Crime in the Color Purple

Crime in the Color Purple

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, is a richly layered epistolary novel with many themes, primary among them the devastating impact of abuse against others based on race and gender. The novel depicts the oppression of women by men, of children by adults, of blacks by whites, and even of blacks by blacks, both in America and in Africa. And yet it also depicts the human ability to rise from the ashes of abuse and violence to find love and faith. It is told in the first person, as letters to God, and reads much like a diary. Through this powerful, first-person voice of one black girl, the novelist brings alive the horrors of racism and sexism.

When the book begins, the narrator, Celie, describes her family. She is a fourteen-year-old black girl living in rural Georgia in the 1930's, and is writing letters to God, as her only outlet and way of expressing herself. She has nobody to talk to and trust. Her father beats her mother and has beaten and raped Celie because her mother is ill and can no longer satisfy his sexual needs. Her father already took her first child into the woods and killed it. When Celie gives birth to a second newborn he takes the child and she is afraid he has killed it, too. But in truth, he has sold the baby. Celie's mother dies, and her father marries another woman, but he continues to rape Celie. These crimes against Celie by her father are multiple crimes, all by one who has power over one who is powerless. The first crime is that of an adult abusing a child, both physical and sexual abuse. The second is the crime of a man beating a woman. The third is the crime of a man raping a woman. The fourth is the crime of kidnapping someone else's baby. The fifth is the crime of infanticide, or killing that baby. And in the sixth crime, her father sells Celie's baby, as if a human life were chattel or market goods.

All these crimes have rendered Celie a mere cipher of a girl, one who tries to survive by being invisible and silent. They have taken away her self and therefore her self-expression. That is one great, underlying theme of this novel: crimes against another human steal one's ability to express oneself, one's voice. A person becomes silent and invisible like Celie. They can only heal by telling their story, gaining a fully embodied voice, expressing their views. That's one reason this book takes the form of letters to God -- self-expression. And, out of the dark of these crimes will come eventual redemption and healing.

The novel also looks at other kinds of crimes in different contexts. Mr. ____, a man who wants to marry Nettie, Celie's sister, is given Celie instead. He accepts the offer but the marriage is difficult and Celie takes no pleasure in sex. Mr. ____, whose first name is Albert, beats Celie on their wedding day. His children also taunt and beat her. Mr____'s first wife was shot and killed by her boyfriend in front of her own children. One of the children, Harpo, is haunted by that violence in his own life. He asks Mr. ____ why he beats Celie and Mr. ____ explains that beating a wife is a man's duty. Harpo, who is not a stereotypical man, but someone who marries a strong woman (Sofia), enjoys cooking and housework, and kisses his children, becomes convinced by Mr. ____ and even by Celie that he should beat his wife. Even Celie seems to have internalized this culturally accepted violence. She participates in and encourages the abuse of another black woman. However, she soon realizes that she has given Harpo that advice because she is jealous that Sofia is capable of fighting back against abuse, when she herself is not. Sofia responds that her close bond with her five strong sisters has helped her. Throughout the novel, the theme of women bonding to fight oppression emerges and re-emerges.

Sofia is a strong and independent woman who refuses to be oppressed. When Harpo tries to beat his wife he ends up hurt himself. Later, the mayor's wife notices how clean Sofia's children are and asks Sofia to be her maid. Sofia responds with, "Hell, no." The mayor slaps Sofia, and Sofia knocks him down. Because Sofia refuses to submit to oppression of any kind, she is punished. She is sentenced to twelve years in jail and the sentence is commuted to twelve years of labor as the mayor's maid. Sofia committed no actual crime, in fact, she was fighting crime. However, her punishment makes it clear that if one fights against and resists the institutionalized violence of social oppression, there can sometimes be great cost. Sofia is forced to be the maid she refused to be.

Another crime of Mr. ____'s is to hide the letters from Celie's sister, Nettie, so that Celie belives Nettie is dead. In truth, Nettie is living in Africa, and encountering imperial, cultural and racial oppression on a grand scale. When Celie finally reads Nettie's letters, she discovers that Mr. ____ tried to rape Nettie, and she fought back. He cursed her and hid her letters from Celie.In Africa, Nettie has been doing missionary work. There, she sees violence on a braoder scale. Road builders working for an English rubber company come through the middle of the village with orders to shoot any Africa who opposes them. They destroy homes and crops and force the Africans to pay rent on their own land.