The Colour Purple was a refreshing break to our streak of novels based on well-off, beautiful ladies with charming husbands and an affinity for suicide. It was also a huge shock, opening the book to its first page and going “holy wow, this book is going to be intense”.
First of all, The Colour Purple lived up to my expectations of intensity. Celie went though horribly tough times, with her abusive step-father, abusive husband and almost losing touch with her sister, Nettie. Celie was an amazing character to me, and that’s not only because unlike the heroines in our previous novels, she doesn’t waste time pitying herself. Celie’s a tough cookie. She makes the best of her crappy situations and puts up with people mistreating her. Despite her confused voice in the first few pages of the novel, I find her to be a strong and independent character.
Speaking of characters, Harpo was one that really confused me. Sometimes, I find him admirable, for being respectable to Celie and his wife. Sometimes, I find him despicable for beating Sofia. As Alice Walker said in that podcast, he’s very torn between being a man as his father was, and respecting his wife as he knows he should. In that sense, I find him to be such a realistically-written character. As with people in real life, I have trouble judging whether I truly like him or not.
We haven’t had much material to discuss sexuality or gender preference yet, and I like to bug Allyne. Shug and Celie’s relationship makes me wonder, whether Celie is attracted to women because she is homosexual, or if she is attracted to women because she trusts only them, as opposed to men. Without Shug, would Celie have found somebody to love?
Lastly, I want to discuss Celie’s voice versus Nettie’s voice. Although Celie’s uneducated, her grammar and spelling poor, I believe if she could write the way Nettie does, their voices would be almost identical. They come across to me as so alike, in their thoughts and actions. I think it is their experiences that really set the two sisters apart.
Quick recap: The Colour Purple was intense. I liked it, I liked the way it was written, I liked the way the material was shocking and inspiring. I especially liked the happy ending with everybody reunited and one big family; I didn’t expect that. I enjoy unexpectedly happy endings.
I also spell colour with a ‘u’, but I don’t think we can change the title—however much we would like to. If a novel was called “The Tabel, The Chare, and the Stoole”, we would have to write it that way even though all the nouns are misspelled. By changing the title to “The Colour Purple” you make it unlikely that it was written by an American, who would obviously use “Color”.
Otherwise I like your response. Sorry I’m always so critical of you Chi, but someone has to do it!
Well, somebody has to keep me in check. :b