The color purple shades of gender discrimination Research Paper

The color purple shades of gender discrimination - Research Paper Example Even people that have not met before recall good old times like old friends do, and this just shows that nobody, and nothing can ever be too far away. This is something we can all be thankful for, in this modern age of technology. The truth be told, this phenomenon of globalizing just about anything was anything but ordinary, as Alice Walker tells through her story The Color Purple. Written in such a way that highlights the most-likely unheard-of situations in Georgia during the 1940’s, this kind of setting was very much near to what Walker had experienced when she was growing up in Jim Crow South (White). Being the daughter of a sharecropper, and living in a place that has a strong discrimination against African-Americans, she got engaged with the need to be free, just like any other person, regardless of the color of their skin. Through these eyes, Walker was able to show many readers the feelings and situations of African-American women that, aside from the color of their s kin, were also looked down upon by their own people too, because they were females. She herself was a witness to such injustice, because she grew up seeing her father doing it to her mother and her female siblings (Bates). Although many women were already starting to awaken and realize their potentials, their contributions as well as the power of their own thoughts, they were still considered as deviant, in being different from what is considered normal (â€Å"Deviant†). This form of deviance from the picture of being an obedient, quiet and dutiful wife fueled many African-American women’s need to be recognized more or less an equal of men, and thus need a redemption from the common norms, as portrayed in some of Walker’s stories (Bloom). The Color Purple delves into the thoughts and feelings of two sisters, Celie and Nettie, whose bond was so strong that even if their only connection for a very long time was through their letters to one another. Even if they ha ve gone through so much hardship, it was like they never were separated. The whole story was written in such a way that it was narrated through letters exchanged between the two sisters, during the time when Nettie, the younger sister decided to work as a missionary-teacher in a remote part of Africa for a long time, and when her sister Celie was starting to recognize what she actually wants in life. Even though it took a very long time for the two sisters to reconcile, in the end everything came in full circle upon their much awaited meeting. Aside from the struggles of being women in a male-dominated world, the story also shows the different kinds of relationships among kin, friends, and lovers that eventually shape a human being’s personality as a whole. The story began as Celie’s letter to God, because she mustn’t tell anybody about what happened to her, lest she gets killed (Walker 1). She wrote to God how her mother was getting sicker and sicker, how she g ot raped twice by their Pa Fonso, the man whom they thought was their real father, how she bore him a daughter then a son, and both were taken away from her when they were still a few months old. Since what happened, she never had a good relationship with her Pa, or any other man. She just stayed quiet and submissive, even after her Pa had her married to a certain Mr.____, which she chose not to give a name (Walker 6). Although Mr.____ would have wanted to marry Nettie, Fonso decided that since Celie was already spoilt (she already had two children), she would be