The Color Purple

The novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker is an epistolary novel that depicts a life of a girl/woman named Celie. Celie takes us through her the many hardships of her life in a series of letters to God and to her sister Nettie. It is through these letters that the many hardships of her life that have left her silent, unaware of herself and in a submissive and abusive relationship with her husband come to life. While Celie was uneducated and unaware, Nettie was educated and had a great sense of herself. Yet, their experiences and observations of sexism were similar.  

            In this epistolary novel, the gender dynamics show and favor those views of the men. Men are constantly abusing their female counter parts for power, control and raw meanness. Even fathers abuse daughters as we see here were Celie gets raped by her father; “He (father) never had a kine word to say to me. Just say You gonna do what your mammy wouldn’t…When then hurt, I cry. He start to choke me saying You better shut up and git used to it.” Pg. 1. This culture of the men being overpowering to their female counter parts is still dominant in our society. Women are always being treated unfairly, all the time; sexually, mentally and even through the income they are given. Many women are not equals in man’s mind; instead, they are slaves or maids that are used to let go all of the “power” men think they have over women. In this quote above, the father abuses Celie, making her feel less and less like daughter, but instead as a slave to power abuse.

            Because of this abuse of all the men in her life, Celie has become less and less confident in her self. Because of this way, she feels that men are scary creatures. Because of this feeling towards men, Celie grows to develop feelings toward women. Here, we see how her father tries to break Celie by saying that she winked at a boy in church. “He beat me today cause he say I winked at a boy in church…I didn’t wink. I don’t even look at mens. That’s the truth. I look at women, tho, cause im not scared of them.” Pg. 5. Women offer Celie a real chance for validation and security that men can not offer.* Validation is the key to having a good relationship. Validation is when someone is truly with you at that moment, validating you as they talk. This is how Celie wants to live. However, because of her place in society, being black and a women, she is stuck in hole that she can not get out of.

            Nettie is very strong and sturdy when it comes to the gender inequality in her life. She acts as a protector of Celie from Mr.______ and their father in many of the letter entries of this book. She also has a better understanding of how and where her place is in this world, other than Celie who can not seem to bring herself up to finding self identity. Nettie realizes that women aren’t treated with the same respect men are given in the Village of Olinka. “The Olinka do not believe girls should be educated. When I asked a mother why she thought this, she said: A girl is nothing to herself; only to her husband can she become something. What can she become? I asked. Why, she said, the mother of his children. But I am not the mother of anybody’s children, I said, and I am something. You are not much, she said. The missionary’s drudge.” Pg. 155-156. To the Olinka, the women are to pay respect to their men and to listen to them fully. However, Nettie does not believe this and refuses to given to the oppression of the males in her community.  Both Celie and Nettie have the same experience, where they both see the inequality. But Nettie is educated, which gives her the advantage in the world, where she can see and understand how to fix it.

            Unlike Celie, Nettie has a lesser fear of men. (the fear is still there, do not get me wrong, but it is lesser than Celie’s.) Nettie actually ends marry this fellow missionary from Africa named Samuel. "We love each other dearly, Samuel told them, with his arm around me. We intend to marry."Pg. 238. Nettie is not afraid of men, as we can see here. She even ends up marrying one. Nettie and Celie may the same experiences regarding gender inequality, but they sure do not have the same effect of these experiences. It all boils down to the fact that Nettie is educated and Celie is not.

We can see in this book, The Color Purple, that the main theme is inequality of genders. Celie and Nettie both have the same experiences that effected their lives, but Celie was more effected because it happened to her for a longer time period. Celie is given no chance to rebel against the system because oh her status in life. Nettie is a stronger figure that fights the oppression by becoming educated. They both see the importance of education, but Celie can not act upon it, even though Nettie can. They can both see the inequalities of the gender system, but they both can not act upon it because of their gender. Even though they have major differences, they are still sisters that love each other for they are. They love each and will support each other through anything. 

*this whole paragraph seems like I am saying that being gay is unnatural. That’s not what I mean, I mean that Celie is affected by this and she can have that as a contributing factor as to why she like women better than males. However, she could just be lesbian just because; the same reason someone is “straight.”