Violence In The Color Purple By Alice Walker

Picture someone being raped, stolen maybe taken instead from their home, and being beat and told they are nothing every day just because they lack the simple ability to speak up from themselves. This was the life of Celie, an African American woman in The Color Purple. This was not only a problem for a person in a story but this was also the reality of African women everywhere. In her work The Color Purple(italicized), Alice Walker uses violence and finding ones voice to show the reality of poor treatment, complete disregard, and a feeling of being trapped for African American women and like Celie in the early 1900’s. One of the first counts of violence being used is when Celie first moved into her new house with her new husband and stated, …show more content…
Cept he don’t never hardly beat them” (Walker 30). This a direct reference to the physical abuse that Celie faced day to day because she was either not moving fast enough, or things were not the way that this man wanted then can be two sentences as a result she had undergone brutal punishment and beatings. Celie, and many African Americans like her at that time, would keep quiet and never seek help when in situation because it was just a part of life and no one who had any power would care enough to help them. Christine Kerr explains this further in her article “The Color Purple” by saying, “The Color Purple depicts a cruel, violent world where women and children are routinely beaten and exploited”. This article goes on to explain how in the book that in that time period especially that being beaten was just a way a life and it did not matter if you agreed or not people just had to keep it to themselves and deal with the issues on their …show more content…
She was still going through her everyday life, though things were a bit better for her because Mr.___’s former lover Shug Avery was becoming close friends with Celie and once she found out how Mr. ____ was treating Celie while she was gone she confronted him and told him that he would stop beating Celie. Mel Watkins brought this even up in their article "Some Letters Went to God". “It is Shug Avery who forces Albert to stop brutalizing Celie, and it is Shug with whom Celie first consummates a satisfying and reciprocally loving relationship.” This talks of how Celie, at first, needs a strong person to be her voice and fight for her Shug Avery was the one of the first people to reach out to her like this and fight for her. Celie rarely felt like she was loved so it a step in the right direction to start finding her voice was to have someone help her. However as time went on soon she started to learn how to speak up for herself without