The Color Purple – The Peripeteia

The biggest change in the novel occurred when Celie was struggling with her inner conflicts. For instance she blamed God for all the bad things in her life. When Shug listened to her complains she told her about her thoughts of how God is according to her. Consequently, it opened up Celie’s mind and made her realise that the God she believed in was everywhere and that she does not have to be afraid. Afterwards she suddenly confronted Albert and left with Shug and her new boyfriend Grady and Squeak for Memphis. On the other hand, Sofia had become free from being a maid and moved into Harpo’s place.

This action Celie did was a huge shock for Albert. Never had he thought that Celie would ever do something like that. As a result he became very depressed for a while, but his son Harpo came to his rescue and helped him. Thanks to Harpo’s encouragement, Albert decided to send all the rest of the letters he had hid to Celie. Because he finally understood how selfdestructive evil was. On the other hand, Sofia saw Harpo’s love and care towards his father. Slowly but surely she started to have feelings for him again.

In comparison, Celie’s stepfather might have changed to the better as well. One example of this is that Celie’s mother bequeathed the house he lived in to Celie and Nettie. He could probably have changed it but he had not. In addition, he had the house  renovated. When he died, Celie became the rightfull owner of the house and her stepfather’s new wife and children had to leave. Hopefully, this was the least atone he could do for them. Unfortunatly this is just some teories I thought of, with no evidence in the book.

However, this leads us to Ceclie and her new life. While she lived with Shug, she started to believe that she enjoyed her life, knowing that she had love, friends, money and time. In addition she found a labour she loved. Later on when she inherited the house, she decided to go back. While she tried to make the house beautiful Shug deserted her. Even though she loved Celie, she had met a new young boy she was interested in. When Shug told her she felt rueful. Because most of the happiness she felt was connected with Shug.

Although Shug only wanted to play with the boy’s feelings and have fun, the boy actually encouraged her to contact her children. Eventually she found one of them who were willing to see her. Even though the young man left for an education later, Shug felt all right. Meanwhile Celie tried to continue with her life. She saw that Albert had changed to a better man and for the very first time they gradually start to have decent conversations. During her time waiting for her sister to come back, another turning point happened. Finally, she started to be content with her life, even though she did not know about her sister’s life or death.

In the last three pages of the book, Celie and Nettie were finally reunited. In the end they introduced each other to their new families. I believe the ending was realistic because of the war that kept them away from each other for at least 30 years. I am glad that it was a happy ending.

The word purple showed up three times in the novel; in the begging when Celie saw the woman who carried her daughter in a clothing shop, the second time when Celie was making trousers for her sister, and the third time when Celie had her room painted in purple. After some research I found out that purple signified different things. Other than royalty and wealth, it is also associated with piety, strength, female homosexuality, patience, sadness and trust. In fact all of these things had occurred in the story, which might be why the book is entitled The Color Purple.

The main message of this novel is about how African American were oppressed in the southern United States during the interwar period. Being a woman of colour at that time and place, you were at the bottom of the American society. Alice Walker also challenges the gender roles, racism and sexism in her novel.  Embedded in her message is also that evil does not come out of nowhere, only love that lasts through hard times is true and that faith is when you know that the only thing that remains unchanging is God. Her novel is a mix of the diversity of African, American and European cultures and their perspectives and values.