Banned Books: The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Color Purple by Alice Walker


After the death of their Ma, sisters Celie and Nettie find strength and love in each other. The daughter and son Celie had by Pa are gone. Dead for all Celie knows. But there are still young children in the home that need to be raised and that responsibility landed on Celie. Until Pa found a new wife that is. Once the caretaker responsibilities were taken over Celie was married off. Nettie ran away from her Pa and her new stepma shortly thereafter, to Celie’s home with her new husband. After Nettie rejected Mr, Celie's new husband's, advances she had to leave, not knowing when she would ever see Celie again. With the only person she truly loved gone, Celie felt weak. The abuse she suffered under Mr and his children made her weaker still. Raising someone else’s children when unsure of the life her own pained her. She turned to prayer throughout, trying to affirm her belief that a higher being cared about her and her Nettie.
                The Color Purple looks at the lives of two sisters whose paths diverge at a young age. Celie, the oldest, is entered into a loveless marriage where she is treated more like a maid than a wife. She is forced to raise her husband’s ungrateful children and bed him whenever he pleases. She was sexually abused by her father at a young age and bore him two children. She is unaware of the safety of those two children and their missing presence in her life weighs on her greatly. Nettie’s life is a mystery to Celie for many years as well. All communication between Celie and Nettie had been severed because of Mr’s interference. The loneliness Celie feels at times is all encompassing. It’s the journey of these sisters, the strength they have to muster, and the unceasing love they have for each other that made this novel emotional and captivating.
                Walker created a cast of well developed, emotionally complex, and damaged characters and created a story that was heart wrenching, painful and worthy of standing the test of time. I became invested in this story and the characters from the very beginning. It is hard to imagine the pain that these characters experienced and the lives they were forced to live. Reading the correspondences that Celie would write, which was her last bit of hope, were painful. No one should have to experience the heartache, confusion, abuse and mistreatment the characters suffered but it was evident with every turn of the page. Celie’s spirituality and its evolution as she aged was interesting. She evolved into another person and her faith and spiritual belief reflected that. It was intriguing to watch the new ideals take shape.
                Some of the many themes Walker explored throughout The Color Purple were sexuality, abuse, incest, and racism. All of these themes have also been the reasons why The Color Purple has been banned from schools around the country. The American Library Association list many occasions when this novel has been banned with the most recent being in Morgantown, North Carolina in 2008. Parents found the book inappropriate. Discussions about problems described in novels should be used to explore these issues. Banning material about matters that may be deemed inappropriate to some, in no way prevent them from being part of history and, in some cases, what is still present in society.

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