ESSAY CEMETERY

The life of The Color Purple's protagonist, Celie, is populated with both men and women. Whereas the men in the narrative wreak damage to Celie's self-esteem, emotional capacity, and love of life, the women around her have a rehabilitating effect on Celie. Kate, Sofia, Nettie, and Shug Avery all strengthen Celie in different ways, so that she is able to reconstruct her life and find optimism and joy in her experiences. From a very young age, Celie is abused by the men in her life. The man she believes to be her father rapes her and takes her out of school when she has the first of his two children; the man she marries as a teenager beats her repeatedly and engages her in passionless sex. Her supposed father discusses Albert, Celie's future husband, with insulting derision: "She ugly. Don't even look like she kin to Nettie ... She ain't smart either, and I'll just be fair, you have to watch her or she'll give away everything you own … And another thing? ...

Very strong language When I start to hurt and then my stomach start moving and then that little baby come out my pussy chewing on it fist you could have knock me over with a feather. Education is important He got only three children though. He seen Nettie in church and now every Sunday evening here come Mr.___.I tell Nettie to keep at her books. Dreaming of a different life Shug Avery was a woman. The most beautiful woman I ever saw. She more pretty then my mama. She bout ten thousand times more prettier then me. I see her there in furs. Her face rouge. Her hair like somethin tail. She grinning with her foot up on somebody motocar. Her eyes serious tho. Sad some. I ast her to give me the picture. An all night long I stare at it. An now when I dream, I dream of Shug Avery. She be dress to kill, whirling and laughing. Protective of Netti I ast him to take me instead of Nettie while our new mammy sick. But he just ast me what I'm talking bout. I tell him I can fix myself up for him. I...

Celie, fourteen years old, is raped by her mother's boyfriend (her father?) and has his baby. She lies to her mother and says she doesn't know the father. The father kidnaps and kills the baby in her sleep. Her mother dies. She has another baby and thinks this time he has sold it. He marries a girl her age, "the new mammy", and brings her home and takes her frequently. Celie loves school but the first time she became pregnant Pa took her out, saying she was too dumb.  Her little sister Nettie has a suitor, Mr. _____, but He won't let her marry him because Nettie is too young. He says he will let him have Celie instead. Finally, he decides to marry Celie, after the woman who took care of his kids left and on the condition that the cow they have comes too. He has three children. Celie finds comfort in a picture of Shug Avery, Mr. ____'s sweetheart. She is black, beautiful, sophisticated and well dressed. She gets married. The oldest boy, twelve years old, is opp...

A femal protagonist is in a passionless marriage. "She" gave "him" a child because she respected him and he her. He is a professor and she - a poet. She met Ellis, "The Lover", at an artists' colony in New England. This happened while she was being talked at by an old black poet who rambles. This happens a lot because she is a good listener and people take advantage. She stops listening every time people get pompous and starts daydreaming. Ellis whisks her away and she immediately thinks of him as her lover. She finds his hands sensual. They go to dinner and he talks about himself. She is mildly amused. When he starts talking about his unpublished novels, she loses interest. Despite this, she does not show it – she intends to make him her first lover. "Afterwards, she would be truly a woman of her time". She is aware of how pleasing she appears, and notes that people turn to look at her when she is near. She is easygoing and does...

This is a lecture that Walker gave at Sarah Lawrence, her alma mater. At Sarah Lawrence, she says, she felt free to live and create for the first time. After she graduated she realized that there was a gap in her education and her identity, for she had been taught the history of the south exclusively from a white point of view. Blacks have to study black texts. She discusses the literary canon and how blacks are missing from it. Where she would teach, instruction of texts written by black people is integral and invaluable. Many blacks feel that they lack history and art to relate to. Walker has made it a private mission to investigate into black writing and make them better known. Currently, they are not well known. These poems, though not in anthologies, are in her heart. She hopes she is a black revolutionary because she is always changing, and "for the good of more black people". She suggests that artists lock themselves up and produce work. But, she qualifies, bl...

Walker describes Jean Toomer's exploration of the Reconstruction South. Toomer found women sexually abused and lost, but who he saw to hold power, spirituality and beauty of which they were not aware. They were waiting for these unknowns to be made known. In the meantime they did not appreciate any aspects of life. These black women were artists whose creative forces were abandoned to the hardships of life. Black women who were able to create such as Phillis Wheatley and Zora Hurston had divided loyalties, between black and white cultures. They were raised in both and their art is not genuinely hers but confused due to this. Many have criticized Wheatley's poetry for glorifying white people but Walker understands that art for Phyllis was a soulful practice and it sustained her. This is not the end of the story, for the next generation of black women has survived. There is now the quest for black female identity. Society is not understanding of this strife. The quest...

Themes and remarks ·         Efficiency, resourcefulness and self-reliance “In real life I am a large, big.boned woman with rough, man.working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls dur.ing the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog.” ·         Mother ashamed in the context of her daughter “One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to...

Dee is coming to visit. The narrator, her mother, and Dee's sister Maggie have prepared the house for her. Maggie was burned badly when their house burned down and has low self esteem, especially compared to Dee. Dee is lighter skinned, and very self-confident and not intimidated by whites. The narrator feels ashamed of herself when compared with Dee. The narrator too has low self confidence that stems from her lack of education and from comparisons with confident Dee. Dee never had friends, just adoring followers. Dee brings her boyfriend to see Maggie and her mother. They are both excessively compensating for white oppression by changing their names to African ones. Nuances in Dee's behavior show that she is ashamed of her simple roots. They come off as very uppity. Her mother senses this and when Dee demands two quilts pieced by her aunt and grandmother, her mother does not want to give them. Dee appreciates their artistic value, but not their emotional valu...