing to her even if he treated her badly.

Celie is shown the path to independence by her husband's lover who shows her that there much more to life and she deserves to be happy. She found the strength to leave her husband after she found out that he had been hiding her sister's letters from her and she was able to confront him where in the past she would never have been able to do so. Also in the end it is seen that she picks up the hobby of sewing and she saw it not only as a creative outlet but also as a business that made her successful and independent. Her friend as well as all the men helped her realize that she was worth more because by their harshness the men showed her that all this negativity was of no use and she had to rise above it if she was to become something in life. This was an important relation where two women are seen to become close friends and overcome obstacles and support each other. This theme is important from the educational point in that it encourages people to have good friendships and in this way become positive influences on each other to achieve goals that seem to be impossible in the beginning.

The educational significance of this novel is that the young girl with very low self-esteem and scarce resources turns out to be an independent and self-sufficient woman as she grows older. This reflects what Alfred Whitehead says in "The Aims of Education" about self-development that it is not what is taught in schools that teach but rather what the society and culture and one's experiences teach that is more useful.