Tolog Review: The Color Purple

The Color Purple
by Alice Walker
reviewed by Vivian Ji

This world has a dark side, however it also has a bright side. The Color Purple is a masterpiece of praising feminism of black women, readers can find the process that a black woman who was suffered by racism and gender discrimination. I want to talk about the changing of our main character, Cerlie.

The Color Purple describes a black woman Celie who is cowardly, common, not pretty, poor but patient and kind. This book creates the whole story by letters. The author, Alive Walker, used a new and appropriate writing way in this book. In Celie’s letters, Walker wrote the letters in Southern American black dialect, and she wrote these letters by a realism and exaggerate way, that makes readers feel those letters are really written by a black woman who is in a countryside right now. We can also see the changing process of Celie, her thinking way and writing way became more and more mature.

Before her changes Celie was a totally victim. She was suffering by her husband, her stepfather, and racists. However during her changing, she became a new person. She found lots of new friend, she found her sister, and her lover. She became brave and confidence, she found the most significant thing too—that is hope. The beginning of Celie’s change is Sophia. Celie was a weak woman before, she did everything her husband said, and her husband always hurt her. She was unrespectable; she didn’t have her own mind because of her poor life. However, Sophia, a totally different woman made Celie changed. Sophia knew rejecting, she could say no and she had her own thought. Her made Celie became independent, she started to fight back and worked harder for her own life. That made her becomes a strong woman, and she won the respect from her husband. Revolt and changing are the cores of this book, Celie got a better life at the end, and everything has changed. Her personality changed to strong, independent and hopefully, she found true love, her husband understood her and they became good friends, her lost sisters came back… Everything changed to a better way.

This book figures a successful and representative character, Celie, and appeals and encourages feminisms. With the spirit of Celie, this story teaches the readers, be strong and face the challenges, we can change to better people.