Possessing The Secret Of Joy: An Analysis

According to Harold Bloom, “For Celie, the practice of addressing God simply reaffirms her solitude; she is essentially writing to herself” (Bloom, and Williams 77-88). This submissive practice nonetheless carries over onto her daily life, and ensues until her relationship with Shug Avery strengthens. After Celie begins to experience a spiritual, emotional, and sexual awakening as a result of this bond, her letters reflect her newfound emotional capacity. Bloom enforces this ideal, claiming, “Shug is the route through which Nettie's letters are restored” (Bloom, and Williams 77-88). With the figurative resurrection of her sister through Shug’s support, Celie’s power of voice grows. She begins to think for herself and express her thoughts more vividly, claiming, "My life stop when I left home, I think. But then I think again. It stop with Mr._______ maybe, but start up again with Shug" (Walker 85). The audience, who was Celie’s only recluse for thought, views her becoming more verbal and opinionated in reality as well; for instance, during her final standoff with Mr._______, she exclaims, "You a lowdown dog is what's wrong, I say. It's time to leave you and enter into Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need” (Walker 207). Celie, therefore, has discovered the act of standing up for herself as a person. Nettie’s letters possess a distinct voice as well, and the discovery and instigation of communication between the two sisters liberates the voice which

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

“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.

Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple begins with a young girl experiencing hardships of rape and incest, and continues to narrate the life of this girl as she becomes a woman capable of love and overcoming her long lived need of dependence. The person that catalyzes her transformation is Shug Avery, a provocative singer. Throughout the novel are little splashes of color that give a deeper meaning and further illustrate exactly what effects Shug Avery has on Celie. Shug Avery facilitated Celie’s change from submissive to independent as evidenced by the color symbolism throughout the novel.

As Nettie receives opportunities Celie could never fathom, their relationship comes to a halt. Celie stops receiving letters from her sister and is left to take care of her husband’s obnoxious children from a previous marriage, and is verbally/physically abused on a daily basis by both her husband and his children. Celie’s husband has a torrent affair with Shug Avery, a blues singer with a practical mentality who does not endure any mistreatment from anyone, regardless of their gender. When Shug Avery falls into Celie’s care, Shug Avery teaches Celie a thing or two about self-confidence and the strength she must find within herself to stand up to her husband. Towards the end of the novel, Shug Avery encourages Celie to leave her husband and move with her to Memphis, where she can escape the pain of her past and for once in her life be happy.

Shug helps Celie with self-identification. A bondage that Celie faces is the discovery of Nettie’s letters that Albert has hidden from her. She has regained bondage with her sister whom she thought was no longer alive. She bonded with Shug to find the letters and with the help of Shug she was advised not to kill Albert even though it was tough for Celie to accept this for the love

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

The power of strong female relationships allow love in a world filled with male violence, Alice Walker, in The Color Purple, implies symbolism, dramatic irony, and connotation to show how love between females help a young girl get through tough patches of her life. The entire story is told by a young girl who has faced tremendous horrors throughout her life but despite all the odds she still managed to keep her hope. Celie lives her days writing letters to god since no one else can help her get through this although she has no mother, she does have a sister but is too young to understand what Celie goes through a daily basis. No one has helped her bear this moment only god. God is the only one she’s vented her tragic moments to. Just before Celie slowly matures into a woman with enormous confidence her sister, Nettie, is taken away and she is forced to marry a cruel man who isn’t in love with Celie but is with Nettie. As she still lives her abusive life with her husband new people are introduced in the story. A person in particular is Shug. Shug is Celie's husband's mistress who she is going to have nurse. As Shug grows

Sometimes life brings experiences of abandonment through difficult times. Celie shows an expression of abandonment from God with her intimate friend Shug Avery, who challenges Celie where she thinks God is. “What God do for me?...He gave me a lynched daddy, crazy mama, a lowdown dog of a step pa and a sister I probably won’t see again...The God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgetful and lowdown...Miss Celie, You better hush. God might hear you. Let’im hear me, I say. If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a different place” Celie said in anger (192). It is times like this that society tells the world to push life’s disasters under the rug. When instead it requires the attention of others to become endured. To be human is to go through the struggles of life and face them. Without them, life can become meaningless. Celie experiences this through oppression and her loss of faith in God. Throughout

Characters throughout Alice Walker’s The Color Purple can be evaluated and analyzed using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a five-stage model consisting of fundamental needs and growth needs. His theory states that the basic, lower tiered needs have to be met before the growth, higher tiered needs can be met, to ultimately reach the top tier, self-actualization. In The Color Purple, Walker shows the eventual progress to self-actualization through the protagonist, Celie. Celie’s growth is shown through her letters to both God and her sister Nettie. Celie fulfills her basic physiological needs when she gets married to Mr._ because she is finally able to escape her father’s abuse, beatings, and rape. It takes a while, but Celie gains safety and security when Shug Avery tells her, “I won’t leave… until I know Albert won’t even think about beating you” (Walker 76). The relationship that Celie forms with Shug helps Celie satisfy her belonging and intimacy needs. Their love for each other can be shown when Shug states, “cause she [Nettie] the only one you ever love… sides me” (120). As Celie begins her life in Memphis, she meets the respect/self-respect needs when she opens her own business making and selling pants. Celie feels so pleased and shows her character development when she says, “I got love, I got work, I got money, friends, and time” (218). Celie finally reaches self-actualization by the end of the novel. She has a successful business, is able to be independent in her own house, and realizes that she can bring herself happiness and that through every situation she needs to see the bright side. This is evidently shown when Celie is talking to Mr._ and says, “If she [Shug] come, I be happy. If she don’t I be content” (288). Celie’s evolution to reach self-actualization is clearly displayed in The Color Purple as Celie faces and overcomes hardships and learns to be confident in herself.

The Color Purple is the story of Celie’s life, starting from her adolescent years. At a very young and fragile age, Celie was deprived of her dignity as a woman, through the assault by her stepfather, the treatment she endured from her husband, and the disappearance of the one human she adored, her sister Nettie. As her days passed by with more worry and strife, Celie lost faith in love and resented all signs of a kind and honorable God. Shug Avery arrived in this small town to rekindle with her

As a result of these tragic events, Celie writes to an unknown audience, resembling her unknown identity. In the beginning, the only person she can talk to is God. She writes her first letters to God shortly after her so-called father raped her. Each one of the letters is short, choppy and has a similar rhythm. The patterns found in her letters symbolize her state of mind; she feels depressed and weak. "Celie does not think of her letters as anything else than just that, as written documents saying the things she wishes to tell the recipients she cannot speak to in person”, making God the person she has always wished to communicate with (Boynukara). Her letters in the beginning are also mostly written to God and not signed off, illustrating her lack of identity. Her conception of God is a “Big and old and tall and graybearded and white. He wear white robes and go barefooted” (Walker 195). Celie’s first letter proves that she has a low self-confidence when she writes, "Dear God, I am fourteen years old. I am I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me." (1). According to Janoff Bulman, “cognitive strategy used to make

After many years in Mister's household, Shug, one of Misters ex-lovers comes to stay because she is sick. Eventually, Celie has the opportunity to become closer with this woman whom she loves dearly and finally learns how to fight back and make her voice heard. By choosing to have Celie is the narrator for herself, Walker enables her to express herself in a very strong way. Celie discovers that Mister has been hiding every letter from her sister Nettie, and Celie is extremely upset. Instead of not expressing her emotions, like she would have most likely done in the past she cries asks Shug, "How I'm gon keep from killing

<br>In the preface to ‘the Colour Purple' Walker identifies her religious development as the inspiration for her novel and labels religion and spirituality as the principle themes in the book. There are a number of principle characters who complete this journey however in many instances the religious element of the novel is overshadowed by other prominent themes such as personal development, female relationships and racial issues. These must be taken into consideration when assessing Walker's success in delivering her

Walker introduces the reader to the protagonist, Celie, through a series of letters. In these letters the reader finds Celie amidst her mother’s death. The author chooses to address her letters to God, giving Celie a greater willpower to survive. Celie’s upbringing gave her maternal authority; as seen through the multiple maternal roles she played through the novel. Her mother’s death forces her to step up and fill a, painful role revealing her inner strength and ability to remain optimistic.The full