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Celie's Oppression

Decent Essays

Celie’s evolving relationship with God throughout her life mirrored the oppression she dealt with and her steps to overcoming it. In her article “From Monotheism to Pantheism: Liberation from Patriarchy in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple”, Stacie Lynn Hankinson agrees, writing that “Celie’s conversion from a monotheistic view of God to a more pantheistic outlook represents and parallels her movement from feelings of oppression under the domination of patriarchy into a sense of connectedness with others and self-acceptance”(Hankinson 320-321).
The role of Celie’s oppression in her relationship with God was evident from early on in the novel, as Celie, who at fourteen years old had been designated with the responsibility of caring for her younger …show more content…

Hankinson goes so far as to argue that Celie’s letters to God were a direct result of the command “You better not never tell nobody but God," spoken presumably by Pa as a threat to Celie in the novel’s opening sentence (Hankinson 324). Celie’s early letters to God were written out of fear and confusion about what was going on in her life, and because she had no one else to go to for support. However, Celie’s relationship with the biblical God was not one that brought her much support. As a result of the constant and unrelenting oppression from the men in her life, Celie began to associate God with the men who were oppressing her. Hankinson writes: “In the same way that Celie wonders whether her father killed her vanished child, she also begins to associate God the Father with the murderer of her children” (Hankinson 321). Celie’s association between God and Pa became clear as she told her mother that the baby she had had …show more content…

As Celie grew older her faith in the biblical God began to waver, and she soon realized that “The God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgitful and lowdown” (Walker 193). As a result of Celie’s loss of faith, she began writing to Nettie instead of God, a change which signified the beginning of Celie’s freedom from the male domination she had lived under all her life. Hankinson argues that while Celie’s letters to God were “Cast with a fearful hue," her letters to Nettie “Underscor[ed] the newly emerging theme of love, connectedness, and restoration” (Hankinson 324). Celie’s freedom from service to a white male God was fully realized when, during a conversation with Shug, she began to see God not as “A he or a she, but an It” (Walker 196). Shug encouraged Celie to see God in “Everything that is or ever was or ever will be," including Celie herself (Walker 197). Once Celie began to see God in everything, including herself, she finally felt connected to the world around her, and that her existence mattered. As result of Celie’s newfound connection to the world in which she lived, she was

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