Themes In The Color Purple By Alice Walker

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The Color Purple, an epistolary novel penned by American author Alice Walker in 1982 explores several controversial themes such as gender roles, racism, sexual identity, and powerful female relationships. It opens a window for the readers to immerse themselves in a journey that emphasizes on the lives of African Americans in the Southern United States, and of destruction of African traditions in the African continent, both perspectives focusing on female’s lives in particular. The main plot revolves around the lives of two sisters, Nettie and Celie from a southern Black family and how their lives in two different continents are contradictory and the influence one sister leaves on the other that will change her life forever.
The protagonist of the novel, Celie, older of the two sisters endures a life of hardship being left in the hands of an abusive stepfather and later an abusive husband. She considers herself as a black, ugly and an uneducated woman. Completely lacking self-esteem she seeks solace in the arms of God, by addressing several letters to him throughout her life. Memories of her rape at a young age and loss of her children leaves her wrecked, unable to pick herself up she completely loses purpose of life and her sole idea of living revolves around mere existence at others mercy. Throughout the letters there is an internal conflict within her, whether to leave fate at the hands of God and be a bystander or to decide her own fate by stepping out into the world.

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