The Color Purple deals with the blacks, females, and the poor rural population in the South during the beginning of the twentieth century .
The character of Celie is central to the female network; through Celie Walker has aimed to present a process of emancipation of a woman, body and soul, from the domination of men.
The novel is written in the form of letters. In using the epistolary style Walker is able to have her major character Celie express the impact of oppression on her spirit as well as her growing internal strength and final victory. This novel spans two generations of one poor rural black family , interweaving the personal with the flow of history; and the image of quilting is central to its concept and form. But in the Color Purple, the emphases are the oppression black woman experience in there relationships with black men (fathers, brothers, husbands, lovers) and the sisterhood they must share with each other in order to liberate themselves. As an image for these themes two sisters, Celie and Nettie, are the novel's focal characters. Their letters, Celie's to God, Nettie's to Celie and finally Celie's to Nettie, are the novel's form.
When Nettie escapes from her stepfather she comes to live with Celie and Albert. Because she rebukes Albert's amorous attentions, however she is forced to leave, and is not heard from for many years. Celie later discovers that Albert has been intercepting Nettie's letters from Africa where she has gone with a missionary couple, Samuel and Corrine who have adopted Celie's two children. Albert's unsuccessful attempts to expropriate or conceal Nettie's letters suggest again, Walker's intention to subvert male efforts to suppress black woman in life as well as letters. Over and over again , Celie accepts abuse and victimisation. When Harpo asks her what to do to control his wife Sofia, Celie, having internalised the principle of male domination, answers.
When Celie next sees Ha rpo, 'His face is a mess of bruises'. Sofia , then, becomes Celie's first model of resistance to sexual, and later, racial subjugation. Cheeky and rebellious Sofia is described as an 'amazon of a woman'. She scorns rigid Gender definitions and prefers fixing the leaky roof to fixing the evening dinner. Moreover as Harpo quickly learns , Sofia gives as good as she takes. 'All my life I had to fight,' Sofia explains to Celie, ' I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men.' Not only does Sofia resist Harpo's attempts to impose submission, she is also jailed for 'sassing' the mayor's wife and knocking the mayor down when he slaps her for impudence.
Each of these relationships, however, forms the part of a vaster net work of communal relationships in which female bonding is the dominant connecting link. Challenging the hierarchal power relations exercised between men and women (and by implication, whites and blacks) are the relationships among the women based on co-operation and mutuality. Women share the children, the labor, and at times, the men. Ultimately it is the female bonding which restores the women to a sense of completeness and independence. The relationship between Celie and Shug, on the one hand, and between Celie and Nettie, on the other, exemplify the power and potential of this bonding.
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Author:: Mary Anne Winslow
Keywords:: Color, Purple, Race, Gender< /a>
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