LITERATURE ANALYSIS #3

1. The novel begins with the protagonist, Celie writing in a journal to God because her dad beats and rapes her. Celie and her younger sister learn that a man named Mr.___ wants to marry Celie's younger sister, Nettie. Nettie's dad refuses the offer, stating that Nettie was too young. He instead offered him Celie. Mr.___ accepts the offer. Nettie soon runs away from home to join her sister. Mr.___'s sexual advances towards her prompt her to leave the house and join a missionary group to Africa, promising to write to Celie every day. Years pass and the children begin to grow. The oldest, Harpo falls with a brusque young woman named Sofia. With his wife being so brusque and assertive, Harpo began feeling intimidated because she wouldn't listen to his demands. At the advice of Celie, he decides to beat her, but she fights back. Sofia confronts her about this and they work things out. Sofia gives Celie some advice from when her father used to beat her and told her to be strong. Mr.___s mistress, Shug Avery comes to stay with them because she is sick. Shug at first treats Celie and her less-than-affluent household in a condescending manner, but the two women soon begin to develop a strong bond. Sofia becomes tired of Harpo and leaves with her children. Shortly after her departure, Harpo decides to start up a joint where Shug will sing nightly. Shug discovers the way that Mr.___ treats Celie and decides to stay and help her. Their relationship becomes more intimate as they share a romantic sexual experience one night. Sofia returns and gets in a fight with Harpo's new girlfriend, Squeak. She then gets sentenced to 12 years in prison for beating the mayor when his wife told her to be her maid. Squeak attempts to blackmail the sheriff into releasing Sofia. This results in Squeak's rape. Sofia is, however, released early and forms a close bond with Squeak. Shug returns later on with a husband. She has a record deal and is now wealthy and famous- and married. This doesn't prevent her from having a sexual relationship with Mr. ___, this time to get the letters hes been hiding from Nettie to Celie. Celie and Shug read the letters together and discover that she is going with a missionary group to Africa. Celie is at first enraged that Mr.___ hid these letters from her, as she believed her sister was dead. Through the letters, we learn that Nettie began extremely optimistic on her missionary work but soon becomes disillusioned when she discovers that women in Africa aren't treated much better than the ones in America. The men of the tribe find education to be dangerous for women. Nettie reveals to the missionaries that she is the aunt of their children. Celie gets sick and passes away. Fed up with her husband, Celie leaves along with Shug and Squeak. Celie gets a job in Tenesse and discovers that Mr.___'s economic circumstances got worse once Celie left. He promise he has changed and now allows Celie to call him by his first name and offers to marry her in spirit as well. Celie declines the offer. She later inherits the land of her childhood home and her and Shug move to that house. Shug falls in love with a woman and they leave, but Shug returns when she breaks things off with the other woman. Nettie marries to the missionary Samuel and are returning to the United States. The novel ends with Nettie, Samuel, Olivia, Adam, and Tashi arriving at Celie's house and Nettie and Celie hugging, after not seeing each other for 30 years.
2. The theme of the novel deal with the oppression of females in patriarchal societies and, in particular, feminism and sexism. Alice Walker looks at these issues through the "native" Africans' and "civilized" Caucasians' perspective. We can see the way way women are treated in Africa, only to see the situation in American only slightly better, if not, the same as theirs. The men in this novel are unloving and abased their women and treated them as inferiors. Most of the women cannot stand up to their man if he attempts to beat them, but some, like Sofia, manage to prevent this master-owner from profiliating further. Sofia is representative of the resilient spirit of a woman and their perseverance. She both talked back to the mayor when tried to debase her and refused to be beat. Celie is also forced to work for her husband and truckle to his every demand. When he has sex with her, it is unloving and cold. She also has to keep quite about Mr.___'s and a singer/dance named Shug Avery. The letters from Nettie in Africa also depict the oppression women undergo there. The only girl that attends school there are the missionary's daughter because women don't get an education in society. "There is no place here for a woman to do those things" in response to Nettie saying that his daughter "is very intelligent" and that she could become a "...teacher. A nurse." The oppression of women is also shown when Olinka's parents come to Nettie's house and demand that she ceases to teach her child. They are afraid Olinka is becoming too smart and wanting a different, more equal way of life. 
3. Since the book takes place through letters and journals, the tone of the book is very revealing, earnest, and honest. The brusqueness and seriousness is exemplified through this dialogue (which occurs after a white couple hears about Nettie's planned trip to Africa) : "Niggers going to Africa, he said to his wife. Now I have seen everything." The novel is also very unblinking as seen through Celie's description of the night she slept with Mr. ___ and Shug Avery. "All the men got they eyes glued to Shug's bosom. I got my eyes glued there too. I feel my nipples harden under my dress. My little button sort of perk up too. Shug, I say to her in my mind, Girl, you looks like a real good time, the Good Lord knows you do." The description of Sofia's beating at the hands of the serif and the police. "When I see Sofia I don't know why she still alive. They crack her skull, they crack her ribs. They tear her nose loose on one side. They blind her in one eye. She swole from head to foot. Her tongue the size of my arm, it stick out tween her teef like a piece of rubber. She can't talk. And she just about the color of a eggplant."

CHARACTERIZATION

1A. "You ugly.You skinny.You shape funny.You too scared to open your mouth to people" Mr. ____ comparing Celie to Shug. 

B. One can recognize a tool of indirect characterization by observing the different character's style of speech grammar. Nettie, the more educated sister, who always enjoyed learning and being school talks in a more formal and with proper grammar as opposed to Celie, whose speech is more broke and often uses poor grammar and slang.

C. The character's naming of other characters also gives them distinct character and are a tell-tale sign of their position in society. Celie, who is a more reserved and submissive woman calls her husband by the name Mr. ___, unlike Shug who calls him by his first name or Sofia, who addresses her husband similarly. Celie, inspired mainly by Shug, begins to stand up for herself near the end of the novel. 

D. Their clothing also does a huge deal to characterize. Celie was in a dress that was essentially made out of rags when Shug Avery. Shug was wearing the polar opposite; a huge nice new dress. This highlights the dichotomy between the lives of the two women.

The use of two different types of characterization makes the readers think deeper and think beyond the characters, but rather, to what they symbolize. 

2. The book's use of letters to tell the novel conveys an interesting and unusual syntax that is much bolder and honest then would otherwise be. For both of them, the letters provide a means of escape and a friend in the cold, isolated world they both live in. The character's diction differs from Celie to Nettie. Celie's diction is much more informal and slangy while Nettie's much more educated and formal. The diction illustrates the dichotomy between the two sisters.

3. Celie is both a dynamic and round character. She grows and matures throughout the novel and also becomes braver and begins to grow respect for herself. In the begining of the novel, Celie is extremely submissive and just accepted her position as is. She begins to change when she meets Shug and Sofia, who encourage her to stand up for herself. She becomes a little more deffiant and begins to lose her fear for men, especially her husband.

4. I definitely feel like I've met an actual person. Cellies in-depth and raw description make you feel as if you witnessed the events firsthand. She had human attributes such as her wide range of emotions and reactions. Th way she conveys her story through her journal just adds to the effect of making her seem real. Her use of slang and local colloquialism give her depth and make her much more realistic than if she just spoke in flawless sentences.