"The Colour Purple" is painted in the backdrop of lives of African Americans in rural Georgia and natives of Africa in early twentieth century. It is an epistolary novel in the form of Celie's letters to God and her sister Nettie and Nettie's letters to Celie. Celie's transformation from an abused and helpless teenager with rock-bottom self-esteem to a confident and independent woman is not a dramatic metamorphosis, rather it is a gradual evolution of a tiny spark within herself. The spark being her ability to love.
Celie was physically, verbally and sexually abused as a teenage girl by her stepfather and later by her husband. With her self-esteem at rock- bottom, her only aim was to stay alive.
She wrote letters to God about her feelings in her not so perfect African American spoken English.
What makes 'The Colour Purple' so special is the depth of female characters. A few bold women come into Celie's life and make her see life in different perspectives. Sofya, who vehemently fights back any form of abuse , Shug Avery who lives life in her own terms, Nettie who escapes from abusive settings to find her own way. But it is Shug, who later becomes her lover, who makes Celie's transformation easier and faster.
Through abundance of dark elements like child sexual abuse, domestic violence, facial and genital mutilations the book somehow blends a stroke of positivity throughout, like a streak of purple in a dark background. While Celie goes through all the trauma of an abused child (the feeeling of being dirty, different and destroyed ) she never loses her ability to love. Though she later says God is just like any other man, deaf and insensitive to the plight of a coloured woman, may be venting out to God is what helps her to wade through hellish experiences.
Celie writes to Nettie
"She say Celie, he gave you life, good health and a good woman that love you to death.
Yeah, I say, and he gave me a lynched daddy, a crazy mama, a lowdown dog of a step pa and a sister I probably won't see again. Anyhow I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act like all other mens I know. Trifling, forgitful and lowdown.
She say, Miss. Celie. You better hush. God might hear you.
Let ' i'm hear me, I say. If he ever listened to poor colored women, the world would be a different place, I can tell you."
I can't help but wonder, how many Cielies are there around us. Many don't even get a chance to rebuild and transform, ending up hanging on threads around their fragile necks.
Preetha Raj
Comments