A Struggling Society
In today’s society, much hasn’t changed. With all this new technology, you’d expect us to develop ourselves too. However, we will always have certain aspects that we’ll never be able to get rid off. By examining Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple, one can see that arrogance, selfishness, and racism are human traits which will condemn our society. These traits illustrate a destructive element in mankind in the society of the story.
Being arrogant is one of the few traits a human may possess, that will eventually result in society to fall apart. To be arrogant is to be unpleasantly proud and behaving as if you are more important than, or know more than other people. In Alice Walker’s The Color Purple portrays a character
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A racist is someone who believes that other races are not as good as their own and therefore treats them unfairly. Sofia, a black woman who isn’t afraid of society’s rules or expectations, claims that she will fight to the death for her rights as a person if she needs to. In this case, she sasses the mayor’s wife, gaining consequences. This can be illustrated when Celie states, “All your children look so clean, she say, would you like to work for me, be my maid? Sofia say, Hell no … Mayor look at Sofia, push his wife out the way, stick out his chest. Girl what you say to Miss Millie? Sofia say, Hell no. He slap her. (Walker 85). After this, Sofia is nearly being beaten to death and then dragged off to jail. As a black woman, white people, like the mayor, and his wife, assume that it’s a great honor to be a white lady’s housemaid. It is soul-crushing for Sofia to be defenseless and demoralized in public for refusing to place herself in a degrading position. As a result, the white mayor and police beat her in order to reassert their racial dominance. One can see by examining the actions of the mayor, that racism will be a result of the condemnation of society.
In conclusion, one can see by examining the traits in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, arrogance, selfishness and racism, that this will condemn our society. There are many reasons why societies
Have you ever been arrogant towards someone or something? The character Henry Fleming from “The Red Badge of Courage” and the narrator in “The Scarlet Ibis” were arrogant. The definition of arrogant is to have an exaggerated sense of one’s own self-worth/importance as well as abilities. In both stories the main character thought of themself as more than needed, they thought that they could get and should get whatever they wanted.
This simple nine word quotation from Matshona Dhliwayo summarizes much of what Jane Elliot has spent her entire career trying to get people to understand. Watching the film, The Essential Blue Eyed, gave me an entirely new perspective on racism and in truth, showed how ignorant I had been. Jane Elliot is able to give study participants and viewers a completely new perspective on the social construction of race. According to the University of Minnesota, race refers to a category of people that share physical characteristics such as facial features and skin color (UMN 1).
The Betrayal of Heritage Alice Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia on February 9th 1944. On her journey to success she worked as a social worker, teacher and thereafter she became a lecturer. She was also part and parcel of the Civil Right Movement in Mississippi during the 1960’s. Apart from being a reputable poet and writer, Walker also won herself a Pulitzer award for fiction on account of her 1982 novel “The Color Purple”. “Everyday use” is a short story found in Walker’s (1973) collection “In love and in Trouble”.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker should be kept in school libraries because it conveys the importance of family, shows examples of overcoming hardship and discusses serious topics such as rape and death. The Color Purple is an inspiring, beautiful, and powerful read for teens. The Color Purple is important for teens to read because its most prominent theme is how family sticks together through thick and thin, and it talks about the value of it as well. Within the first 20 pages of the book, Celie is separated from her sister, Nettie.
In the novel by Alice Walker, “The Color Purple” write about a woman’s right and status during the early 20th Century in Rural Georgia. In the beginning, Celie was living with her stepfather, Pa and later on living with her husband Mr.__ _, Albert. With the topics of rape, incest, abuse, and forced labor, the main character Celie weak and powerless was only able to tell these stories through letters through God. In the novel, Pa states “ You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy”(Walker 1).
Maya Angelou once said, “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.” Prejudice is a dark stain on our society. Just like the spider, it makes everywhere its home. Its specialty is creeping into a person’s mind and teaching them how to insult, criticize, and condemn. During the 1960s, in southern society, discrimination was stronger than ever.
Alice Walker is considered a Revolutionary for many people because of the struggles she fought through as an African American woman, novelist, and activist living in the mid to late 1900’s. Alice Walker shows how women have struggled in America with having similar and equal rights to white men. She also shows how African Americans struggle with the same problems when it comes to achieving similar or equal rights to a white male. In the novel, “The Color Purple”, written by Alice Walker, the main protagonist, Celie, learns to find her own voice and own self worth through a series of obstacles that she had to overcome throughout her journey; similar to the way Alice Walker also had struggles of being an African American woman during the mid to
She leaves the message that the valuable bond between men and women is possible only through the choice of freedom, desire and respect for each other’s individuality. She also believes the dominance of male is not good for any society. The present paper shows this view of the Alice Walker with a focus on the novel ‘The Color Purple.’ Key words: victimization, male
“He say, I tell her one thing, she do another. Never do what I say. Always backtalk”(35). In the book, “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker, we see different people who do things that others wouldn’t do. People who don’t follow the “normal” way or the “traditional” way of doing things.
Introduction The Color Purple is a novel written by an American author Alice Walker and was published in 1982. It won numerous awards in literature and film as it had many musical, film and radio adaptations, particularly the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. It primarily involves the subject of feminism and addresses issues in sexism and racism in the early 20th century in the United States. The story is all about a girl named Celie, a black woman who lives in the Southern part of US.
The Color Purple is written by Alice Walker, and was later made into a film directed by Steven Spielberg. The Color Purple focuses on a woman who is going through struggles in life, such as her father raping her as a child and her oppressed marriage. In the end she learns to deal with life through God and to take everyday as a blessing. Not only does the film and book speak about life struggles but also they share the points of happiness in the book, and love, in the film through the plot structure, the mood, and the journey to womanhood.
Literary Analysis: The Color Purple Every individual learns something new or different every day, whether it is somebody’s favorite color or learning something new about yourself. Many people can either learn from their hardships and past experiences, while others may learn from other people’s past through stories or guidance. Throughout the novel, The Color Purple written by Alice Walker, the main character, Celie, learned how to love herself, that everyone makes mistakes, and face her fears.
For example, Celie becomes socially, economically and spiritually free, she sins love, dignity, and respect. This paper has analyzed how the characters in The Color Purple arouse their self-consciousness, through sisterhood and encouragement, love and help from their partners. The author demonstrates how the characters escape degradation caused by mistreatment by men and finally win dignity. The paper recognizes that Celie utilizes sisterhood to gain liberation, sexual identity independence, and freedom. Works Cited Thyreen, Jeannine. "
but they forgot to thank the black hands whose excessive toil had built the country. In The Color Purple, the touchy as well as realistic magnum opus of Alice Walker various shades of black life have been brought into the forefront. The subordination of a
Monika Pareek Professor Dasgupta Women's Writing 7th April 2016. Exploring the idea of 'womanism' in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker (b. 1944) is a novel of celebration of black women who challenge the unjust authorities and emerge beyond the yoke of forced identities. It is situated in Georgia, America, in 1909 and written entirely in the epistolary form, mainly by Celie, the main protagonist and her sister, Nettie.