The Color Purple - Exposition

The Color Purple, a book written by Alice Walker, is a story about Celie. Throughout the book we get acquainted with this young black girl’s story through a series of letters written to God. Since a very young age she was repeatedly molested and raped by her father, which resulted in her carrying his child, twice. However he got rid of the babies by selling or killing them. The main purpose of Celie’s was to protect her younger sister Nettie from her father but later on her father marries Celie off to a violent man, referred to as Mr.___ and Nettie takes Celies place as the abused daughter home.

This “arranged” marriage was carried out simply because Mr. ___ needed someone to take care of the house, his children and someone to work in the fields. In her new home her husband constantly exposed her to sexual, physical and verbal abuse. However, her life changes when Mr. ___ brings home a deathly ill woman for Celie to nurse her back to health. Shug Avery is a beautiful singer but also the woman Mr.___ loves and Celie grows to secretly admire her during her stay.

Celie is the protagonist of the novel and she is portrayed as a very weak and ugly person who has a very low self-esteem and lack education. Because enduring sexual, physical and verbal abuse she does not see herself as a very worthy person. She came to the conclusion that the only way to survive is to make herself invincible and not to feel anything.

The novel seems to be set in a society where black people are not treated as equals and where a woman’s job is to obey and do as she is told no matter the circumstances. Therefor when this new character, Shug Avery, who is everything that Celie is not: beautiful, sexy and independent, enters her life a new mindset is showed to her; that a woman does not have to live by the rules of a man.

You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill you mammy.

 

   Dear God,

I am fourteen years old. I am I have always been a good girl.

(The Color Purple, p.3)

The first three lines of the novel immediately caught my attention. I like the fact that the first sentences did not reveal much about the novel, but still it gave me the urge of wanting to read more to find out what the novel is going to be about. What exactly caught my attention were the overwritten words, which Celie replaced “I am” with “I have”. What does she mean? That once she was a good girl but is not anymore?

The title of the novel is “The Color Purple”, however the writer has not revealed the meaning of its title yet. But I have no doubt that its meaning will become more obvious and clear further in the novel.