The Color Purple.

Alice Walker's The Color Purple tells the inspiring story of an oppressed, abused, isolated women who learns to fight back, speak for herself, defend other women, “ git man off her eye (204),” and make her  way  in a racist, patriarchal world. The beginning of this reading entitled Women and Literacy in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, starts off by explaining how women of the Diaspora have been using the oral culture for generations. "Before Black women were allowed to publish, they kept their stories alive through the act of storytelling" (137), black women writers recorded their histories through their stories. Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, and Alice Walker are writers that the reading goes on to explain and mirror the realities of being both Black and female.

The reading also goes on to elucidate the five basic types of feminism: liberal feminism, radical feminism, pro-structural feminism, social feminism, and black feminism. Liberal feminists focus on the rights of individual women and work to transform traditional beliefs about femininity and masculinity and emphasize women's rights to create their own identity. Radical feminists argue that the roots of women's oppression lie in the biological differences between men and women. Pro-structural feminists examine the ways language patterns produce notions of gender. Social feminists believe that race, social class, and gender oppression are interrelated consequences of a patriarchal, capitalist system. And finally black feminism, or womanism, which defines African-American women's struggles as issues of race, social class, and gender and work to give voice to the experiences of Black women (138).

In The Color Purple, Celie, the protagonist of The Color Purple, belongs in the category of the silent woman. Silence is a position in which women experience themselves as voiceless and mindless (138). It represents a denial of self and a strong dependence on external authority. Women of silent knowledge do not view themselves as learners. Like Celie who progresses through the stage of being silent, begins to rely on what people say and think. She looks for others to validate her self-worth and by doing so she begins to quiet her own voice and instead lives by what people say. However, towards the final stages of this story as Celie begins to understand that in order to recreate herself she had to ultimately learn how to survive alone. “If she come, I be happy, If she don’t, I be content. And then I figure this is the lesson I was supposed to learn” (p.284). Furthermore, through Celie, Alice Walker asserts that knowing one’s place within the larger schema enables women to maximize their power, uncover their hidden talents, and discover the God inside.

Hence, The Color Purple was an extremely influential story since it shows me and other readers the first hand effects of an abusive relationship and how exceptionally important it is to have your own voice of reasoning and be able to make choices of your own. After reading this essay I had one important question. The first question is, what category would I fall under? And after much thought I would have to say black feminism, since I think it is important for every black women to have a voice and a voice that can be heard. Whether that voice be made public in politics or even the local community that voice matters and should be heard.