The life of the black country girl Celie, the main character of the novel The Color Purple, is invisible against the background of world history. Celie writes letters to God, but her creator talks to the world, declaring a new cultural presence. African-American women appeared in the role of mothers and nannies in American literature but almost no one was interested in them; nobody paid attention to them, they were invisible. A. Walker’s text aims to make people see the invisible and allow the tacit to speak.
This book is sometimes quite hard to read, and so it was conceived: the theme is the joyless life of Celie, a poor black peasant woman who lives at the beginning of the 20th century in one of the southern American states. She talks about her life as best she can, in letters to “dear God” because she has no one else to talk to. Throughout the long years of her experience, the only joy in Celie’s life is these letters. Clumsy, with numerous mistakes and funny vernacular, almost impassive, and extremely sincere.
Celie does not have many belongings; in fact, she is not even connected to the time in which she lives. Celie froze in her time like an insect in resin. Her whole life is work and beatings. She has no time to raise her head to notice the changing seasons. She does not have a news source like a radio. A name from the big world, for the first time helping to clarify the era – Duke Ellington – gets into the book only in the middle (Walker 114). Celie knows so little about the outside world that she has no idea where England or Africa are.
The main character has almost nothing to be happy about. However, she is also disaccustomed to upset: it seems that the last time she cried and complained of pain and resentment – to dear God, not her mother – was when she was still a girl raped by her father. She cried for a minute and got used to it, as with everything else. Celie does not measure time even by changes in her appearance; she forgot to be interested in looks. For a long time, readers do not know what she is: tall or small, slim or curvy; maybe she does not know it herself.
Everyone but little sister Nettie treats Celie like a careless, unprepossessing creature, and she shares this common view of herself. She indeed turns into something like an animal: people take it, use it, sell it, buy it, they are not interested in the animal’s opinion. It seemed that the days of slavery were over, but instead of white masters, she has new black ones: first a father, then a husband. Thus, like most other black women, she lives as if she was created to plow and endure. This is how one day, Daddy sells Celie to her future husband, separates Celie and Nettie, and then the husband separates Celie and Nettie again, forbidding them to see and correspond. Poor Celie does not show any signs of pain because she is used to it.
Only sometimes does she feel sad: for example, when she thinks that no one has ever loved her, or that if she falls through the ground, no one will notice. Or that her husband’s mistress knows his name, and she, Celie, knows only his last name, and only from her mistress learns that she has been married to Albert for twenty years. However, in the midst of it all, Celie manages not to get angry: she has a gentle heart and a kind soul. When her husband, for the first time in his life, commits a kind, noble deed (takes a dying mistress, to whom no one cares, to his house), Celie, with her innocent cunning, makes this almost deceased woman feel an interest in life and appetite. There is no hidden goal behind it: this is a simple manifestation of kindness.
There is a second line in the novel: the story of Celie’s young sister Nettie. She has an unusual fate: with a couple of black Christian missionaries, she goes to Africa, where she lives almost all her life. For Walker, this is a way of showing an alternative for black people. Life in America is terrible, but maybe now it is worth going back “home” to Africa? Alas, nothing good is waiting for black people there either. At first, there are still some details of a happy life in a village according to their ancestors’ precepts. However, later the white colonialists destroy this world too. They lay a highway right through the village, destroying houses, vegetable gardens, a poor village church, and the house where Nettie was so happy. Later they destroy crops, buy up land, force residents to pay for water, cut down the trees needed to make roofs for houses. Thus, black people have no place on the whole planet. Whites will come anyway and take whatever they want from them.
Yet one day, something begins to change in the hopeless world of the novel. Oddly enough, Celie begins to change as well: she is probably already in her late forties when she first begins to think that she is a human being. She understands it for the first time when she feels a loving gaze on her. This look that seems to “humanize” Celie, gives shape to her body and strength to her soul. She acquires the right to feelings: indignation, tenderness, hatred, love. She gains dignity, learns to accept and love herself and to be free.
Free from the customs that make her all fear and obey. Free to leave a hateful husband, a scoundrel, and a thief, and free to live for herself. And for the first time, she notices how good God’s world can be – there are so many beautiful things, particularly wildflowers of purple color. There are beautiful fabrics – not the doormats of the old days – from which she can sew clothes. Besides, Celie finally understands that there is happiness around her. All this is not happening quickly, but steadily. Gradually Celie begins to straighten her shoulders, learns to hate, smile, and joke. Until then, she rarely and unconsciously managed to get fun things in her letters, such as describing Sofia’s pregnancy or the need to earn God’s love with actions (Walker 140). The new Celie, who has learned to see nature, the sun, flowers, and other things that God created in a fit of playfulness, writes differently. For example, she writes that she feels that Nettie is still alive, and for Celie, she will never die.
Thus, starting to move towards old age (the age of the character are still indefinable, one can only judge by indirect signs – by the age of the children or by the way Celie’s younger friends look), Celie learns to be independent, brave, strong, and happy, first together with her beloved. Then, without her, she learns to forgive – as a stronger person forgives a weaker one; and she succeeds. Therefore, the book’s finale, despite all its bitterness, is flooded with light. It is hard to believe, but it turns out that life knows how to get better. Celie can be more than just impoverished and lonely. The people next to her are not only mean, cruel, and pathetic. Celie celebrates the conquered happiness by reconciling with God (there was a time when she quarreled with Him) and writes an extremely grateful and kind letter filled with love to the world.
Then, sitting on the terrace of her own beautiful house, she will write, completely without mistakes, that she does not feel old. On the contrary, she is young and happy, and she has never felt this way before (Walker 268). Feelings of love and happiness change the main character and put her on the path of self-acceptance, reveal her dignity, bring joy. She can finally see all the details of the world around her that make up her every day – and every day makes up her whole life. Here it becomes effortless to find God, who manifests itself in everything – in birds, in flowers, in the sound of rain, in everything, and this woman too. However, there is no need to ask him for anything because he has already done everything he could. Celie must take her happiness into her own hands and work to maintain this state and be a worthy person.
Work Cited
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Harcourt, 2003.