Blog # 3 "The Color Purple"

In writing this blog, know that I have finished the book; "The Color Purple." Celie’s final letter shows the extent to which her character has developed through the course of the novel. Celie’s first letters simply related events without really attempting to understand or interpret them. Gradually, Celie began to make astute observations of others and to articulate and analyze her own feelings. In her final letters, Celie not only analyzes her own feelings, but she has the confidence and insight to articulate the feelings and motives of others. The novel ends with an interesting thought, Celie’s comment that though her generation is growing older, the family reunion has made them feel younger than ever before. In this way, at the end of the novel, Celie acts as a voice not only for herself, but also for all the characters her age. This is a huge step forward from where she was, again making choices for herself and doing things for herself.

I would also like to say a word or two about the author, and how some of her signature styles show in this novel. In the section where Celie starts writing to Nettie instead of to God, Walker presents personal religious belief as an important aspect of a strong sense of herself. Celie has always imagined God as a distant figure who likely does not listen to her concerns. She sees God as a white man who behaves like the other men she knows and who does not listen to “poor colored women.” This image of God held by Celie—and, ironically, by Nettie, Corrine, and Samuel in their missionary work—is limiting. In thinking of God as an old, bearded white man who does not listen to her, Celie implicitly accepts white and masculine dominance and makes the assumption that her voice can never be heard. Shug’s concept of God, on the other hand, is much more personalized and empowering. Unlike Celie, it appears that Shug does not ascribe a race or gender to God. Instead, Shug believes that each individual sees God in his or her own way. Celie’s recognition that she has control over her concept of God and does not have to blindly accept the religious viewpoints that are handed to her is an important step in her quest for self-respect.

Throughout The Color Purple, Walker makes it clear that storytelling and communication are crucial to self-understanding. This is the only way that Celie was able to achieve that. She was able to achieve that by writing letters to God, and more successfully to her sister. Through these letters she realized things about herself that made her who she is, she was able to come to terms with them and eventually, value them.

"The Color Purple" Blog #2

For the second part of this novel, it dives into some new themes and ideas, and we also see the characters develop and unravel more. Shug Avery is going to leave soon, but Celie doesn't want her to because when Shug isn't there, Mr. doesn't abuse her. So, Shug stays a little longer, she sing's a song at Harpo's place, and she dedicates a song to Celie which makes her love Shug...in a lover kind of way. Shug and Celie's relationship grows even more intimate. They talk about sex, and Celie says that she is not a virgin, for her step-dad raped her and she is now sleeping with this Mr. guy, but she has never had sex with a man she truly loved or wanted to have sex with, so in Shug's eyes, she is still a virgin.

Then, at Harpo's Juke Joint one night Sofia comes back with her new boyfriend and she sees Harpo's new girlfriend. Harpo's girlfriend, named Squeak, slaps Sofia across the face and calls her a b**** for what she did to Harpo. Not knowing how tough Sofia is, she knocks out two of Squeak's teeth. This boldness gets her into trouble when the mayor's wife asks her to be her maid, Sofia says "Hell no," the mayor slaps Sofia for her sass, and Sofia knocks him down--this offense lands her in jail. Squeak is the niece of the prison warden so she goes and tries to get Sofia to be released. The warden does not release Sofia, but he brutally rapes Squeak. Sofia, rather than be released from prison, is sentenced to work for the mayor's wife. In her new job Miss Millie asked Sofia to teach her to drive. In return during Christmas she took her to see her children, whom she had not seen in 1 year. However, only a few minutes into the visit Miss Millie tried to drive back into town but got stuck in the driveway because she did not know how to operate the car in reverse. Frustrated that she had stripped the car’s gears, Miss Millie refused to allow Sofia’s brother-in-law to drive her into town, saying she could never ride in a car “with a strange colored man.” Miss Millie demanded that Sofia drive her home, even though Sofia had been able to spend only fifteen minutes with her children. Whenever Sofia mentions this incident, Miss Millie calls her “ungrateful.”

Shug now has a husband named Grady, who rubs Celie the wrong way. Shug asks if sex is any better beteween her and Mr. . Celie says no and that she is still a "virgin." Celie tells Shug that she fears Nettie is dead because she hasn't heard from her. A week later Shug recovers letters from Nettie from Africa, that Mr. has been hiding from her. It turns out that Nettie is doing missionary work in Africa. Celie gets so mad that Mr. has been hiding these letters from her this whole time that she gets an overwhelming rage to kill him, but she tries to keep her peace.

The whole new theme in this set of pages is that Celie starts to think for herself, and make actions in her life that are going to please her, not others. The other is love. Celie is very confused about who she loves, and therefore, what she is feeling. She feels nothing but hatred and scorn for Mr. , however, she think she might have strong feelings for Shug, a woman. She likes her looks, she likes it when they lay in bed together, she likes to watch Shug sing, and she all in all just likes to be around Shug. Is this so bad for her to be feeling this way? Are these real feelings of love in the first place? Answer: we don't know yet. We will have to see how the story further develops their relationship before we can know for sure.

The overall theme of my study has to do with banned books from school districts. These pages definitely show why it is banned in some areas. First of all, they swear, slap and rape each other. These are all pieces of sufficient evidence as to why the book should be banned. Though they don't use the f-word, they do use the b-word in a bad enough way to get the book banned. Also, Sofia and the mayor get into a slap fight which leads to the raping of Squeak. Raping in general is horrible, and definitely enough of a reason to get a book banned, but when you add violence in there, that makes matters much worse. So, in my last blog I asked if the situations posed in the last set of pages were enough evidence to get the book banned. Now we know that not only that evidence, but with this building on top of it that it is.