The novel has been the target of censors numerous times, and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000–2010 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence.[2][3] In 2003, the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novels."[4]
Celie, a poor African-American girl, lives in rural Georgia in the early 1900s. She writes letters to God because her father Alphonso beats and rapes her. Due to the rape, she gives birth to two children, Olivia and Adam, whom Alphonso takes away. A farmer identified as "Mister" (Mr.__) asks to marry her younger sister Nettie, but Alphonso offers him Celie instead. Celie is abused by Mister and mistreated by his prior children. Nettie runs away and stays with Celie, but Mister eventually makes her leave after she refuses his unwanted sexual advances. Nettie promises to write, Celie never receives any letters, and Celie concludes that she is dead.
Mister's son Harpo marries an assertive girl named Sofia. Celie is impressed by Sofia's self-esteem, but Mister chides Harpo for what he considers weakness in his treatment of Sofia. In a moment of envy, Celie tells Harpo to beat Sofia. Sofia fights back and confronts Celie, who apologizes and confides in her about Mister's abuse.
Shug Avery, a jazz and blues singer and Mister's long-time mistress, moves in. Celie takes care of Shug, who is ill. While Shug is initially rude to Celie, the two become friends and Celie becomes infatuated with Shug. Frustrated by Harpo's domineering behavior, Sofia moves out, taking her children with her. Several months later, Harpo opens a juke joint where a fully recovered Shug performs nightly. Shug learns that Mister beats Celie, and vows to stay at the house until she is convinced he will stop. Shug and Celie grow closer and the women make love.
Shug tells Celie to go with her and they can be together as girlfriends and live freely. The day of Shug's departure arrives and Celie packs her bags and is about to leave with her but she is caught by Mister and Shug leaves while Celie suffers from the departure of her beloved and fears what awaits her now with Mister.
Sofia returns for a visit and gets into a fight with Harpo's new girlfriend, Squeak. She has a verbal spat with the mayor's wife, Miss Millie, and after the mayor slaps her, she hits him back. She is beaten by the police and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Squeak tricks the warden, her white uncle, into releasing Sofia from prison and having her work as Miss Millie's maid. The plan works, but the warden rapes Squeak. Sofia is released from prison and forced to work for Miss Millie, which she detests. Squeak cares for Sofia's children, and the two women become friends.
Shug returns to town, newly married to a man called Grady. Together, they learn that Mister has hidden letters from Nettie for years. In the letters, Nettie says she has befriended a missionary couple, Samuel and Corrine, and gone to Africa with them. Samuel and Corrine had unwittingly adopted Adam and Olivia. Through Samuel's story of the adoption, Nettie learns that Alphonso is her and Celie's stepfather. Their biological father was lynched, and their mother then suffered a mental collapse that Alphonso exploited. Nettie confesses to Samuel and Corrine that she is the children's biological aunt. Corrine, gravely ill, refuses to believe Nettie until Nettie reminds her that she had previously met Celie. Later, Corrine dies, having accepted Nettie's story.
Celie visits Alphonso, who confirms Nettie's story. Celie confides to Shug that she is losing faith in God; Shug explains to Celie her own unique religious philosophy. Celie, Shug and Squeak decide to leave town; Celie curses Mister before leaving him. They settle in Memphis, Tennessee; Celie starts a pants-making business.
Alphonso dies. Celie inherits land that rightfully should have been passed down to her and Nettie because it belonged to her biological father and mother. She moves back into her childhood home. Celie is crushed when Shug falls in love with Germaine, a member of her band. Shug travels with Germaine, writing postcards to Celie. Celie pledges to love Shug even if Shug does not love her back. Celie learns that Mister is suffering from a considerable decline in fortunes, and begins calling him by his first name, Albert. Mister proposes that they marry "in the spirit as well as in the flesh", but Celie declines.
Nettie and Samuel marry and prepare to return to America. Before they leave, Adam marries Tashi, an African girl. Following tradition, Tashi undergoes female genital mutilation and facial scarring. In solidarity, Adam undergoes the same facial scarring ritual.
As Celie realizes that she is content without Shug, Shug returns, having ended her relationship with Germaine. Nettie, Samuel, Olivia, Adam and Tashi arrive at Celie's house. Nettie and Celie reunite after 30 years, introducing one another to their respective families.
The book received greater scrutiny amidst controversy surrounding the release of the film adaptation in 1985.[10] The controversy centered around the depiction of black men, which some critics saw as feeding stereotypical narratives of black male violence, while others found the representation compelling and relatable.[11]
Though the novel has garnered critical acclaim, it has also been the subject of controversy. The American Library Association placed it on the list of top hundred banned and challenged books in the United States from 1990 to 1999 (17),[13] 2000 to 2009 (17),[14] and 2010 to 2019 (50),[15] as well as the top ten list for 2007 (6) and 2009 (9).[16] Commonly cited justifications for banning the book include sexual explicitness, explicit language, violence, and homosexuality.[17]
In 2018, Warner Bros. announced that they would be releasing a new film adaptation of The Color Purple, based on the musical.[22] Spielberg and Quincy Jones return to produce this version, along with the stage musical's producers Scott Sanders and Oprah Winfrey.[22] The film opened on December 25, 2023.[23]
Boycotting Israel
As part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), the author declined publication of the book in Israel in 2012.[24] This decision was criticized by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who argued that Walker "resorted to bigotry and censorship against Hebrew-speaking readers of her writings".[25] In a letter to Yediot Books, Walker stated that she would not allow her book to be published in Israel while the country maintained its system of apartheid.[26]
Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awarded for her novel The Color Purple. Over the span of her career, Walker has published seventeen novels and short story collections, twelve non-fiction works, and collections of essays and poetry.
Akosua Gyamama Busia is a Ghanaian actress, writer and songwriter. She is known to film audiences for playing Nettie Harris in the 1985 film The Color Purple. She is the daughter of Ghanaian Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia.
Margaret Avery is an American actress. She began her career appearing on stage and later had starring roles in films including Cool Breeze (1972), Which Way Is Up? (1977), Scott Joplin (1977); which earned her an NAACP Image Award nomination, and The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979). She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Shug Avery in the period drama film The Color Purple (1985).
Marsha Norman is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. She received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play 'night, Mother. She wrote the book and lyrics for such Broadway musicals as The Secret Garden, for which she won a Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and The Red Shoes, as well as the libretto for the musical The Color Purple and the book for the musical The Bridges of Madison County. She was co-chair of the playwriting department at The Juilliard School until stepping down in 2020.
Alice McDermott is an American writer and university professor. She is the author of nine novels and a collection of essays. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the International Dublin IMPAC Award and The Orange Prize. That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her most recent novel, Absolution was awarded the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.
Ann Philippa Pearce OBE FRSL was an English author of children's books. Best known of them is the time-slip novel Tom's Midnight Garden, which won the 1958 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, as the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject. Pearce was a commended runner-up for the Medal a further four times.
Gloria Naylor was an American novelist, known for novels including The Women of Brewster Place (1982), Linden Hills (1985) and Mama Day (1988).
African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. Olaudah Equiano was an African man who wrote The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, an autobiography published in 1789 that became one of the first influential works about the transatlantic slave trade and the experiences of enslaved Africans. His work was published sixteen years after Phillis Wheatley's work. She was an enslaved African woman who became the first African American to publish a book of poetry, which was published in 1773. Her collection, was titled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.
The Color Purple is a 1985 American epic coming-of-age period drama film that was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Menno Meyjes. It is based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker and was Spielberg's eighth film as a director, marking a turning point in his career as it was a departure from the summer blockbusters for which he had become known. It was also the first feature film directed by Spielberg for which John Williams did not compose the music, instead featuring a score by Quincy Jones, who also produced. The film stars Whoopi Goldberg in her breakthrough role, with Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery, and Adolph Caesar.
A chifforobe, also chiffarobe or chifferobe, is a closet-like piece of furniture that combines a long space for hanging clothes with a chest of drawers. Typically the wardrobe section runs down one side of the piece, while the drawers occupy the other side. It may have two enclosing doors or have the drawer fronts exposed and a separate door for the hanging space.
The following are the Pulitzer Prizes for 1983.
The Color Purple is a musical with music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, based on the 1982 novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker and its 1985 film adaptation. The musical follows the journey of Celie, an African American woman in the American South from the early to mid-20th century.
Possessing the Secret of Joy is a 1992 novel by Alice Walker.
Dorothy Bryant (1930–2017) was an American novelist, playwright, essayist and feminist writer.
The Temple of My Familiar is a 1989 novel by Alice Walker. It is an ambitious and multi-narrative novel containing the interleaved stories of Arveyda, a musician in search of his past; Carlotta, his Latin American wife who lives in exile from hers; Suwelo, a black professor of American History who realizes that his generation of men have failed women; Fanny, his ex-wife about to meet her father for the first time; and Lissie, a vibrant creature with a thousand pasts.
Cynthia Onyedinmanasu Chinasaokwu Erivo is a British actress and singer. She gained recognition for starring in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple from 2015 to 2017, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Erivo ventured into films in 2018, playing roles in the heist film Widows and the thriller Bad Times at the El Royale. For her portrayal of American abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the biopic Harriet (2019), Erivo received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she also wrote and performed the song "Stand Up" on its soundtrack, which garnered her a nomination in the Best Original Song category.
"Miss Celie's Blues", also known as "Sister", is a song from the Steven Spielberg film The Color Purple (1985), with music by Quincy Jones and Rod Temperton and lyrics by the two of them with Lionel Richie, performed by Táta Vega. The song was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song in 1986.
The Color Purple is a 2023 American musical period drama film directed by Blitz Bazawule. Marcus Gardley's screenplay is based on the stage musical of the same name, which in turn is based on the 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker. It is the second film adaptation of the novel, following the 1985 film directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Spielberg and Quincy Jones. Spielberg and Jones return as producers for the 2023 film, along with its Broadway producers Scott Sanders and Oprah Winfrey, the latter of whom also starred in the 1985 film.
The Color Purple: Music From the Motion Picture is the soundtrack album to the film of the same name released in November 1986 by Qwest Records. It consists of an original score composed by Quincy Jones and original songs performed by various artists.
The Color Purple is the 2023 film adaptation of the stage musical of the same name, which in turn was based on Alice Walker's 1982 novel. Three soundtrack albums were released for the film.
References
Notes
↑ Walker won the 1983 award for hardcover Fiction. From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Awards history there were dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including the 1983 Fiction.
Citations
↑ "National Book Awards – 1983". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-01-26. (With essays by Anna Clark and Tarayi Jones from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
↑ Bobo, Jacqueline (January 1, 1989). "Sifting Through the Controversy: Reading The Color Purple". Callaloo (39): 332–42. doi:10.2307/2931568. JSTOR2931568.
Singh, Sonal, and Sushma Gupta. “Celie’s Emancipation in the Novel The Color Purple.” International Transactions in Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, Dec. 2010, pp.218–221.Humanities International Complete.
Tahir, Ary S. “Gender Violence in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.” Journal of Language and Literature Education, no. 11, 2014, pp.1–19. Literature Resource Center, doi:10.12973/jlle.11.243.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
