A Rich Color, the Color Purple

A Rich Color, The Color Purple 11/23/2005

The Color Purple is a classic literature novel about a young girl named Celie, her painful childhood and her joyful life after Shug Avery brings a little luck to her. When Celie was fourteen Alphonso the man she believed to be her father raped her, her mother died and she got pregnant twice. Both times, Alphonso took the children to Monticello and sold them to a rich man, Samuel and his wife Corrine. Celie's sister Nettie ran away from home after Celie was married to Mr._____, soon he threw her out and she went to live with Samuel and Corrine. Nettie soon found that their children Olivia and Adam were Celie's children and wrote her to tell her. Later the children, Nettie, Samuel and his wife left to Africa to be missionaries and Corrine died. This is when Samuel and Nettie got married. Shug and Celie left Mr._____ to go to Tennessee and live in Shug's big pink house. Alphonso died and left his house to Celie and Nettie, and the girls found out Alphonso was their step dad and their real father was lynched before they were born. In the end, Nettie, Samuel and the children were reunited with Celie and Shug.

Alice Walker uses first person point of view to create an extreme emotional impact for the audience. Celie's perspective of the events in the novel helps to create empathy from the readers and helps them identify with some of the trials in the story. When reading The Color Purple, the journals create a personal feeling drawing you in to the story and making you feel as if you were actually there.

Personally I thought The Color Purple was a accurate account of the isolation between blacks and whites and tragedy of a woman's life. Alice Walker balances joy and pain perfectly so that her novel is neither a Tragedy or a Romance. My personal favorite section of the story was Shug's thoughts of the color purple. She tells Celie "it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it."(203) I appreciate her belief that God doesn't want to be worshiped he wants the things he makes to be worshiped. I think it makes her sound more realistic that she has her own personal beliefs on religion. I would agree that The Color Purple is an outstanding, deeply American novel.