The Color Purple Comparison

Beloved and The Color Purple are two powerful books that were written in the 1980s by two very intelligent African American women. Both the books and the authors have gone on to win multiple accolades and each book has had a movie based off its story. However, what makes both of these books special is that it was written on the rare subject of the African American woman. The books cover the real hardships that African American women faced in the late 19th and early 20th century. The books express the themes of life are ever changing for you to grow and family are those who love you.

Both stories are set in post slavery, pre Civil Rights era America, with Beloved set in the North (Ohio) and The Color Purple set in the South (Georgia). This

Paul D and Shug Avery are characters presented by the authors as the embodiment of something better. Even though the two characters have their own struggles, they enter their respective protagonist lives and bring with them a sense of genuine love and appreciation. The reason for their appreciation and love come from their many years of traveling and seeing just as bad or worse. Paul D’s journey starts as a slave, goes through Georgia, and finally where he ends in Ohio. The things he has seen and experience allows him to see the good where Sethe cannot. Sethe sees her life as a never-ending cycle of loneliness, haunting, and depression. When discussing the future with Paul D, Sethe says, “the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay. The ‘better life’ she believed she and Denver were living was simply not that other one.” (Morrison 51). This shows that Sethe looks at life more as a chore than as a gift like Paul D. His outlook on like rubbed off on Sethe, who started to smile more, talk more, and most of all be

In both the will of the protagonist was tested. The climax of Beloved happened when Schoolteacher came to collect Sethe and her children to return as slaves. In her attempt not return to Sweet Home Sethe murdered he baby and injured her two boys. From that moment one Sethe’s life was forever changed. Schoolteacher calls Sethe an animal and she comes to believe it after her milk is taken and she is the reason 3 of her children are gone. The even t has an everlasting impact on Sethe that has her depressed for many years, by the time Paul D come around Sethe is almost dead inside from having to relive those events on her