Hope Blooms From The Color Purple

I first read Alice Walker's The Color Purple when I was in high school. And no, I didn't read it for a class. I read it for fun. I had found it sitting in my mother's room, and remembered her asking me if I wanted to see The Color Purple when it was in the theaters a long, long time ago.

In retrospect, I'm very surprised the my mom would have wanted me to see the movie- judging from the content of the book, it's not something that I would have let my six, seven year old daughter watch. But that's how my mom was. She'd be distant for awhile, and then she'd find something to bring us closer together.

While I turned down the viewing of The Color Purple, I did not turn down the book seven years later when I discovered it. Because I've always been an avid reader, reading above my grade level for as long as I could remember. I devoured books. The Color Color Purple is no exception.

This is a truly inspirational book about a young woman who overcomes her hardships- sexual and physical abuse- and rises above everything that has tried to keep her down. Celie is a young black woman living in a time where being black was considered the worst fate (for white people, that is) and where being a black woman was even worse. Celie has a sister- Nettie- who just loves. Celie is raped by her father, not once, but twice. She gives birth to two children- a boy and a girl- who are taken from her. This is the beginning of her hardships. She never forgets those two children, even naming her little girl.

Celie's father marries her off to a man in her church. He doesn't have a name other than Mr. _____. Mister is a cruel man, who lost his wife. He is raising his children on his own, and wants a woman to help keep them in line, and to do is cooking and cleaning. We don't hear much about his daughters, only that they had hair that was difficult to comb out, although his oldest son features prominent in the story, if only to describe an after effect of abuse- he tries too hard to be like his daddy, pushing and shoving his wife Sofia around, only to find out that Sofia is her own person- with her own share of problems.

Mister is in love with Shug Avery- a jazz singer. Shug is described as being the gorgeous woman, with an attitude out to here. Celie befriends her, or rather, Shug befriends Celie and Shug shows Celie how to really live.

The book takes on the form of letters written to God by Celie. Celie changes who she's writing to later on, and begins writing to Nettie, her lost sister. Because these are the letters of an uneducated woman- one who doesn't have the 'brains' of her sister- or so she thinks- the grammar and language is choppy, and a little difficult to read at times. But it is through Celie's writing that we learn who she is, how terrified she is of Mister, and how she changes from a shy, quiet subserviant girl to a quiet, demanding independent woman that she needs to be to make it in the world.

The connections are what makes this book so beautiful- from Celie marrying a man who loved her sister Nettie and vice versa, to Nettie finding Celie's children in Africa. If it wasn't for Mister, and his love for a night club/jazz singer, she never would have met the woman who set her free- Shug.

I'm writing this review as part of the Reflections of Hope Write Off, as I'm sure that some of you have noticed. I've already mentioned how I came across this book. This book embodies hope. While Celie's mother is barely mentioned in the book, she does have a mother figure- albeit a rather crude one- in Shug Avery. A mother shows love for her children, plants seeds in her children's minds- and watched them grow to make their own decisions. Shug plants the seed of independence in Celie's mind, and cultivates that seed until Celie can take it over for herself.

This review was written for inclusion in the Reflections of Hope Write-Off, hosted by GinaHill and Angelabar. Please take time to visit the other participants reviews which can be found here: http://www.pronetisp.net/~anjuliz/hope.html, a special webpage designed by Angelabar for this write-off. You might want to keep this page in your favorites as there are other Write-Off pages created by Angelabar - for past, present and future Write-Offs.

The participants include: 29th_Candidate, AdaDavis, Angelabar, danni_d, darkmistress, debbie26, Dr_Steph, Ed_Grover, ezreka, fallyn96, fjbpab, flamepillar, fragglemom, ginahill, hawgwyld, jankp, jkkelley, jo.com, khahn86351, kittyokc, mellkinwa, missy32, murasaki, nwinston, phineaskc, roark_8, Sordid-1, Sloucho, SurgRN911, Sumo_Rhino, Westerbear