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Celie's Transformation In The Color Purple

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"All he think about since us married is how to make me mind. He don't want a wife, he want a dog," (Walker, 64). For centuries the fight for equality has been a non-stop battle, beginning with white women's rights and slowly transforming to women's rights for all, including queer and colored women. In Alice Walker's The Color Purple, the main character, Celie, deals with not only being a women who is seen as being next to worthless, but also has to figure out what being a women means to her sexually. It is through Celie's crude upbringing and troubling adult relationships that Walker is able to show Celie's transformation from a complacent servant to a woman with her own voice and identity.

From the first letter that Celie writes, it …show more content…

Even on her wedding day, when her new step-son bashes a rock into her head, she doesn't show any signs of protest- she simply gets up, cleans off the blood, and returns to business as normal. When her stepchildren act rotten and lay hands on her, she doesn't respond, she simply goes on with her house duties. Accepting physical and sexual abuse from her spouse is one thing, but when she allows his children to physically assault her whenever they wish, it suggests that she truly doesn't see herself as fully human; at least not human enough to believe that she should be treated better than a punching bag or 'blow up doll'. This shows what little self-esteem she has for herself and how low she views herself. If she had higher self-esteem or a higher value of self-worth, she would show just a little bit less of a dog-like obedience to male authority. However, even though Celie does view herself low enough that she will allow herself to be misused in such a way, she does show some hint of resistance to her, even if it's the smallest …show more content…

It was mentioned earlier how Celie claimed that she never looked at men in a sexual way, but did women. However, Celie doesn't think about the fact that she might be a homosexual, due to the absence of a LGBTQ+ community in her life. Hamamsy said that "Although Celie's love for Shug performs the redemptive role of making her a whole person... Celie's feelings are so complicated and difficult to grasp that she feels burdened by them." This is both confusing to Celie because not only does she have zero exposure to the Homosexual community, but she also receives the same treatment from Shug that she would a man. Shug calls her names and complains about the way Celie takes care of her, treating her the same way that the men in her life seem to, but it doesn't change how Celie feels and has felt about Shug since the first time Celie looked at her picture. With all the men that have abused her, she holds a discomfort with them, sometimes going as far as to call it anger, but doesn't feel any of that resentment towards Shug. Society had taught her that she was just property for men to mishandle, which is why there was a lack of true anger throughout most of the novel; but she does know enough to not have any discomfort with being around Shrug, no matter how rude Shrug treats her. This could be because of the fact that there

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