The Color Purple

The Color Purple

As women in relationships you will find yourself in situations that you wouldn't want to be in but don't have a choice except to work through them. As women you feel as if you need to do the right thing (which a lot of times aren't) and put up with the trials that come your way regardless of the obstacle. Women are honestly, most of the times, powerless or with limited say so whether they realize it or not. In Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" all of the women are women that all in difficult situations that are extremely hard to deal with but ultimately conquer all. Women may not seem worthy in the beginning by allowing themselves to be kept in situations that are abusing but will come out with a strong finish.

The author Alice Malsenior Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonville, Georgia to her parents Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Talluah Grant. Mrs. Walker was the youngest of eight children and as young child, was shot in the eye by her older brother which permanately blinded her in one eye. This incident made her became very insecure and non sociable which caused her to become isolated. While isolated Mrs. Walker did mostly reading and writing which lead her to becoming eligible for a schloarship for disabled students and was excepted to Spellman College. Mrs. Walker went from being an exchange student in Uganda to helping with the civil rights movement then marring a Jewish civil rights lawyer and giving birth to a girl from 1965 to the mid 1970's. Mrs. Walker publised the Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award winning book in 1982, which raised a lot of controversy that have been on different subjects and matters with in the book. The constroversy had been, Revealing a very different political agenda in his attacks on the novel's womanist stance, George Stade also points to a tension between personal and public elements in the text when he criticizes the novel's "narcissism" and its "championing of domesticity over the public world of masculine power plays" (Selzer).

The book begins with the main charcter Celie in the early 1900's, who is writing letters to god talking about her everyday life and how she betrays eveything that is going on around her. Celie started off as a yound lady living with a father that is raping her, a mother who is dying and a little sister whom she adores. Celie is raped by her father which she later finds out that is her step-father, and bares two children that is sold in town but Celie has no where abouts of them. Celie is then married off to a man, that was initally interested in her sister ,but her father wouldn't allow the man to take her younger sister. Celie went off with Mr.__ to become his wife but played the part of basically his live in maid. Celie took care of his children, cooked and cleaned for all of them. But don't forget the part of the sex slave for a man who didn't have any sort of romantic interest in here. Celie was clearly unhappy and alone until her sister Nettie came to live with her for a while. While Nettie lived with her siter and