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The Book Of Negroes By Lawrence Hill And The Color Purple By Alice Walker

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Throughout history, many have been oppressed because of their race, religion and gender, resulting them to lose their rights and freedom. Despite the fact that freedom is natural rights of a human being, it has come to a point where the oppressed demands and fights for their freedom because the oppressor does not give freedom willingly. Although human rights have evolved over the years, humans still fail to learn from their mistakes, resulting in history to repeat itself. Through storytelling and novels, people show depictions of history to honour those who have died and to educate younger generations to prevent unfortunate events from occurring again. As a result of this, Lawrence Hill and Alice Walker display oppression through abuse, …show more content…

It is clear that Celie’s father commits several forms of violence against her when she quotes, “he [Pa] never had a kine word to say to me… First he put his thing up gainst my hip and sort of wiggle it around… When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying You better shut up and git used to it. But I don’t never get used to it.” (Walker, 1-2). As a results of this, Celie finds herself in situations where she has trouble identifying with her sexual orientation as well as, becoming numb to sex after repeated sexual abuse. Moreover, not only is he physically violent with her by raping her, but later on in the novel, one discovers that he sells Celie’s children away- just like Aminata’s children- causing her to face emotional damage as well. Moreover, Celie’s father does not respect her as a human being, for the fact that he calls her ugly and does not say anything kind to her, but he also forces her to keep quiet about the way he is treating her, thus dehumanizing her. All in all, numerous forms of abuse have severely crippled Aminata and Celie, displaying oppression caused by men in their daily lives. Secondly, structural inequality depicts oppression through the control of authority in both books. During the time periods of the two books, 1802 in The Book of Negroes and 1910 in The Colour Purple, the unfortunate significance of slavery and racial discrimination was common. In particular, Aminata is abducted by Toubab (white men) and sold into the

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