Tough Choices For Women In the novel The Color Purple

In the novel The Color Purple women are faced with tough choices, fighting against all mens efforts to suppress them or surrender and get ran all over.The Color Purple is a story about black women in abusive and difficult relationships that attempt to procure their freedom. The novel focuses on the main character Celie’s life. She starts off as a poor, pitiful entity and become a self-assured loved woman.

The color purple is about a poor black girl named Celie in the. The special format of all the letters from Celie to God give us an insight of her life. We are able to follow Celie’s through her years maturity and growth. The book begins by Celie being raped by a man known as Pa and gets pregnant twice by him. Celie’s mother dies soon after and she’s left with a housekeepers role and is forced to marry Mr. , a man with kids. This man is known as Albert and he’s in love with Nettie, Celie’s sister and confidant.Physical and verbal abuse is a constant thing in Celie’s life. Mr. , makes her raise his children from another marriage. He hates her, and verbally and physically abuses her. She is constantly told she is ugly, skinny, and got nothing. When shug fist met celie she said you sure is ugly. Celie is miserable with Mr__. Nettie and Celie both mature through the course of the whole novel, a maturation they keep along side the letters they exchanged with each other. Despite the constant abuse towards celie, she grows in the novel and becomes an independent woman. She is able to growth and love from shug, who teaches celie about love and safety. Shug plays the role of a man-eater but when she is with celie she calm and relaxed and she’s able to be herself around her. In other domains she must play a role. Celie also benefits from her tender relationship with shug.

Shug is used to living a life that had as much love and nurturing in it as Celie’s. She said he mother, mama never love to do nothing had to do with touching anybody, she say. I try to kiss her, she turn her mouth away. Say, cut out, lillie.Nonetheless, the pair forms a nurturing relationship in which they take car of each other. Nw days shug is all about love, and feelings. As shug says i love to hug, period. She say. Don’t need nothing else right now. celie learns how to care about people and at the same time care for her slf all because of shug. She begins this journey of independence and self love through her reationg with shug. At a point her and hugs relationship was physical, but that was alice walker’s way of showing the means of giving and receiving comfort and nurture. The entire occurrence is handled in the novel as a motherly act, similar to a sympathetic mother nursing her child, “Then I feels something real soft and wet on my breast, feel like one of my little lost babies mouth. Way after a while, I act like a little lost baby too”. We can see in this illustration that the women share a caring bond, similar to motherhood. They must act as their own loving parents since they have none. When shug leaves Celie feels lonely and deserted. She isn’t strong enough to be alone so she becomes vexed with shug and leaves her knowing that she depended on their love. By leaving shug breeds the last stages of Celie’s progress, in which she becomes powerful , and is able to take care of herself, and someone that can love again. Celie’s say near the end of the story i love folks. Celie is no longer a frightened child who needs or depends on her sister nettie or shug. She has become a tough and mature woman who can face her own challenges head on.

Part of Celie’s journey of maturing is her relationship with Nettie. Celie lives of the letters from her sister, the ones that Mr. gladly keeps from her. Through the letters we can see Netties maturation which she benefits from association with celie as much as celie does and as also as much as shug and celie did. Through the letters celie discovers there’s a whole new world beyond where she’s been. One which her sister must face struggles and triumphs similar to hers. In one of the letters from nettie, celie discovers the man known as Pa is not her father. “…and I pray with all my heart that you get this letter, if none of the others. Pa is not our Pa”. Nettie is a source of comfort and truth that celie experience in her sour relationship with Mr.

The color purple signifies how a small amount of love, small amount of touching, and a tiny act of caring can offer relief against abusive, and non-nurturing environment like the one cedlie faces. By being able to continue, celie is able to conquer her limitations and her disadvantages of her environment and mature into someone whos loving and independent. She is no longer a victim of abuse. There are many examples of abuse throughout the novel. Sophia is beat harpo but she fights back. Other women weren’t even able to fight back. Women till this day are treated as objects in this novel by white society and black men. Shug Avery is all about control, power, and independence. In the novel Women do all the work. Even the way Mr. fancies Nettie shows the power that women have over men in the novel. Even so, men visit untold abuses against women in the novel, black men whom someone would think would grasp their women deserve a break. This just shows that when people are abused, they often turn to abusing others. This is what we see in the novel and it is only the love, nurture of women that generate some kind of socialization, binding, and an azure of love and safety. Without them there wouldn’t be such environment, but rather one existing on abuse, hatred, and sexual abuse. Walker wrote this book to show that no matter how much abuse one endures, one can find a way to escape relearn how to love and feel. The color purple is women that at one point came from physical violence of some sort, but when it comes to women’s hearts they remain bright and full of love.