Power Of Sisterhood In The Color Purple example essay topic

Alice Walker's The Color Purple is an example of a "woman's novel". A woman's novel is defined as by (source). When Walker wrote this novel, the black women's voice was nonexistent. Walker gave voice to the struggle of black woman.

Her message was despite the difficulties of life black women can overcome all obstacles. The women in The Color Purple are strong characters that use their friendships to overcome the harsh real ties of racism, sexism and abuse. Celie, Sophia Squeak, Shug & Nettie all overcome the obstacles put forth to them by using their friendship to comfort, lean and grow from each other. The Color Purple affirms the survival and liberation of black women through strength and wisdom of others. Celie nearly struggled for her happiness her entire life. When she was only a little girl, her stepfather sexually abused her.

He then sold her to a man named Mr. who had no intention of loving her, "No matter what I'm thinking. No matter what I feel. It just him" (Walker 69). Mr. verbally and physically abused her. He expected her to manage all the housework and demanded that she took care of his kids, "They look at me there struggling with Mr. children" (Walker 45).

If Celie refused, she was punished. Through all these traumatizing events, Celie lost respect for herself and forgot how to love. Her life was full of darkness without a single trace of light. However, Celie met a woman named Shug who gave her the courage to fight for what she believed in. Shug taught her how to laugh and play and showed Celie a whole new perspective of life. Shug constantly reminded Celie to speak out if something was bothering her and to not do anything that she did not feel like doing, .".. say whatever come to mind, for git about polite" (Walker 75).

Celie was no longer afraid of Mr... She stopped doing housework and left the dwelling to start her own business, "You a lowdown dog is what's wrong. It's time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need" (Walker 207). She realized that women do not need men to survive because they can manage on their own.

Celie was a brand new woman. Moreover, Shug was a successful and powerful woman. She was a desirable blues singer who was creative and smart. However, her strong figure often deceived the reader's mind into assuming that she was always an efficient person. In fact, Shug struggled tremendously to get where she was.

She was once in love with Mr... However, due to his weak nature Mr. never confronted his father about their love. This was because, Mr.'s father preferred him to marry Annie Julia. Shug should have forgotten their brief love but she did not. She tried to ruin their marriage in hope that he would come back to her but she was not successful. Nonetheless, after Annie Julia died, Mr. was ready to rekindle their passion even though he was currently married to Celie.

Along the way, Shug became seriously ill. Therefore, Mr. arranged it so that Shug would move in with him and Celie. At first, Shug was filled with anger and jealousy towards Celie, "She look me over from head to foot. Then she crackle. Sound like a death rattle. You sure is ugly, she say, like she ain't believed it" (Walker 48).

She was prepared to detest her but Celie's warm and gentle heart allowed them to be friends. During their companionship, Celie nurtured and protected her. Through love and deep affection towards each other, Shug was able to let go of the past. She no longer yearned for Mr.'s tenderness and the pain of losing him disappeared. She realized that he was a terrible man who could never fully love another, "Anyhow, once you told me he beat you, and won't work, I felt different about him" (Walker 114-115).

Her illness vanquished and she became a healthy and blissful woman. As soon as Celie encounters Shug Avery, we get the sense that she already harbors a sub-conscious sexual desire for her. "First time I got the full sight of Shug Avery I thought I had turned into a man", From this description we can see that Shug Avery is a big determinant in bringing Celie out of her "tree" like emotionless state and bringing her back to life. Shug and Celie's relationship is based on shared experiences, and one where both help each other in crisis times. As Shug "melt down a little and lean back against [her] knees", we visually get the idea of Celie being a pillar of support. Even as Shug and Celie enjoy what many have said is a lesbian relationship together, Celie's phrase "us sleep like sisters, me and Shug" reveals their relationship is far from a sordid sex fling.

Yet the relationship is a symbol of women's extreme love for one another and the two together epitomizes sisterhood, and through sisterhood comes empowerment. Shug sings "Miss Celie's song" and by doing so gives her an identity, she is the one who announces that "Celie coming with us" and by doing so gives Celie the voice she needs to confront her ruthless husband. For many the relationship, unnoticed by the other characters in the novel, epitomizes the height of silly romanticism, and yet Walker emphasizes the intensity of the relationship - as well as the love and trust - when Shug "pick up a old horseshoe" and says, "us each other's people's now". The suggestion is that Celie and Shug are eternally together in spirit, almost metaphorically in a marital union with the symbol of the horseshoe being synonymous with marriage.

Celie's words "enter into Creation" are prophetic when both she and Shug move to their new house in Tennessee, because their experiences there are almost Eden-like signifying Celie and Shug's paradise on earth, with "a fountain out front" symbolizing their new life with each other. As they look through the newspaper their peace with each other is contrasted against a world "fussing and fighting and pointing fingers at other people". However, when Shug says, "she got the hots for a boy of nineteen" in Germaine we see that love is not ownership. Yet, Celie realizes that "Shug got a right to live too" and far from wanting to keep her forever by her side - as opposed to Mr. - Celie sees that jealousy is mere self-indulgence, and not putting the one she loves first. The fact however that Shug and Celie are reconciled by the end of the novel highlights that a gay relationship of any sort does have the potential to grow but only if others are willing to appreciate it. There is a strong relationship between Celie and Nettie not just because they are siblings but because Nettie is one out of two people Celie loves, and this doesn't exist between Celie and any other of her siblings.

There are various things that bring these two even closer, one being the discovery that they both come from a different father which Celie discover from a letter from Nettie which reads. ".. and I pray with all my heart that you get this letter, if none of the others. Pa is not our Pa". (182) and the one they thought was there flesh and blood father was actually only their step father. This brings them closer for it is so important and they are each others direct relatives for both parents are dead and they do not have any other brothers or sisters. The second point is that they keep in contact when Nettie is traveling to and from Africa. This is more or less an escape for Celie for she does not really have anyone except for Shug that she loves so the letters are a way for Celie to keep not only with Nettie but also her two children that she has only seen for a for a couple of days in her entire life.

So the main bond between Nettie and Celie is one of love, and they demonstrate this by constantly trying to stay in touch even though they don't know if the other is receiving the letters. The relationship between Mr. and Nettie changes drastically from love to hate. Nettie first introduces Mr. into the story as the man she is going to marry, Celie says to Nettie one day "I say marry him, Nettie". but when the marriage is disallowed because she is to young plus pa wants to keep her in school, but Mr. is given Celie along with a cow so in the marriage to Celie Mr. realizes he " ll never get Nettie but he still loves her but Nettie begins to go off him, for his marriage to her sister. Still at the beginning of the book Nettie goes to stay with Mr. and Celie, so it would be fair to say that she did not only come to see her sister, but to also see Mr. which she still has feeling for at the bottom of her heart but when she sees the life Celie has to lead with him and the children she says to Celie "Don't let them run over you.

You got to let them know who got the upper hand". (18) and it might be because she feels sorry for Celie that she goes off him, and this is confirmed on her departure when Mr. tries to make a move on her, and she rejects him. The other link between these two is indirect through the letters, which Nettie writes intending them to go to Celie but instead are intercepted by Mr... There are various reasons why Mr. could of taken and hidden these letters, one could have been jealousy for he felt jealous that Celie was receiving letters from Nettie and he wasn't, another more possible idea could be that he was worried that these letters could give Celie new modern ideas about female rights and Mr. didn't want this to happen. So between these two characters an sudden change from love to hate, and this could be down to the fact that Nettie develops ideas that makes her think that woman should be treated more like an equal then like a slave which most are. The final comparison is between Celie and Mr...

These two were married in a sense that neither one wanted to but Celie wasn't allowed a say and Mr. got a cow which seemed fair enough to him. These two both under went large changes which were related to each other. Due to the forceful marriage there was no love between them and as Celie learnt that he was hiding the letters to her from Nettie she felt something she never felt which was rage and anger towards him and this was a new type of feeling, and due to this she upped and left with Shug and divorced Mr... From after this time both of them changed, Celie developed in the sense she moved on out of the roll of a normal woman and became more of a man then a woman which you can see in the way she feels about making and wearing pants. Just like Celie Mr. changed and he became more of a gentleman and when their paths crossed again they both noticed the change in each other, but when Mr. asked her to marry him again she just couldn't forgive him to marry him so they just became friends. Sisterhood is one of the central themes in the novel.

This is due to the fact that the symbol that characterizes the growth, love and unity of woman - the quilt - is cited not just in the literal sense of the "Sister's Choice" quilt that Celie hands to Sofia when she leaves but is present in other forms throughout the novel. Indeed, some more modern critics have interpreted the whole novel as a quilt, ninety scraps of communication from different people, and only when woven together to form the novel, can its message be read clearly. This common bond between women is something present in the Olinka section of the novel as much as anywhere else. The fact that Samuel "is confused because to him, since the women [of Olinka] are friends and will do anything for one another" points out that sisterhood is something that only women can understand, and ultimately partake in.

While this could be read as a cross-cultural conflict between the an American clergyman and African women, Mr. too, towards the end of the novel confesses to Celie, "I never understood how you and Shug got along so well together". Sisterhood is not about retaliating against males, though some do choose to do this in the novel. A good example is Celie as she "drop a little spit in Old Mr. water". Instead, sisterhood is about clearing away the "razors" and empowering other women. Such cases are Shug Avery, who liberates Mary Agnes by offering to "bring her before the crowd" at Harpo's. Celie too, is emancipated from the depressive life she leads in the company of Mr...

Shug provides her with the material things she needs in order to exercise her talent. She asks her, "how much money you need this week", before aiding Celie to set her "on her way" and give her economic independence. The unity of women is however tested progressively throughout the novel. In letter thirty-six, when Harpo begins to "slow drag" with his separated wife Sofia, he asks his girlfriend Squeak, "Can't a man dance with his own wife?" It is almost as if Harpo is trying to play both parties against one another.

As a result, Squeak is jealous but then pays for it by having her two side teeth knocked out. Indeed, it is jealousy that poses the greatest threat towards sisterhood throughout the novel. We learn that Shug treated Celie poorly when she first appeared in the novel at Mr.'s house, and "all because Albert married you". The same can be said about the black women's attitude towards Celie's late mother because "the plans she talked about were grander than anything they could conceive for colored people". Perhaps the greatest culprit however is Corrine. She not only continually accuses Nettie and Samuel of an affair but tells Nettie that the two should call each other "sister" even though she shows no sisterly love.

Corrine's discrepancy however allows us to see the firm base on which sisterhood is build. "She gets weaker and weaker", writes Nettie "and unless she can believe us and start to feel something for the children, I fear we will lose her". This statement coupled with the fact that Corrine affirms "I believe" before she dies is a testament to the fact that unity is built on faith, on believing in women, even if they share many husbands, or are forced to be married to someone they do not love. The novel's message is that women must stand up against the unfair treatment that they receive at the hands of men and that they must do this by helping one another. The women in the novel, even those who have interest in the same men, nevertheless band together to support and sustain one another throughout the novel. The bond of sisterhood is important.

In the past, women had dreams of feeling free or being successful, yet they never fulfilled their fantasies due to their inferiority to men. By helping one another and teaching them to feel alive, women could overcome all obstacles no matter what the given situation is. Women have conquered their subordinate status. They no longer need to feel degraded or mirthless because of men. Whether it be physical or emotional labor, woman could defeat their laborious dilemmas. In conclusion, despite the odds women can overcome all obstacles.

Bibliography

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