The Color Purple: Empowering Women through the Journey of Celie

Abstract

The Color Purple written by Alice Walker examines the black women’s state of life in America and
uncovers their self-pursuit process, from the initial awakening to the following fighting and the final
independence. Walker received the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award for fiction in 1983 for her
novel The Color Purple. It is also an expression of Walker’s coined term ‘womanist,’ which she invented. A
“womanist” appreciates bonds between women and prefers women’s culture, emotions, strength, flexibility
and maternity. The Color Purple deals with the struggle, both in Africa and America, of women to gain
recognition as individuals who deserve fair and equal treatment. We have a more profound understanding of
the feminine thoughts Alice Walker puts into the novel. Relationships among women form a refuge,
providing reciprocal love in a world filled with male violence. Reading The Color Purple opens our eyes to
the black women’s victimization in abusive relationships and what they do to survive and break themselves
free of the abusive relationships in Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple.