Gender Discrimination In The Bluest Eye And Alice Walker's The Color Purple

In the course of The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove has shown signs of low self esteem. She would always be the one to compare herself to something she admires to be beautiful. Perhaps, sometimes problems surround her get a little too much, she has not yet realized the fog will clear up. For example in the autumn chapter, a quote has said “Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would only see what there was to see: the eyes of other people.” There is no such thing as a “Pecola’s point of view”. She lives off of people's judgements and believe physical appearance is all there is to a person. Her desire to be beautiful is not having attractive long black hair and golden skin color, but blonde hair with a white pigmentation. Which causes her to dream and want even more.

Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and a brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when concerning gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society. Because of these preconceived notions, the racism found in The Bluest Eye is not whites against blacks. Morrison writes about

Celie has been emotionally abused by multiple characters in The Color Purple. Celie was frequently told she was an undesirable, ugly woman only meant to be used by other. She believed this, leading her to hate her physical appearance, and her self. After being impregnated by her father Celie was forced to quit attending school which broke her down even more. She began to feel very stupid and illiterate. The day her sister Nettie was forced to leave her side had destroyed her emotionally. Nettie was the only person she loved, other than her children, and the only person she felt loved her back. Celie was also given away unwilling as a wife. to Mr.______ who treated her terribly. While living with

The Color Purple revolves around the life of Celie, a young black woman growing up in the poverty-ridden South.  In order to find herself and gain independence, Celie must deal with all manner of abuse, including misogyny, racism and poverty.  When she is a young girl of just 14, Celie is sexually assaulted by a man she believes is her father.  She has two children by her rapist, both of who

Gender inequality was a big issue during the early 1900s, and especially for the African American women because some “Africa American women were used as sex slaves or just slaves in generally” (Karpowitz). These women were treated badly even if it was from their dad or their "husband"/owners, but at the end of the day they knew only one person who these women can trust which is God. In Alice Walker’s novel, she shows and expresses how women will have bad times or bumps on the road, but if they keep going towards their dream they will succeed. Walker also showed how women did not have a voice to stand up for themselves but later in their life they started getting together to fight back for their rights. In The Color Purple, Alice Walker demonstrates gender inequality in the lives of African Americans in the early 1900s.

    Celie is not a typical protagonist. In Alice Walker's The Color Purple, the main character Celie is an ugly, poor girl who is severely lacking in self-confidence. However, Celie transforms throughout the course of the novel and manages to realize herself as a colorful, beautiful, and proud human being. Celie becomes a powerful individual.

Celie, in The Color Purple, goes through certain events in her life in which she finds hope. Although she has a terrible life, Celie manages to escape from all of the evil. When she was younger she was emotionally scarred by her father after her mother had passed due to being very ill (James Web). Her father would brutally rape and slap her to mourn the loss of his wife. Celie’s father then sells her to a man named Mister,

In The Color Purple, Celie was restricted by the culture and constantly being forced against her will at the hands of men who seize control. In Celie’s relationship with her husband, Albert, the man succeeds in beating his wife into unwavering obedience and unquestionable silence. His lack of respect for women is shown by his advice to his son,

“And she just about the color of a eggplant.” (87) Finally, Celie lives her life bitterly and does not notice or appreciate anything around her. Shug tells her, “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” (p. 178) Shug feels that God created beauty in the world to make humans happy. She feels that it is important that people take the time to acknowledge everything around them. From this, Celie realizes that Shug has enlightened her. She admits that she does not appreciate the world she lives in. This changes the way Celie perceives her existence. She begins to have a more positive outlook on life, despite the hardship she experiences. Celie herself can also be compared to the color purple. She has lived her life unnoticed. Once she realizes this, Celie creates an identity for herself and is finally noticed amongst her community. Another important symbol in this novel is pants. Once Celie is liberated from her marriage, she starts a pant-making business. The pants represent independence, which again is a concept that relates to the theme of the novel. Celie can finally provide for herself. In her “previous life”, Celie’s only role in society was to bear children and keep house. The pants also symbolize a change in Celie’s relationship with men. Before, the idea that men and women had anything at all in common was completely daft.

Similarly in The Color Purple, Celie struggles to fit into the society she was born into, suffering from low self-esteem and very little self-worth throughout the entirety of the book. This is evidenced in letter seventeen when Celie explains she “don’t feel nothing for them” and how they “don’t love” her “neither”, after suffering many brutalities it is as though she is dead inside, unable to love or be loved. Having noticed she does not sign her name at the end of her letters, is quite unusual. Most people would find pride in signing their name, especially when addressing God, reinforcing the idea that she has no confidence in the person she is or wishes to be. Being a victim of the ‘double oppression’, her ‘Pa’s’ anger and hostility towards the treatment of black people at the time, meant that Celie faced countless acts of extreme violence throughout her life. In letter five Celie explains her fathers ‘reasoning’ in giving her one of many ‘beatings’ after reportedly winking at a boy in church. Celie explains she

The Color Purple has really short chapters that are written as letters to God and explains Celie’s hardships in the simplest way possible. Celie expresses her thoughts with poor grammar and spelling, which emphasizes the point that Celie isn’t educated. This is shown when Celie says “He wake up while I’m in the field. I been chopping cotton three hours by time he come. Us don’t say nothing to each other” (Walker 26). In the beginning, Celie’s letters discuss topics briefly rather than being developed in long paragraphs. After Nettie and Celie reconnect, Celie’s letters get longer and more detailed. She expresses her joy by writing more. It also shows how she feels entitled to express her feelings more than she did before. Next, the setting affects how the characters act. Because the setting is in rural areas of the South and Celie is a poor black women, her bad treatment is ignored, and she has little exposure to education or the outside world. Celie lives most of her life very isolated and ignorant. Celie starts to learn more about herself and the world from people who enter into her life from different worlds than hers. Shug Avery comes from the city, where she lives a liberated life. Celie leaves home and goes with Shug to Memphis, where she also becomes more liberated. Celie’s world is expanded due to her sister’s travels in Africa. Living a poor life in the South, Celie never considered her African heritage until she finds Nettie’s letters

The female protagonists in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple, are both black females whose environments have drilled into their minds the idea that they are unloved and unwanted in society because they are ugly. Despite their plight, it is not their treatment at the hands of society that dominates their stories but rather their

Though The Color Purple is a historical novel, it never refers to any factual events. Because of this, we presumably follow Celie through thirty or forty years of her life, from the age of fourteen up until her hair is gray. The setting of the novel is primarily rural Georgia in the early twentieth century. As a poor black woman in the rural south, Celie’s bad treatment is largely ignored which was the norm in this time period. Celie leaves Georgia to live in Memphis with Shug. There, Celie lives a life of luxury and empowerment. Living a poor, downtrodden life in the South, Celie had never stopped to consider her African heritage until Nettie sends

Authors usually write a novel to portray an experience that they have endured or observed. They want the rest of the world to see their situation the way they have seen it. Therefore, they create novels from their perspective. In The Color Purple, author Alice Walker reflects on the horrors that women were put through because of the men in their lives. There are many powerful themes throughout the novel, including racism, sexism, and destruction of innocence.

I feel every person should care about sexism and racism, because these two issues affect everyone. “The Color Purple” is a great film that focuses on the problems African American women faced during the early 1900s. "The Color Purple" provides a disturbing and realistic account into the life of Celie, a poor southern black woman with a sad and abusive past and Sophia, another poor southern black woman with a sad and abusive past.