The Color Purple

The Color Purple by Alice Walker  300 Pages

Alice Walker’s classic contemporary novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 and the National Book Award. It has also appeared on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit sexual and violent content.

At the heart of this novel is the protagonist Celie’s motto: "I maybe black, I may be poor, I maybe a woman, and I may even be ugly! But thank God I'm here." 

The story begins in 1930s Georgia when a 14-year-old Celie is beaten and raped by the man she believes to be her father. The reader gets the impression that the beating and the rape are nothing new for Celie, but now that she is maturing, a pregnancy is. She has no idea what is happening to her and when a baby appears, she is shocked. Her father takes the baby away. Celie believes that he kills her little boy Soon, Celie is pregnant again, and once again, her father takes her daughter, again to be slaughtered.

Told in letters to God and her sister, Nettie, Celie’s story brings home in terrifying detail the description of a young black woman’s life in the early- to mid-20^th century. Black women during this time were on the bottom rung of society. Heck, sometimes even animals were higher on the scale than African-American women.

Celie is forced to marry a man who wanted to marry Nettie. As her father did, the man readers only know as “Mister,” treats her the same as her father did.  She is good for nothing but cooking, cleaning, and sex.

When Mister forces himself on Nettie, she has no choice but to leave. Soon she is living as a governess in South Africa. Nettie has promised to write, but decades pass before Celie discovers the letters Mister hid from her.

Walker’s epistolary style and use of Southern English make the novel seem more like a journal. At first, I was pulled in and couldn’t read fast enough. However about two-thirds through, I started to get bored. Once the story’s focus shifted Celie’s plight to Nettie, I lost interest. I’ve never seen the movie, but I felt the same way when I saw the musical. That’s why I give The Color Purple 3 out of 5 stars.