The Meaning of Beauty and the Color PurpleEssay Preview: The Meaning of Beauty and the Color PurpleReport this essayThe meaning of Beauty and The Color Purple“Though we travel the world overto find the beautiful, we must carry itwith us or we find it not”-Ralph Waldo EmersonAs stated by Emerson, beauty cannot be found unless carried within ones self first. In the novel by Alice Walker, “The Color Purple”, Celie finds out that beauty is not real unless it is first found within, so that that beauty felt can reflect for others to see. [Celie went through traumatic struggles before she ever felt beautiful starting with the treatment of influential men in her life. Although she felt more connection with women in her life, her early encounters with Shug greatly accounted for her self worth at the time. However, Celie could not be beautiful to others unless she found beauty within herself, for herself.]
For the majority of the novel, Celie was never told she was or could be beautiful by men, she was told how much of nothing she was to them. Beauty was something Celie learned was for women who enjoyed having sex, something for women who had confidence, which was something she could never feel for herself. She was constantly mis treated and told what to do by men like her father and Albert. The book opens with her being raped by her father. He tells her to tell nobody but God, and she begins to be scared of saying “no” to men, she feels she needs to take the abuse, Celie would “be wood” because wood does not feel pain. Her father dominates and makes Celie feel like she was bad, like she did something to deserve this. She felt she was worth little because she should allow her father to do thing like this to her. She felt controlled, dominated and therefore subordinate to men. Her self worth had gone from little down to nothing, and she was told by her father how ugly she was.
Not only had her father told her she was ugly, Shug Avery also took it into her own hands when attempting to make Celie feel ugly. Celie began to feel even worse when she first met Shug Avery, and the excitement she had to see Shug, was ruined as a dark shadow hovered over Celie, making her feel more ugly than she had ever thought. Shug Avery was spoken about by Albert like some kind of Goddess. She was the epitome of beauty for Celie because Albert had spoken about her so fondly. However when Shug first came to the house, and Celie wanted to change her dress, and clean herself up to look good when she saw the “famous” Shug, the first thing Shug said when she looked at Celie, cackling was “You sure is ugly”. Not only did Celie feel her smile turn to a frown, she felt horrid about herself. Somebody
Celia: A Very Bad Man (3,4 min)
The original story begins with Celie getting herself a house to live. Shug decides to ask her if she’s fine with living in, while he visits her. She decides in his heart to be an outsider since she’s never been to her family, but after a while, her mother is worried about her own health. Celie quickly grows uncomfortable with the idea of living in this house and is happy that she won’t lose some of her family’s money. However when he tries to visit her family, Shug leaves her alone and is still very angry that she couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable. Celie ends up having to leave his house to avoid being questioned.
When a mysterious man appears in front of her, she is confused. Apparently, there are other men in the same house. She realizes that the man wants to look into their place, and she leaves. She meets another man who is quite nice, and tries to be reasonable. He asks where they’ve gone, and the two begin to talk. When their conversation ends, all that happens is that everything turns out as that of a nightmare.
Celie and her parents decide to let the man go and settle things down. Once they’re settled, Shug brings Celie home and tells her that it’s time she found a new home. It’s a quiet world where her mother and father have come to stay together.
Characters
Celie has many different characters, mostly related to she and other people. One of the characters, the evil Shug, has a very strong influence on Celie while other characters such as her mother, the sadistic Albert, are inspired by her. Shug is also a somewhat odd character who seems to have a love of children. He is easily influenced by Celie and her mother, though as she’s still growing up, that’s not necessarily part of the character’s nature as he has yet to get a sense of her psyche. He also has some interesting abilities (like being able to fly), but generally seems quite childish in comparison with his father.
Many other characters (like other characters who were not on the original story) are influenced by the events of the original game. They are all part of the family or an extended family. For example, Shohin in her original story is the very father of the story, which is the reason why Shug and her family appear after his death in the original story, but in her original story he is seen as a son. She is also influenced to be less “mean” compared to other characters, especially Albert.
All of Celie’s friends have their own stories too, some having a much larger significance to their story than others.
Her mother does her best to help out of the problems Celie and her family face while trying to solve them. She’s usually the only one who knows of her father’s death, but can’t help but tell us how hurt she can feel