How To Identify Celie's Fight For Freedom

In the novel, “The Color purple” written by Alice Walker, Celie is shown to take control over her life during the events of when, she meets Shug Avery and she drastically changes her life and motives. Secondly, when she finds out that Mr. Albert has been hiding all of Celie’s letters that Nettie had written her. And, finally when Celie finds out that Pa is not really her real dad. “I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.” Robert E. Lee This quote is related to this topic of Celie taking control because of the men in her life, the men believe that woman have no self worth and were only made to do work and give sex to them. And since they follow that moral because of society, they are not controlling themselves

Another important woman in Celie’s life was Harpo’s wife Sofia. Sofia wasn’t as important to Celie as Shug Avery or her sister Nettie, but it was Sofia’s actions that I believe helped inspire Celie. For when Harpo tried to beat Sofia, thanks to Celie’s advice to Harpo to beat his wife, Sofia would always fight back. Not only emotionally but physically as well, for one day when Celie was going to Harpo’s house she saw Harpo and Sofia fighting like twos mens (P. 44). And I think Celie was really shocked when Sofia confronted her on why Celie told Harpo to beat Sofia. I say it cause I’m a fool, I say it cause I’m jealous of you. I say it cause you do what I can’t. What that? She say. Fight I say. … She say all my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers … cousins … uncles. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men. But I never thought I’d have

Celie practically struggled for happiness her whole existence. Her father sold her to a man who had no intent of loving or caring for her. Celies’ husband whom she refers to as Mr. physically and verbally abused her. Mr. felt that the only way to keep a woman in check was to beat her and he did just that throughout the movie. Like any woman would though the abuse Celie lost herself and respect for herself. Living with Mr. was a life full of darkness and hatred. Life with her husband was no better life than life with her stepfather. It took years for Celie to become brave enough to fight back for what she accept as true and gain understanding of how to convey amusement and have little outlook on life. After years of abuse, Celie no longer was afraid of Mr. She no longer cared for her husband or the

Celie was always use to being under a man’s rule and she never fought back. When Celie meets Shug, she starts to see the world in a different light. Shug opened Celie’s eyes to how her life could be if she would just stand up for herself. It took Celie a long time to fight for herself. But Shug made sure Mr. ____ would treat Celie right even if Shug wasn’t there.

However, the pair forms a nurturing relationship in which they take care of one another.  These days Shug is all about love, and touch and feeling.  As Shug says of her love of cuddling, "I love to hug, period, she say.  Don't need nothing else right now" (Walker 152).  Celie learns from Shug how to care about people once more, including caring for herself.  Celie begins this journey to independence and love of self and others through her relationship with Shug.  At one point she and Shug have physical relations, but it is Walker's purpose to show this as a means of providing each other comfort, nurturing, and humanity - not as a display of homosexuality.  The entire episode is treated in the novel as a nurturing act, akin to a mother compassionate mother nursing her needy child, "Then I feels something real soft and wet on my breast, feel like one of my little lost babies mouth.  Way after a while, I act like a little lost baby too" (Walker 118).  We can see in

    Celie is not a typical protagonist. In Alice Walker's The Color Purple, the main character Celie is an ugly, poor girl who is severely lacking in self-confidence. However, Celie transforms throughout the course of the novel and manages to realize herself as a colorful, beautiful, and proud human being. Celie becomes a powerful individual.

“And she just about the color of a eggplant.” (87) Finally, Celie lives her life bitterly and does not notice or appreciate anything around her. Shug tells her, “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” (p. 178) Shug feels that God created beauty in the world to make humans happy. She feels that it is important that people take the time to acknowledge everything around them. From this, Celie realizes that Shug has enlightened her. She admits that she does not appreciate the world she lives in. This changes the way Celie perceives her existence. She begins to have a more positive outlook on life, despite the hardship she experiences. Celie herself can also be compared to the color purple. She has lived her life unnoticed. Once she realizes this, Celie creates an identity for herself and is finally noticed amongst her community. Another important symbol in this novel is pants. Once Celie is liberated from her marriage, she starts a pant-making business. The pants represent independence, which again is a concept that relates to the theme of the novel. Celie can finally provide for herself. In her “previous life”, Celie’s only role in society was to bear children and keep house. The pants also symbolize a change in Celie’s relationship with men. Before, the idea that men and women had anything at all in common was completely daft.

Celie and the women surrounding her struggle for bondage. Celie finds a bond with many females. Walker introduces the hint of Celie's sexual attraction to women in church. Afraid of men because of the cruel treatment by her father, Celie turns more and more towards the company of women, who represent love, warmth, and feelings of solidarity to her. Celie affirms her sexual identity in her relationship with Shug Avery. For now, it is manifested merely as what men cannot offer.

Celie is able to accept her past and establish a clear vision of herself and fulfillment through the acts of love. She meets other women who tell her that she should stand up for herself and fight, but Celie feels that it’s better to survive than to fight and risk not surviving. However, there are certain triggers that lead Celie to stand up. Like a true fighter, Celie proves herself to be willing to stand up for the people she loves. Even as a downtrodden victim of her Pa, Celie sacrifices herself and offers herself to her father so that he keeps his hands off of Nettie. As mentioned in this quote, where Pa is sexually abiding Celie, “First he put his thing up gainst my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my pussy. When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying You better shut up and git used to it. ” (Walker, 4). Celie has the potential by putting her efforts into other people, but not realizing she is able to stand up for herself the same ways he does for Nettie. Relating it back to the novel, “Beloved”, Sethe does the same representation when she is trying to save Beloved even though the idea is bizarre of her killing her own child, but she only does it so that she would not have to suffer the way Sethe did. Celie is introduced with Shug Avery a blues singer, who she was first found “rude”, but as the story moves along, Shug Avery becomes the reason Celie learns to love herself. Because Celie is finally opening herself up by loving someone, Celie becomes more lovable. Through Shug’s love, Celie begins to realize her own self-worth, from the minute when Shug Avery wrote a song for Celie, as said in this quote: “This song I'm bout to sing us call Miss. Celie's song.”(Walker, 73).By the end of the novel, Celie loves more

Her life never showed her any reason why she should be worth what she was actually worth. Celie had never experienced true love even from her mother or her father but only from her dearest sister. As she goes through her usual sufferings of life, she comes across some people who begin to understand her feelings. Shug Avery and other women of love, try to show her the real world and how much the society had blinded her. Celie's realization that "women do need a little fun, once in a while," leads to her denial and refutation of the roles that the society places on gender, race and class. She begins to model her life to her dreams, and no longer to the way the society expects it. She follows her passion and helps others to come out the same way. Alice Walker convinces the readers that life is not about pleasing the society and those in authority, but about pleasing oneself. This principle followed in her book, eventually leads Celie to a sense of self-accomplishment and happiness. Through her understanding that "if yellow is a name, black is the same," Celie finally feels just like every other person- free to satisfy herself, being restrained no more by anybody else. She stood firm, with her God for help, in the paths she believed was right.

The reason why Celie felt for another abusive relationship was because her father treated her this way, and it was what she was use to. Her father shaped her into the women she is today. Celie says, “He beat me today cause he say I winked at a boy in church. I may have got something in my eye but I didn’t wink.

Ever since Celie was young, she has been abused emotionally, physically, and sexually which has caused her to become numb to life and it has caused her to become distant from people. Celie explains to Shug that “every time [she] gets mad or start[s] to feel mad, [she] got sick… Then [she] starts to feel nothing at all” (Walker 42). That means that her continuous mistreatment has caused her to feel nothing emotionally. It also caused her to lose her self-worth and her self-confidence. She even talks about how “Nobody loves [her]” (Walker 112). That means Celie has never felt love and has never loved anyone except her sister. That is, until she meets Shug Avery. Shug taught her how to be strong and independent, but she also taught her how to love and how to enjoy the little things in life. When Celie describes why she loves Shug, she says it’s “ Hard not to love Shug… She know how to love somebody back” (Walker 282). As Celie begins to learn to love others, she starts to be loved by others. As she starts to find herself, her self-confidence improves. She even gets into an argument with her husband! When he attempts to oppress her, she retorts, “I’m pore, I’m black, I may be ugly and can’t cook… But I’m here” (Walker 207). That is a huge improvement for Celie considering she used to be very passive. After all the adversity that Celie had to experience and overcome, she came out a strong, independent, loving

Thrown into young adulthood at the early age of 14, at 21 years old Celie now begins the true process of developing intimacy with an unlikely character for the time. A long lasting friendship and mutual love affair between Celie and Shug has begun, and will later prove to be her saving grace as her confidence, identity, purpose, and will increase. Shug plans to leave

<br>Shug, who was a dominant factor in her personal development, helped Celie's desperate situation. This personal development gave Celie the courage Walker refers to in her preface, to bring alive her dormant spirituality and abandon the prescribed form of church based Christianity. Shug builds Celie's confidence and in turn helps her to break away from her oppressive lifestyle including Mr., her household duties and the repressive church community. She provides her with a home and the money to start her own business making pants. Shug replaces Nettie as Celie's immediate source of strength and hope, although Nettie's presence returns later when Celie discovers the letters. Again this may not have happened without Shug's help, as she was the one who gave Celie access to her sister's letters. <br>

Shug constantly threw diatribes at Celie. Celie endured Shug’s attacks, too stunned by her infatuation with Shug, to care. Mr.____ is Shug’s sycophant which entices jealousy in Celie. Celie starts to think self-deprecating thoughts because she is not as beautiful as Shug or as wanted by Mr.____. Soon after Shug and Celie start to have a sexual relationship. “Us kiss and kiss till us can’t hardly kiss no more” (Walker 113). In the 1930’s African Americans weren’t accepted as equals to whites so a lesbian relationship would be even scarcer at that time. With religion still a substantial factor in Celie’s life she had to bend her morals into accepting her new sexuality. Shug opens up many doors for Celie and instills in her that she too is worthy of being loved. “Well, she say, looking me up and down, let’s make you some pants” (Walker 146). These pants are a symbol of Celie’s psyche transformation as she becomes more independent and stands up for herself against her husband. With Shug, Celie overcomes her fear of men and no longer has a submissive-psychological stance when dealing with situations and that is a gift Celie is deserving