This novel is dealing with real life situations that no one would talk about. Alice Walker’s prize winning novel “The Color Purple,” turned into motion picture in 1985. In the beginning, the film caused a wide range of controversy. People who wrote hate letters and organization’s who threatened to boycott the whole production. The Black women’s story was told to millions of people by Hollywood. Another explanation for the movie was how many black people were illiterate, and some did not go to school. The movie influences the audience by showing how what can happen behind closed doors and expresses how that color is the same no matter what the color may be. The film also shows how men over powered women. In a movie-based novel there is always question of becoming a Hollywood movie. Hollywood is notoriously insensitive to the concerns of women and people of color. Years after the release of the movie “The Color Purple,” Alice Walker expressed her opinion on the movie in the book “The same river twice” published in 1996. The book includes a draft of Alice Walker’s original screenplay, and some aspects and thoughts on the making and the reception of the film, which became the original story of “The Color Purple.”
Walker, A. (1985). CriticSociety. Retrieved from http://www.criticsociety.com/?art=91#1
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
They are implicit concepts around which imaginary works of literature revolve. The dominant themes of The Color Purple are female assertiveness, female narrative voice, female relationships, and violence. Female assertiveness is Walker’s way of delimiting women’s space. She liberates Sofia’s from submissiveness, making her a mouthy free spirit, a challenge to a powerful system. Shug is an adventuresome blue singer with fine taste and without limits on her sexual preferences. Nettie, too asserts herself by escaping her stepfather’s house rather than succumbing to his unwanted advances. Her escape take her all the way to Africa.…
- 95 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
The Color Purple written by Alice Walker was written to show us how thing were during 1910-1940 around the world, especially for women. The author showed us that women living in male dominated ed world and the feelings they had to live with. Walker has done a great job of showing us the past for black women around the world through the main character and the writer of the letters named Celie. The Color Purple discusses prejudice and by analyzing Celie’s use of symbolism—of the God, the pants and the color purple.…
- 668 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The Color Purple is a 1985 drama film directed by Steven Spielberge that centers around the story of a poor southern, Black woman, Cellie Harris who overcomes years of racism, sexism, and physical/verbal abuse from the men in her life like her own father and husband. As she lives her life as a slave to her husband, she meets two strong black women along the way that gives her the comfort and self empowerment to finally stand up for herself and not to give in to her husband's abuse. Cellie's new inner confidence also helps her to reconnect with her long lost sister, Nettie and her two children that she had by her father who had raped her when she was just a pubescent girl. The film is based on the actual novel written by Alice Walker.…
- 894 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Most commonly known for her work, The Color Purple, Alice Walker has been a prominent figure in both the African American and American community. Born on February 9, 1933 in Putnam County, Georgia, Walker, in many of her pieces, covers the telling experience during the Jim Crow Era. As the youngest of eight, family had been a major factor in her life. Her parents, Minnie Tallulah Grant and Willie Lee Walker were very hardworking people who tried their best to provide their children with a sense of pride and responsibility. While her had father worked as a sharecropper, Walker’s mother worked seventeen hour shifts as a maid to help send Alice to college.…
- 407 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
A moving inspirational novel told in letters to portray how life was for African Americans, and especially women is The Color Purple. It is not about purple in no way at all; it is actually a difficult book to tackle, dealing with rape insest, explicit sex, sexism, and violence toward women and a lesbian relationship. Not only does it speak of women, but it tells of how there was a negative depiction of African American men during this time.…
- 819 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
In The Color Purple by Alice Walker the lack of courage and bravery that Celie had to leave several of her abusive relationships is clearly the allegory for America even today. The text emphasizes the conflicts/factors that greatly influenced Celie’s decisions mainly in staying in the abusive relationships she was in for the great amount of time they lasted. Walker uses an abundance of violence throughout the book which mostly revolves around women such as Celie beat to try to get her point across. Walker uses frequently uses ethos by using Celie’s life as a primary example as it shows how she struggled for many years in abusive relationships until she realized that her life could be so much more and deciding to have the courage to finally…
- 1043 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
What is tragedy and triumph in Alice Walker “The Color Purple”? It all starts with aggressive behavior at home. Aggressive behavior is behavior that causes physical or emotional harm to others, or threatens to. It can range from verbal abuse to the destruction of a victim's personal property. People with aggressive behavior tend to be short-tempered, thoughtless, and fidgety. Yet, while the term infers a regular picture of abuse, we must understand that individual cases of aggressive behavior at home continuously vary. The Color Purple is a Pulitzer-winning novel by Alice Walker, relates to how a poor Black lady's long lasting battle with abusive and sexism behavior at home. The novel unravels in a Georgian farmhouse among the mid-1900s, where…
- 1235 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
Oppression is a prevalent and reoccurring theme in black literature. African-American novelists in the early 20th century offered a predominantly white audience an insight into black culture and vocalized the injustice had by their hands. Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye both incorporate controversial female protagonists facing the challenge of mental oppression by both personal and societal belief, and physical abuse at the hands of their aggressors. Whilst each arguably feminist bildungsroman faces criticism for misrepresenting relationships and stereotyping behaviour in black society, it is widely accepted that both authors explore and bring attention to the oppression and abuse of women in a modern context.…
- 643 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
“The Color Purple,” is a novel written by Alice Walker and it follows the lives of the main character Celie and her younger sister Nettie. They both exchange letters throughout the novel about the events transpiring in their lives. In this essay it will become evident that the poverty and poorly developed society in this novel had a negative impact on the main character morally, and physically.…
- 671 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
For centuries women have been considered delicate and have been looked down upon by men. In books and movies women are treated like children and work animals. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and in the movie The Color Purple directed by Steven Spielberg, originally written by Alice Walker, women are not treated like equals but as an inferior being. These stories present stereotypical women that stay at home and are mindless compared to men. Janie Crawford and Celie Harris are women who are dictated by the men in their lives and told what to do by the same men, but deep down they have their own dreams and outcomes for life.…
- 1245 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
The Color Purple was about a fourteen year old black girl, Celie, who had two kids by her father and then was given away to a man who preferred her sister. Women were treated like slaves and didn’t have a say in their own future. Celie and her younger sister Nettie were torn apart and were not allowed to see each other. “Everyday Use” was about an older African-American woman. Her daughter Dee rejected her slave ancestors along with her name, and instead acknowledged her African roots instead. Dee’s name could be traced back through their family all the way to the Civil War, where the ancestor was named by a slave owner.…
- 535 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Alice Malsenior Walker was born February 9, 1944, in Putnam county located in Eatonton Georgia. Struggles of being a black woman in the 1960’s and a childhood accident would eventually help her write her most famous book The Color Purple. She would also go on to attempt to thank her brother for giving her confidence and courage to follow her dreams but he died before she had chance. Alice Walker’s work has made her an acclaimed book and poem writer. Alice’s work in both the civil rights movement in the 60’s and her inspiring books, have a huge impact on her present day career and overall accomplishments.…
- 674 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The Color Purple by Steven Spielberg is a film and the main plot is a black man that beats and abused his wife, Celie. Celie was happy at first to get out of her house because of her abusive father that took her kids away from her but at the same time distraught of leaving her sister. The movie had originated from a book written by Alice Walker. Alice walker was accused of favoring white feminists while at the same time being very bitter to the black males. After the movie premiered, Alice was criticized from the black male population on her writings and was said that she betrayed the black family and community. Alice portrayed the black manhood in a very negative manner and took away the respect of the black male figure.…
- 1962 Words
- 8 Pages
Powerful Essays -
In one sense, the title of the novel is ironic; the title character is neither “great” nor named Gatsby. He is a criminal whose real name is James Gatz, and the life he has created for himself is an illusion. By the same token, the title of the novel refers to the theatrical skill with which Gatsby makes this illusion seem real: the moniker “the Great Gatsby” suggests the sort of vaudeville billing that would have been given to an acrobat, an escape artist, or a magician.…
- 1338 Words
- 4 Pages
Powerful Essays -
The novel, The Color Purple, by Alice Walker explores themes that irradiate the human condition: search for faith, the nature of human suffering, loss of innocence, and the exultation of the human spirit. The book delights the reader to a journey where the characters continually discover truth, love, beauty, and answers to the meaning of life. So if asked the question, ‘Which, out of all the summer reading novels, would you read next?’ my most truthful answer would be that I would reread The Color Purple, once again, in a heart beat. There is simply more knowledge to be gained in Walker’s writing, that cannot be completely retained from a single reading. Therefore, I have chosen to read the novel once again, in order to gain a clearer sight on my spirituality. Within The Color Purple I immediately connected with the characters, Celie and Shug, when they discussed an example of institutionalized racism in some religions, where a white God with a beard is praised. Society also raises us on the overall idea to come together as one in church to worship, and develop a relationship with the Lord. Like Celie, I slowly began to discover I would never be able to find God confided in the walls of a religious sanctuary. This realization is better described by the theologian, Rumi: “I searched for God among the Christians and on the Cross and therein I found Him not. I went into the ancient temples of idolatry; no trace of Him was there. I entered the mountain cave of Hira and then went as far as Qandhar but God I found not. With set purpose I fared to the summit of Mount Caucasus and found there only 'anqa's habitation. Then I directed my search to the Kaaba, the resort of old and young; God was not there even. Turning to philosophy I inquired about him from ibn Sina but found Him not within his range. I fared then to the scene of the Prophet's experience of a great divine manifestation only a "two bow lengths'…
- 609 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays