The Color Purple Essay, Research Paper
Kym Hough6th Hour
11/2/00
The Color Purple
The major characters in the Book The Color Purple by Alice Walker are: Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Mister _____. Celie is the narrator of most of the diary formed book. She is a black woman living in the first have of the 20th century. Celie was raped by her ?father? when she was 15 and had 2 children which were taken away from her. Her father makes her marry Mister. Mister makes Celie more of a slave then a wife. Celie has to take care of him and his children. He also beats her. Because of Mr. , Celie has basically no self-esteem. The only person Celie has that loves her is her sister Nettie. Nettie is younger then Celie and is also more educated. Nettie ends up as a missionary in Africa helping raise Celie?s children. Shug Avery is Mister?s mistress. She starts out very mean to Celie, but ends up becoming the second person to love and care for Celie. Shug is a singer, who is well known.
The most important lesson of the novel, is how if a person is strong enough, they can get through anything. Celie is pretty down on herself and sometimes wonders why she?s alive. She hangs in there, and eventually ends up happy through the love of her sister and Shug.
During the time of the novel, blacks treat there own race poorly. Celie?s father rapes her and makes her marry someone that doesn?t even love her. Nothing happens to her father for doing this. This is common for the time. Regardless of how horrible Celie is treated, her instin
As the book progresses, Celie finally realizes if you stick up for yourself and do what you want to do, instead of being put down, you can achieve anything. After Celie is poorly treated by her father and Mister. Shug helps Celie realize she is a strong woman. Celie finally gets the courage to tell Mister off and leave him.
With the support of another, a person can bring out something nobody has ever seen. Shug has a huge influence on Celie. As Shug helps Celie build up her confidence, Celie gets so fed up, she leaves mister. Eventually, Celie ends up running her own clothing store. Without Shug, Celie would have never told Mister off, and left him.
Alice Walker writes some very unusual and vulgar things in the novel making it unique. The beginning of the book is telling about how Celie is being raped by her father using some very detailed language. These actions which don?t seem believable, actually could have happened. Many people, including myself do not realize how bad someone that is supposed to have human rights can be treated and degraded.
Even though the author uses graphic language, the book is a classic. It portrays the strength and endurance of love which is very important to everyone. It tells a very touching story of a woman evolving from having no confidence, to caring for herself through the power of love. It proves how strong a person needs to be to overcome the most difficult of times. I believe these two lessons are something that everyone needs to learn throughout their life and will use.