Amayrani Lopez. Mr. Sahr. Honors American Literature. 2

Amayrani Lopez Mr. Sahr Honors American Literature 2 March 2017 The Color Purple Background Information Alice Walker, the author, was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia. She was the youngest daughter of sharecroppers and grew up poor. When Walker was eight years old, she was shot in the right eye with a BB pellet while playing with two of her brothers. After she got shot in the eye, a whitish scar tissue formed, and she became self-conscious of this visible mark. She found solace in reading and writing poetry. As a child, she attended segregated schools and graduated from high school as valedictorian. She went to Spelman College in Atlanta with the help of a scholarship, but eventually switched to Sarah Lawrence College in New†¦show more content†¦Analysis The Color Purple has really short chapters that are written as letters to God and explains Celie’s hardships in the simplest way possible. Celie expresses her thoughts with poor grammar and spelling, which emphasizes the point that Celie isn’t educated. This is shown when Celie says â€Å"He wake up while I’m in the field. I been chopping cotton three hours by time he come. Us don’t say nothing to each other† (Walker 26). In the beginning, Celie’s letters discuss topics briefly rather than being developed in long paragraphs. After Nettie and Celie reconnect, Celie’s letters get longer and more detailed. She expresses her joy by writing more. It also shows how she feels entitled to express her feelings more than she did before. Next, the setting affects how the characters act. Because the setting is in rural areas of the South and Celie is a poor black women, her bad treatment is ignored, and she has little exposure to education or the outside world. Celie lives most of her life very isolated and ignorant. Celie starts to learn more about herself and the world from people who enter into her life from different worlds than hers. Shug Avery comes from the city, where she lives a liberated life. Celie leaves home and goes with Shug to Memphis, where she also becomes more liberated. Celie’s world is expanded due to her sister’s travels in Africa. Living a poor life in the South, Celie never considered her African heritage until she finds Nettie’s letters