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Brooklyn Denman Forbidden Books Sharon Holmes March 22, 2019 The Color Purple How does someone face struggles in one’s life? This situation arises when a female goes through it on the Southside. It leads to a novel that was written in the 1980s called The Color Purple. The Color Purple’s protagonist is Celie. She was an African American young woman who was born and resided with her family in Georgia during the twentieth century. Growing up, Celie was deprived and illiterate. In other words, she didn’t have a very pleasant lifetime. Celie faced horrifying issues, which were violence, abuse, disrespect, and poverty lots of times from a girl to a young adult. Whenever she felt depressed, Celie scribed messages and prayers to God, hoping for a better life every day and every night. The main themes that play roles are feminism and violence. As mentioned before, Celie deals with a variety of issues that have to do with grief and discrimination. Instead of looking at men, Celie looks at women because she personally thinks that men are totally mean and abusive. Her sexual orientation is lesbian, meaning she likes other females. On the bright side, Celie looks up to a woman named Shug Avery, that she admires and trusts. Avery is a beautiful, blue songstress from Georgia and is a role model to Celie. Shug Avery puts herself in Celie’s shoes as she accommodates her out during this difficult time. Because of its focus on violence and
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other controversial topics, The Color Purple m ust be banned.
Schools from all over the United States prohibited The Color Purple because of the world’s real controversial topics. Violence isn’t the only controversial topic discussed: racism, sexual language, homosexual relationships between the same gender, and poverty were there as well. In every chapter of The Color Purple, each of them were constantly mentioned. This was because they impacted Celie physically, emotionally, and mentally. When The Color Purple w as introduced in 1982, it was sent to high schools for students to do classwork tasks and learn from it. This situation made parents feel angry, upset, and agonizeedbecause they were proving that it was extremely unbefitting and derogatory. Therefore, parents believed that The Color Purple wasn’t suitable for high schoolers. With that being said, The Color Purple was prohibited in 1984. During that time, it was prohibited in libraries too. According to Banned Books Week: The Color Purple by Demi Marshall and On Alice Walker’s The Color Purple by Amy King, this novel is still banned, graphic, incorporates mature content, and unsuitable for some ages, including childhood ages.
For the reason of representing how vulnerable The Color Purple is, here are a few quotes that prove and clarify why it must be prohibited and censored. The first quote states, “He starts to choke me, saying ‘you better shut up and get used to it.’”(Walker 1). This quote is problematic because Celie had a stepfather who was abusive, frightening, and a pedophile. Celie’s stepfather wasn’t very caring, respectful, and safe to be around.
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Celie’s father grasped and touched Celie’s private areas, beated her up, strangled her, and screamed at her twenty-four seven. The second quote that should also be banned is stated: “‘I felt mad’, I said. ‘I used to get mad at my mama because she put a lot of work on me. Couldn’t stay mad at her. Couldn’t get mad at my daddy because he’s my daddy. The Bible says honor father and mother no matter what. Then afterwhile every time I got mad, or start feeling mad, I got sick. Felt like vomiting. Terrible feeling. Then, I start feeling nothing at all.” (Walker 32). This quote is also problematic because Celie talks negatively about herself. Simply put, it symbolizes low self-esteem, stress, and anger. When others feel positive and are enjoying their lives, all Celie decides to do to doubt and grieve. This quote resonates with females of all ages. Feminism is one of the main themes that develops in The Color Purple. The three justifications that The Color Purple should be banned are vulgarity, violence and poverty. The first reason to ban The Color Purple is vulgarity. Vulgarity was very severe and powerful as there were a mixture of profanity terms, especially ignorant names that African Americans have been called since the world began evolving. Just like women went through and dealt with struggles, African Americans went through this similar process also. Specifically, it includes profanity terms which are usually negative and inappropriate to utilize. The second reason to ban The Color Purple is violence. Violence is one of the typical problems that the world faces. It involves beating, gun shooting, strangling, raping, murdering, child abuse, sexual behavior, and offensive language. Another way of describing violence is that it’s verbal bullying and physical bullying. This happens a lot in The Color Purple. The third reason
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that The Color Purple is poverty. It’s another serious issue that occurs all over the world where some people can’t afford essential necessities and ended up feeling needy and dispritied, even in Celie’s journey. In a article written by Graham Todd, Alice Walker states, “I know what The Color Purple means to those who have no voice and believe that they have less choices. It can open to them, their perspective, and the plenitude of this journey we’re all on. It can lift them into a new awareness of their power, beauty, love, and courage.” In other words, Walker believes that negativity can be transformed to positivity when it comes to helping those who have trouble finding and using their voices, becoming brave, and standing up for themselves and others. That way, they can develop one hundred percent confidence. An additional supporting justification comes from Guernica Daily’s article, Alice Walker: Writing’s What Right. When she was interviewing Walker on The Color Purple, Walker also quotes that “censorship doesn’t hold her back from writing as it happens in everyone’s stories and journeys.”
The Color Purple should be officially prohibited because there were harmful and upsetting issues. From violence to poverty, this novel was outrageous, but helped teach readers why these issues happen for a reason, impact people and places, and were necessary to talk about. The Color Purple relates to the modern world as poverty and violence take place in neighborhoods, towns, and cities. Everyday, people would listen, scrutinize, and look at stories about these issues from the newspaper and the streets to television and social media. From all of this information and details, they take part in Celie’s journey. Although she was a young woman with no rights and freedom, she
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decided to look forward and believe in herself. Celie continued asking God for assistance and hope through writing and praying and staying strong when things get tough. This message doesn’t go out to her, though-it goes out to everyone of all ages, colors, races, nations, ethnicities, men, and women.
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Works Cited
Daily, Guernica “Alice Walker: Writing What’s Right” Guernica Mag 1 October 2012 https://www.guernicamag.com/alice-walker-writing-whats-right/
King, Amy “On Alice Walker’s The Color Purple” Pen America 2 4 October 2012 https://pen.org/on-alice-walkers-the-color-purple/
Marshall, Demi. “Banned Books Week: The Color Purple” Valpotorch 6 October 2017 http://www.valpotorch.com/arts_and_entertainment/article_f4529d82-aadc-11e7-87b 1-f7674f921188.html
Todd, Graham. “Alice Walker On Censorship” The Rumpus 3 October 2012 https://therumpus.net/2012/10/alice-walker-on-censorship/
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2011. Web. 11 March 2019.