The Color Purple Gender Roles

The Color Purple by Alice walker is a book about a woman named Celie who lives in the southern part of the united states. She had a difficult life because she was consistently oppressed by the men in her life but eventually stood up for herself and her situation greatly improved. One passage on pages 199 - 201 addresses a common topic in this book being patriarchy. In this passage the author shows how oppressed women in this society were and how they overcame it.

Since the beginning of time women were never treated as equals to men. Men have always been seen as stronger and the providers for their families. Women are often viewed as the nurturers and caregivers for their family. Women’s role in society has always been to make sure that everyone is happy and healthy while, men go out and work to make sure that women have the necessities they need to keep everyone happy.

Within The Color Purple by Alice Walker, women are treated as inferior to men therefore they must obey them. Through the strength and wisdoms Celie gains from other women, she learns to overcome her oppression and realize her self worth as a woman. The women she has met throughout her life, and the woman she protected since young, are the people that helped her become a strong independent woman. Sofia and Shug were there for Celie when she needed someone to look up to and depend on. Nettie was able to push Celie to become a more educated, independent person. The main source of conflict in this book is Celie’s struggle with becoming an independent woman who needs not to rely on a man. Throughout the book we see her grow as a person and

The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a very controversial novel, which many people found to be very offensive. It is basically the struggle for one woman’s independence. The main character in The Color Purple is Celie a coloured woman with little or no education at all. She is one who has been used and abused by all the men in her life, and because of these men, she has very little courage or ambition in her life. She has so little courage, that all she wants to do is just survive. Through the various women she meets throughout here life like: Shug, her sister, and Harpo’s wife, she learns how to enjoy herself, gain courage and happiness. She finally learns enough and with the final straw she could no longer bare, she leaves her husband

The world may seem like a sophisticated place, but there are still many areas to improve on, like giving women the right to equality. However, in 1960, the first ever female president, Sirivamo is elected in Sri Lanka. After living a life of domestic abuse in a culture where women are looked down upon, she takes the risk to prove that women are capable of reaching a higher and dominant role in society. Even though many years have passed since then, the culture of male dominancy still exist today. In countries like Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, women can not drive or step out of the house without a man by their side. In the novel The Color Purple, Celie is living in a male dominant society that is very oppressive to women. As a result, she is both emotionally and physically broken, but in the end she gains enough confidence to realize her own inner beauty and strength. In the novel The Color Purple Alice Walker proves that women are fully capable of overcoming oppression in order to achieve gender equality. Therefore, women around the world need to stand up for themselves and persevere to eventually overcome male dominancy. Throughout the story, Celie learns to assert female empowerment by adapting to the real world which has the good and the bad, learning from some who grow up in gender respected families and finally, and taking life changing advice from the people she trusts.

Being a black female in the south during the early 1900’s, at a time when white and blacks were socially segregated and women were absolutely inferior to men, was one of the many challenges Celie would be faced with in her lifetime. Born in 1895, Celie was raised on a farm in a small town in Georgia where formal education took a back seat to physical labor and household maintenance, and the Church was the main focal point of socialization among local town members.

In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, societies were primarily patriarchal. Men were considered the dominant gender and were given full authority over females. From the time they were born, women belonged to their fathers then eventually their husbands when they were married. Females were not allowed to make their own decisions throughout their entire lives. Women were caged into the life of being a perfect lady and nothing less. During the day, women were left with the responsibility of cleaning, taking care of the house, raising and watching children, cooking, and running day time errands for their husbands. They were also responsible for ignoring any affair their husbands may be having with any of their close friends, neighbors, and secretaries. Women were forced to live the perfect life in the public’s eye. Unfortunately, that was not always possible. As imagined, this type of

  Women were once little more than slaves to their male "betters." Some women might have been respected, but their places were limited to roles as wives and mothers. They might rule a home, but were not believed intelligent enough for any other role. This chauvinistic attitude is well reflected in the novels Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, and Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad.

Like most things in the world, they have their place. A man's place is to get their education and to get a substantial job that would bring in the money for his family. Women were not expected to attend school or to get a job that exceeded from a

Women were viewed inferiorly compared to men. They were expected to do all household chores, bear children, and obey their husband’s wish

Throughout history, women have been viewed differently from men. In the 1880’s and before, women were in charge of making a happy home, her job above all was to make sure her husband was happy. Around, the 1910’s women began fighting for their right to vote and to be viewed as an equal to the janitor that works for them. Still, to this day, women and girls are fighting to be viewed as an equal and respected as men and boys are in our society.

Women, like black slaves, were treated unequally from the male before the nineteenth century. The role of the women played the part of their description, physically and emotionally weak, which during this time period all women did was took care of their household and husband, and followed their orders. Women were classified as the “weaker sex” or below the standards of men in the early part of the century. Soon after the decades unfolded, women gradually surfaced to breathe the air of freedom and self determination, when they were given specific freedoms such as the opportunity for an education, their voting rights, ownership of property, and being employed.

Women have always had a history with oppression and gender role. Traditionally, the female stereotype was to marry young to bear children of the next generation. She was to be completely submissive to her husband; she had to maintain a welcoming home, she had to completely care for their children. Children of which she didn’t even have rights to if her husband died. Domestic duties were her entire world and her sole purpose was to make her husband’s life as

Celie's transformation from Mr. ____'s slave into an independent women is successful thanks to two strong women that become role models for Celie in her everyday life; Shug Avery and Sofia. Sofia is a role model in a more unconscious way for Celie then Shug is. Sofia's whole appearance and behaviour is proud, she lets no one sit on her and Celie is, at first, jealous of Sofia's self-confidence and tries to destroy it by giving her husband Harpo the advice to beat her to make her obedient; "I think about this when Harpo ast me what he ought to do to make her mind. [---] I think bout how every time I jump when Mr. _____ call me, she [Sofia] look surprise. And like she pity me. Beat her. I say"2. When this does not work, Celie realises that Sofia is someone to become more alike, not someone to destroy.

Alice Walker wrote ‘The Color Purple’ in order to capture and highlight the hardship and bitterness African-American women experienced in the early 1900s. She demonstrates the emotional, physical and spiritual revolution of an abused black girl into an independent, strong woman. The novel largely focuses on the role of male domination and its resulting frustrations and black women’s struggle for independence. The protagonist, Celie’s, gain of an independent identity, away from her family, friends, work, and love life, forms the plot of the novel.