A good book can be with you until bedtime, but the best book will be with you for life. For example, there are some timeless treasures of American literature that begin with ‘THE COLOR PURPLE’ by Alice Walker. Why am I citing this specific example? It is because I am going to base this article on its theme, story, plot, and characters.
The Color Purple explores the fall and rise of a young African-American woman named Celie Johnson. There is an undertone of fear, exploitation, horrible teenage years and abuse from her stepfather. Alice has carefully kept away the vivid images of life through celie’s perspective and why not, the whole book is celie’s journey from hell to heaven and from fall to ascension.
When this novel came out, it received mixed reactions from black Americans as the abuse came from the community itself. Walker’s work, on the other hand, was groundbreaking in the sense of history. This book actually created a lot of controversies in American fiction. It represents the idea of slavery in the black community that destroys the basic unit and infrastructure of society that is the family. Money, on the other hand, was another great horror that this town faced. Young children and especially teenage girls were sold or married off to old men for money and farm animals. It was as if slaves were made and the masters residing in the families sold them without a second thought. We always take an example and recite all the time that our families are there to protect us, but here the family led young girls into slavery, exploitation, intimidation and mental abuse. If there were no families, there would be no slavery, no community, no unity, no society. This sounds like hell, but this is true. No effective protests were seen and as we read the book we can imagine the girl who is forced to become a woman and how she finds love in a same-sex relationship. (Celie and Shug Avery). The writer does not follow the usual track of the black and white mechanism of slavery but the effect of black exploitation on black. Here, the lower class is affected not only by the whites but also by their own people.
Alice is an African American woman who writes about and for the African American people. Evil comes from the community itself. Walker, through this brave attempt, explores the gray areas that are prevalent in her own community. This was no easy task. She received death threats and murderous letters from people because everyone expected to see this as a ‘white perspective’ novel. It’s easier to shift the blame onto others’ shoulders because we can’t acknowledge our own faults. (It is not?). In this context, the roles are literally switched. A great contradiction is reflected and a terrible reaction is seen.
I don’t judge the author, the book, or the community because when a writer writes, they promise to portray real-life accuracy. It is a dismayed depiction of a young black life and the villain is not the archetypal white but the blacks themselves.
