The novel, The Color Purple, is an epistolary novel. In the letterforms, Alice
Walker gives several ideas, such as, friendship, domination, courage &
independence. She impacts readers by looking at the story through the eyes of
Celie and Nettie. The book describes the fateful life of a young lady. It tells
how a 14 year old girl fights through all the steps and finally she is in
command for her own life. Celie is the young lady who has been constantly
physically, sexually, and emotionally abused. Eventually she turns into a
lesbian. In the book, The Color Purple, "dear God, Nettie, dear stars and
trees" are the only people she communicates with. All the letters show that
Celie is a very insecure person, and that reflects to her teenage years. All the
abusing caused her a scar in her heart, which would stay there and wouldn't go
away. Every time she thought about the abusement she felt like she was
experiencing it all over again. In The Color Purple, there are many conflicts,
which arise from the theme. First of all, Celie is against Pa and Mr._____, that
shows the conflict of man Vs man, and unfortunately, Celie doesn't have the
power to fight back physically. Secondly, Celie and herself that show the
conflict of man Vs him/herself. She can't win over herself and that is why she
doesn't have enough courage to stand up and be in command for her own life.
Thirdly, the tradition of men had high social status then women. That shows the
conflict of man Vs society. At the end of the book Celie eventually fight over
the tradition. Men are no longer in charge for her life. In the book, The Color
Purple, Alice Walker used several symbols and personifications to describe
Celie's insecure and painful life. From the view of a reader, the title of the
book, "The Color Purple" represents the pain and the bruises that had
been given to Celie through her pitiful life. Dear God, Nettie, dears stars and
trees show Celie's insecure personality, also Alice Walker personalized the
stars and trees to be involved with Celie's communication. By reading through
the book, readers would understand the discriminations of men and women's social
statuses at that time when the story was taking place, and Celie is just one of
those young ladies who has a fateful life. A young lady in those days, the
hopeless and loneliness Celie had, is much worse then we can feel or imagine
today. Males are portrayed in many different ways in the novel, The Color
Purple. All though men are portrayed, there is some good imagery of men too. The
four main male characters in the novel are Alfonso, Mr.______, Samual, Adam, and
Jack are the good examples. They eventually change the ways of treating women.
In the book, The Color Purple, the unfortunates that Celie had might be still
happening in somewhere around the world in these days. Hopefully, those people
who are in the unfortunate situation would have a chance to read The Color
Purple of Alice Walker's and learn the axiom to rebel to the oppressions and
discriminations.