Courtesy of Penguin Books
By Sol Casanas
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
“The Color Purple” is a fiction novel written by bestselling novelist Alice Walker. This book is an epistolary, a story told through letters.
These letters are written by two sisters living separate lives in the distance. One of the sisters’ names is Celie. She is the protagonist of the book. The 14-year-old girl lives in poverty and is uneducated. She writes her letters to God.
Through these letters, we learn about Celie’s life. She writes to God about how her father, Albert, beats and rapes her and how she gets pregnant from her father, who then steals the children from her and although he brings home a new wife, he still decides to beat her.
Nettie is Celie’s prettier younger sister who flees to safety from their house. Making Celie think she is dead because she promised she would write to her when she left. Later finding out that her letters have been hidden by a certain Mr._____, as depicted in the book.
Mr._____ ends up being one of the most important people in Celie’s life. He marries her, bringing her into a difficult and joyless marriage.
In this story, we meet a lot of characters that are introduced into Celie’s life, like, Mr._____ (whose name is revealed later in the story), Shug Avery, who becomes Celie’s most constant friend throughout the book, Harpo, Sofia, Squeak, Alphonso, Samuel, Corrine, Olivia, Adam, Tashi, Miss Millie, Eleanor Jane, Grady and Kate.
Each one of those characters influences Celie’s life in various ways, which leads to her coming of age.
In the book, we learn about the symbolism of the color purple, which means power, and royalty, which ends up being important in Celie’s life to overcome the obstacles.
“The Color Purple” has three types of love stories: agape, an unconditional type of love, the highest form, and the most powerful because it is not predicted. It’s not the type of love that is earned or deserved. Philia, a friendship type of love, Storge, is love within the family. And eros, the physical type of love and the love of beautiful things.
We learn about these different types of love throughout Celie’s life.
Through this novel, we learn that we should not give up and can overcome obstacles just like Celie did, that self-love is important and to never forget your place on this earth.
If you’re looking for a powerful coming-of-age story with lots of ups and downs and full of symbolism, this novel is a must-read and will impact your life as it did mine.
