The Color Purple by Alice Walker and Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson are novels that are both considered to be bildungsromans. They both have a strong sense of the character’s growth and journey to find their true selves, even when in a hostile environment. Both novels have an element of betrayal that force the protagonists Celie and Jeanette to face who they truly are, and fight back against a suppressive figure. Then, they must search for their own identity in a world that is shaped, for them, by a patriarchal institutional religion. This religion helps and hinders both characters in some way, and yet the consequences of their own beliefs and actions result in Celie’s comic resolution, and Jeanette’s new beginning, self-acceptance,
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Until letter 73, Celie has trusted all of her letters with God, writing only to him. However, she chooses to write to Nettie in letter 73, because at this point in her life her faith in Nettie is more solid and reliable than God, who she believes has given her little thought. Her lost faith in God is first established in letter 73, when she states that ‘I write to you [Nettie]’, and ask Shug ‘What God do for me?’. The idea that she no longer recognises God as an authority over her is emphasised when she asks ‘who that?’ in reference to God. She is beginning to realise at this point that she owes the men in her life (God included) absolutely nothing. Celie has thought of God in the way that the church has wanted her to think of God- as a male, white, omnipotent being. She says in letter 73 that ‘the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all other mens I know. Trifling, forgetful and lowdown’. However, it is at this point that Shug introduces Celie to a different idea of God. Shug describes a God that is omnibenevolent, even if you have ‘never done nothing for him’. Celie describes her assumed figure of God, a white, male God. Shug dismisses this idea and describes that ‘God is everything’. (Add close analysis here!!!). The end of the letter provides a sense of movement towards action as Celie says ‘Every time I conjure up a rock, I …show more content…
Jeanette eventually uses the Church and her Mother forcing her out in a positive way, to realise that she doesn’t need institutional religion to have God in her life. Though by the end of the novel she is still working out what God means in her life, she has found her own way of living, and it is partly due to the church that she has been able to do this. However, Celie’s escape from institutional religion and realisation of another way of worshipping God allows her to grow a great deal, move away from the men that were having an adverse affect on her life, stop suppressing who she is and move on to find her own comic
Until letter 73, Celie has trusted all of her letters with God, writing only to him. However, she chooses to write to Nettie in letter 73, because at this point in her life her faith in Nettie is more solid and reliable than God, who she believes has given her little thought. Her lost faith in God is first established in letter 73, when she states that ‘I write to you [Nettie]’, and ask Shug ‘What God do for me?’. The idea that she no longer recognises God as an authority over her is emphasised when she asks ‘who that?’ in reference to God. She is beginning to realise at this point that she owes the men in her life (God included) absolutely nothing. Celie has thought of God in the way that the church has wanted her to think of God- as a male, white, omnipotent being. She says in letter 73 that ‘the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all other mens I know. Trifling, forgetful and lowdown’. However, it is at this point that Shug introduces Celie to a different idea of God. Shug describes a God that is omnibenevolent, even if you have ‘never done nothing for him’. Celie describes her assumed figure of God, a white, male God. Shug dismisses this idea and describes that ‘God is everything’. (Add close analysis here!!!). The end of the letter provides a sense of movement towards action as Celie says ‘Every time I conjure up a rock, I …show more content…
Jeanette eventually uses the Church and her Mother forcing her out in a positive way, to realise that she doesn’t need institutional religion to have God in her life. Though by the end of the novel she is still working out what God means in her life, she has found her own way of living, and it is partly due to the church that she has been able to do this. However, Celie’s escape from institutional religion and realisation of another way of worshipping God allows her to grow a great deal, move away from the men that were having an adverse affect on her life, stop suppressing who she is and move on to find her own comic