Autorin: Christine Reichl
THE COLOR PURPLE
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
The author about the book (and the film)
Alice Walker is best known for her Pulitzer Prize - winning novel The Color Purple (1982). She depicts black women struggling for sexual as well as racial equality and emerging as strong, creative individuals. Her negative portraits of black men have been criticized on political and aesthetic grounds, but many have responded by arguing that the drama of women achieving selfhood is an important end in itself.
I would like to quote here Alice Walker from a speech she gave on March 29th, 1996 when she reflected on abuse, racism, criticism and revealed personal connections to The Color Purple. She begins with a letter she had written to Danny Glover who embodies Celie's abusal husband Mr.___ in the film. Alice says that her grandfather has abused her grandmother for many years and explains that by bringing to life a character that was similar to him, Glover has allowed her to come to terms with her feelings for her grandfather.
Walker explains how there was an enormous controversy over whether such occurences as rape and incest, which are depicted in the book, reflect real live. Since it was filmed 10 years ago, she is often asked about her opinion of the final result. She recalls how sh egot a headache the first time seh watched it because seh felt everything about it was wrong, but her opinion changed when she attended the premiere. While the film received 10 Academy Award nominations and much praise, Walker said it was also attacked by people who loathed it and accused her of hating (black) men and being a lesbian.
Walker says that the film was a gift for her mother. She has mirrored one of the characters, Nettie, after her mother with the exception that she had given her all the adventure and no children.
"For me, the filming of my book was a journey to the imagined and vastly rearranged lives of my mother, father and grandparents," she says. "It was a recreated world I hoped desperately my mother would live long enough to enter again through film."
"Even though I write books and believe very much in books, the truth is, as you all know, we have become a fairly illiterate culture. In order to communicate real things that you need to say to people, you also need to think of something visual and I do this with films." Although her book was made into a film, Walker says she feels that movies often destroy a person's ability to dream from deep within them. She states that there is a connection between a person's dreams and the path he takes.
This is the story of two sisters, Celie and Nettie, keeping a relationship which sustains time, distance and silence over many years, a story about love between two women and extreme male abuse and brutality.
Summary
The story is written from the sight of Celie in form of a diary which contains letters first to God, then to her younger sister Nettie. You can call this kind of book Epistolary Novel. When Celie is 14 years old, her stepfather, who she thinks is her father, begins to rape her, causing the birth of two children which he gives away to a missionary friend of his. A short time after her mother has died, Celie is married with Mr.___, her abusive husband who wanted to marry Nettie but her stepfather said no. Nettie runs away from home and comes to their house, but she rejects Mr.___, so he kicks her out on the street and Celie sends her to the same missionaries who have unknowingly adopted her children (a girl called Olivia and a boy called Adam). Nettie goes with them to Africa as a missionary, where she stays for thirty years, faithfully writing letters to her sister, never knowing if she's receiving them.
After years of abuse, Celie begins to become more optimistic when Shug Avery, a blues singer and old lover of Mr.___'s, is brought home by him because she's sick, so that Celie can nurse her. The two women fall in love with each other. Then, Celie finds out that Mr.___had hidden all the letters Nettie had written to her over the years. She starts to read them where Nettie's live is revealed. She lives with Corrine and Samuel and with Celie's children by the Olinka in a small village in West Africa. They all teach and nurse and Samuel preaches. Because there is such a strong ressemblance between Nettie and the childre, Corrine thinks that she's her mother and so agonizes herself to death. After she dies, Samuel and Nettie decide to get married and Adam marries Tashi, an Olinkan woman and they all return to America.
Meanwhile, Celie leaves Mr.___ to go to Memphis with Shug. Here they live in Shug's house. She makes a good living with singing and Celie starts to sew pants, first for Shug, then finally makes a business out of this hobby. But as Celie is away for some time to look after the house she has inheritted from her stepfather, Shug leaves her to have an affair with a 19 year old boy which whom she travels around to the Southwest to visit Shug's grown-up children. Celie stays in her house, forgives and becomes friends with Mr.___, who has changed a lot. Before and when Shug comes back, she is very happy with her friends and her sewing. At the end, the last thing to make her life perfect, her sister and her children, come home to her even if she had received a telegram saying that their ship had been sunk a long time ago.
Characters
Celie: The main character of the book has a very hard life. She was abused as a child, had to give up her two children and went right from one bad situation to another, suffering through a loveless marriage, the only happiness being Shug Avery, with whom she falls in love and who learns her how to be as strong and woman. In the beginning, Celie is weak and poor, but after she had lived with Shug, she is beautiful and indepentent adn able to forgive her husband for all the abuse.
Nettie: Celie's sister has chosen an easier life, sheltered from the abuse her older sister has lived through. She was always good at school and in learning and teached Celie when her stepfather didn't allow her to go to school anymore because of her pregnancy. Nettie has lived in Africa as a missionary and brought up her niece and nephew, whom she always saw as her own children.
Mr.___: Celie's husband had first fallen in love with Nettie but had to marry Celie. He loved Shug Avery through his whole life and even had children with her, but was so controlled by his father so that he couldn't marry her. He always hit Celie, for the only reason that she wasn't Shug (or like her). He has kids, but isn't a very good father. I think Celie calls him Mr.___, which sounds very anonymous, because she never felt near to him. She doesn't even know his Christian name for a long time. Only in the end, when they become friends, she calls him Albert in her letters. The ___ in his name is there to represent how Celie doesn't know anything abour him.
Shug Avery: Mr.___'s ex-lover is an amazing and famous jazz singer who always says what's on her mind. She is strong enough to stand up against Mr.___ who would never hit her. In the beginning, she treats Celie like a maid, but then they fall in love and she protects her best as she can, she's the first one in her life to take care of her.
Sofia: She is the wife of Mr.___'s son Harpo, which was a marriage out of love, but she leaves him, because he wants to beat her, and goes to live with her sisters.
One day, she hits the white major in town because she doesn't want to become his maid and this event changes her life. From then on she is arrested for many years for insulting a white person. Later, she has to become the white people's maid, but without the right to see her own children and finally she is free to live at home again and returns to her husband.
Shug and Celie
Häufig gestellte Fragen zu THE COLOR PURPLE
Worum geht es in "The Color Purple"?
"The Color Purple" erzählt die Geschichte zweier Schwestern, Celie und Nettie, deren Beziehung trotz Zeit, Distanz und Schweigen über viele Jahre hinweg bestehen bleibt. Es ist eine Geschichte über die Liebe zwischen zwei Frauen und extreme männliche Gewalt und Brutalität.
Wer ist Celie?
Celie ist die Hauptfigur des Buches. Sie hat ein sehr hartes Leben hinter sich. Sie wurde als Kind missbraucht, musste ihre beiden Kinder weggeben und geriet von einer schlimmen Situation in die nächste, wobei sie eine lieblose Ehe durchlebte. Das einzige Glück war Shug Avery, in die sie sich verliebt und die ihr beibringt, stark und eine Frau zu sein. Am Anfang ist Celie schwach und arm, aber nachdem sie mit Shug zusammengelebt hat, ist sie schön und unabhängig und in der Lage, ihrem Mann all den Missbrauch zu verzeihen.
Wer ist Nettie?
Nettie, Celies Schwester, hat ein leichteres Leben gewählt, abgeschirmt von dem Missbrauch, den ihre ältere Schwester erlebt hat. Sie war immer gut in der Schule und im Lernen und unterrichtete Celie, als ihr Stiefvater ihr wegen ihrer Schwangerschaft nicht mehr erlaubte, zur Schule zu gehen. Nettie hat in Afrika als Missionarin gelebt und ihre Nichte und ihren Neffen aufgezogen, die sie immer als ihre eigenen Kinder ansah.
Wer ist Mr.___?
Celies Ehemann hatte sich zuerst in Nettie verliebt, musste aber Celie heiraten. Er liebte Shug Avery sein ganzes Leben lang und hatte sogar Kinder mit ihr, wurde aber so von seinem Vater kontrolliert, dass er sie nicht heiraten konnte. Er schlug Celie immer, aus dem einzigen Grund, dass sie nicht Shug war (oder wie sie). Er hat Kinder, ist aber kein sehr guter Vater. Ich denke, Celie nennt ihn Mr.___, was sehr anonym klingt, weil sie sich ihm nie nahe gefühlt hat. Sie kennt seinen Vornamen lange Zeit nicht einmal. Erst am Ende, als sie Freunde werden, nennt sie ihn in ihren Briefen Albert. Das ___ in seinem Namen soll darstellen, dass Celie nichts über ihn weiß.
Wer ist Shug Avery?
Mr.___'s Ex-Geliebte ist eine erstaunliche und berühmte Jazzsängerin, die immer sagt, was sie denkt. Sie ist stark genug, um sich gegen Mr.___ zu behaupten, der sie nie schlagen würde. Am Anfang behandelt sie Celie wie ein Dienstmädchen, aber dann verlieben sie sich und sie beschützt sie so gut sie kann, sie ist die Erste in ihrem Leben, die sich um sie kümmert.
Wer ist Sofia?
Sie ist die Frau von Mr.___'s Sohn Harpo, was eine Liebesheirat war, aber sie verlässt ihn, weil er sie schlagen will, und zieht zu ihren Schwestern.
Eines Tages schlägt sie den weißen Major in der Stadt, weil sie nicht sein Dienstmädchen werden will, und dieses Ereignis verändert ihr Leben. Von da an wird sie viele Jahre lang wegen Beleidigung einer weißen Person verhaftet. Später muss sie das Dienstmädchen der Weißen werden, aber ohne das Recht, ihre eigenen Kinder zu sehen, und schließlich ist sie frei, wieder zu Hause zu leben und kehrt zu ihrem Mann zurück.
Wie ist die Beziehung zwischen Shug und Celie?
Die Beziehung zwischen diesen beiden Frauen geht sehr tief. Beide helfen einander, das zu werden, was sie wirklich sein wollen, weil beide unterdrückte Menschen waren. Celie wurde durch ihren Mangel an Liebe und Selbstwertgefühl unterdrückt. Shug ist im Bild anderer Leute von ihr gefangen. Was sie wirklich wollen, ist, Mitglieder einer liebevollen Familie zu werden, weil sie das nie wirklich hatten. Beide Frauen wurden zu dem, was ihnen gesagt wurde, dass sie es werden würden. Celie wurde von Anfang an gesagt, dass sie hässlich, nutzlos und wertlos sei, also dachte sie immer, dass es so sei. Shug sagten die Leute immer, sie sei eine Hure, und so wurde sie zu einer Frau, die von jedem Mann gewollt und von jeder Frau gehasst wurde. Für beide war ihre Freundschaft die erste Gelegenheit, sich zu öffnen und über ihre Probleme zu sprechen. Celie war für Liebe und Geborgenheit von Shug abhängig, und die Liebe, die sie füreinander hatten, kann als eine Art Lesbianismus interpretiert werden. Aber selbst wenn ihre Beziehung einen erotischen Touch hatte, ist die mütterliche Art und Weise, wie die Frauen übereinander dachten, viel wichtiger. Beide waren gleichzeitig Baby und Mutter.
- Arbeit zitieren
- Christine REICHL (Autor:in), 2000, Walker, Alice - The Color Purple, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/98028
