Alice In The Color Purple

Pain to Resilient The novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker depicts racial tension during the 1930s and uses the colors purple and red to symbolize Celie and Sofia’s hardships as African American women during this time period. Alice Walker married a civil rights attorney, Melvyn Leventhal, in 1967, making them the first interracially married couple in Jackson, Mississippi. Even though slaves were no longer present in that time period, African Americans were still discriminated against, and Walker shows that segregation was legally enforced, and white males were dominant in society. Alice Walker uses these harsh times and transforms them into beautiful symbols, such as purple and red to make Celie and Sofia’s suffering more poetic. Walker became an overnight success with The Color Purple (“Color”). Celie, the main character of the novel The Color Purple, and Sofia, a secondary character, both face harsh times throughout their lives due to racism. The two African American women are beaten and brought down within the novel. When Sofia finally gets to work in Celie’s store, after being criticized when at the stores prior due to blacks not being able to work in stores, it becomes a personal
In the beginning of the novel Celie is raped by her step father. Later on Celie describes her private parts as the color of eggplant. This suggests that the sexual abuse she faced represents the suffering and hard times in her life, linking it to the color purple. Blacks in the novel are said to be a blue-black color. This illustrates their appearance and their prior suffering they faced. Throughout the novel, the color purple has different meaning, Fiske hypothesised that, “The color purple is continually equated with suffering and pain” (Fiske). Just as Celie’s private parts, and the color of blacks in the novel, this is shown due to their experiences