The Color Purple: Hope and Triumph Through Difficult Times
Written: Nov 05 '03
Product Rating:
Pros: A quick read that is moving and emotional.
Cons: The latter third of the book is more slow moving than the first 2/3rds.
The Bottom Line: The Color Purple is a heart-wrenching tale of a young woman living through difficult times, who miraculously finds a way to triumph in the end.
Introduction
I knew that I was far behind the times when, in 2003, I had still not ever read the book or seen the movie adaptation of The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
My husband and I rented the movie and watched it, transfixed, one autumn weekend night. After the movie was over I was so moved by it that I researched it further on the Internet and found that many people felt that the book was even more gripping.
So I set about to buy and read the book.
About the Author and The Book
Alice Walker is a writer from Eatonton, Georgia. Growing up, she attended Spelman College and as an adult she was a civil rights activist who had the opportunity to attend Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech while she was in Washington, DC in the early 1960's.
While she has written numerous short stories, essays and books, The Color Purple easily stands out as her most famous work, having won a Pulitzer Prize.
The book is relatively short, at under 300 pages in paperback format. Most of the chapters are very short, only one to four pages in length. This makes it very readable. It's tempting to pick up the book to read even if you only have a five minute window in which to read it. Inevitably I found myself stretching five minutes into ten, and then making excuses to spend the next thirty or sixty minutes reading the book!
Characters and Storyline The Color Purple details the life of a young black girl named Celie. The older of two sisters, Celie grows up in a sexually abusive home where she becomes pregnant by her father twice, with first a son and then a daughter, both of whom are taken from her right after birth. As the story begins, Celie's mother has died. She and her younger sister Nettie must contend with living in a cold, unloving and abusive household with only their father.
Soon, Celie's father turns her over to "Mister" for marriage and to help him raise the children he had from his first wife. Mister continues the abuse and cruelty that Celie grew up with in her father's household.
Soon after she goes to live with Mister, he makes an advance on her sister Nettie. After Nettie spurns him, Mister forbids Celie from seeing or communicating with her sister any longer.
The majority of the story depicts Celie's life with Mister, and with Mister's lover Shug Avery. It's not a traditional tale of a married woman whose husband is seeking sexual relations elsewhere; Celie learns to care for Shug and they develop a deep affection and love for each other. Shug is instrumental in helping Celie discover herself and learn to love, both herself and others.
The second half of the book expands the scope of the story to tell us about Nettie and what her life has been like since she and Celie were separated. Nettie lives in a foreign country with a missionary couple, and is helping them raise their children. Nettie's story is intriguing, both as a contrast to Celie's life, and also because of the amazing circumstances surrounding her missionary family.
Other central characters in the novel include Harpo, Mister's son, and Harpo's first wife, a strong, stubborn woman named Sofia.
All of the central characters teach Celie something about herself, and in return, she enlightens them as well with her meek, caring and humble nature.
The chapters are written as Celie's letters to God. In them she details private thoughts and events that she wouldn't necessarily share with other characters in the book. As the book continues, the chapters shift and become Nettie's letters to Celie, and Celie's letters back to Nettie.
Alice Walker writes in a heavy Southern African-American dialect when she writes Celie's letters to God and Nettie. In contrast, Nettie's letters back to Celie are written without the dialect, as Nettie's upbringing and life was so markedly different from Celie's. The character and style of Walker's words make it easy to focus on who is writing in each part of the story.
Impressions
The book seems to span a lifetime of thirty-plus years, and it's a quick, but sometimes painfully harsh read through Celie's life filled with hardship and neglect. Through luck and faith, Celie triumphs and overcomes the stumbling blocks thrown in her way as a girl and a young adult.
This is an excellent book, both in its sheer readability and in the gripping and emotional nature of the story. I can highly recommend it to anyone looking for a story that is timeless and tough at the same time.
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