African American Women – Celie

The novel depicts the difficult life of an African American women named Celie. The book discusses the often unspoken abuse of women and their lack of rights during the time period.This point is made by the constant abuse faced by Celie through man in her life. In adolescents Celie was raped by Pa, and later forced to marry an abusive husband. Her lack of power is further shown by other women in the novel. When she finds out that Sofia fights back against the abuse of her husband, Harpo, she becomes envious.

Her envy of causes her to encourage Harpo to continue trying to beat her. To her surprise Sofia finds out leading her to acknowledge that she did this because she does not possess an ability to fight back to her abuser.Her introduction of Shug also showed the difference between them, Shug a confident women that spoke her mind, contrasted the obedient Celie.

Through her relationship with Shug she learns to be confident and to seek fulfillment . Celie’s relationship with Shug also causes her confusion for she feels sexual attraction and at times becomes jealous of Shug’s relationship to other man.Her understanding of God also changes as she becomes involved with Shug. At the start of the novel Cecil addresses God in the beginning of every letter she writes. Viewing God as a powerful man who is her source of hope. Later she views God as something beyond the fixed gender and human aspects. She views god as all the thing that surround her which allows her to seek happiness. One source of her happiness derived from the color purple. When Celie went to buy a dress for herself she found a purple dress she liked but chose to leave it because she believed her husband would dislike it. Through her change in the concept of God she is able to seek enjoyment from the color. Something she had never previously done. The color as a whole represents the physical abuse she sustained throughout the years, but her development throughout the novel enables her to develop the symbol of pain into a source of happiness.

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