Though humans have many commendable qualities to recommend them, kindness, generosity and compassion to name a few, it is, nonetheless, a species whose members are obsessed with the desire to draw distinctions between themselves and their fellows. Be they differences in race, in culture, even in the clothes they choose to wear, distinguishing oneself from the crowd appears to be essential to the human experience. This divisiveness may well be nothing more than an outgrowth of that fundamental strain of individualism that underpins human identity. If so, more's the pity; for there can be few aspects of the human character that have lead to more hatred and discord than this otherness in which we take so much pride. For this is also the fuel that has powered the racial conflicts that have divided us for so long and for which our forefathers have so much to answer. Rarely has the pain of these foolish distinctions been better rendered than in The Color Purple.
Set in rural Georgia of the early 20th century, Ms. Walker's 1982 classic centers on the very different lives of Celie and Nettie, two black sisters enduring all of life's hardship in hopes of reuniting after a long and unwelcome separation. Celie, unattractive and uneducated, is deprived of her childhood when, after sexually abusing her for years, treatment that resulted in two pregnancies, her father arranges to marry her off to a man she only refers to as Mister. Her children gone, presumed by her to have been killed by her father, Celie settles into a joyless marriage, taking solace in her letters to god and in the handful of resilient women that make her life bearable. Nettie, meanwhile, who ran away from their father's shameless schemes, is taken in by missionaries, Samuel and Corrine, who plan to travel to Africa to preach and live with the people of their ancestors. Along with their two adopted children, the missionaries take Nettie with them, beginning a decades-long stay in Africa where Nettie is mostly buffered from the Second World War and the social changes it brings to the United States.
Having thought Nettie dead, Celie is shocked when she, and her lover Shug, discover that Celie's husband has been receiving letters from Nettie for years. Uncovering them in Mister's trunk, Celie is both shattered by this darkest betrayal and heartened to realize that her sister is alive and well in Africa. But while her attempts to write Nettie back prove unsuccessful, Celie is motivated to make something of her life independent of the men she was trained to please. In this, though the two sisters are separated by thousands of miles and dozens of years, they both overcome the poverty of their youth to become successful, independent women.
Told through a series of letters penned by the sisters to one another, and from Celie to god, The Color Purple is a powerful statement about the extent to which the marginalization of minorities leads to crime and depravity. Celie lives in a world devoid of justice. There is no police to help keep her father from abusing her, no court to annul her arranged marriage to Mister, and certainly no social services capable of delivering her from the clutches of her parasitical parent. Consequently, Celie is stuck in a life of servitude until the example set for her by two women within her community empower her to carve her own business and her own happiness out of an existence that has given her nothing and a country that has done its best to forget her. But for these revelations, Celie must suffer extraordinarily, a plight which no one should have to endure to achieve enlightenment and happiness.
As much as the reader is moved by Celie's narrative, Nettie's half of the tale proves less successful. While her presence is essential to the story's potent conclusion, her contributions, otherwise, are minimal at best. But for laying the groundwork for one of Celie's key revelations, her passages are little more than descriptions of a missionary's life in Africa. While the reader is informed about the nature of such work, and while it nicely contrasts Celie's ordeals, it does little to move the reader's emotional meter.
Nonetheless, this is riveting work. Ms. Walker's decision to tell Celie's tale in a thick, ungrammatical dialect allows the reader to create a sympathetic link with Celie that the novel richly rewards. At times chilling, off-putting, gripping and heartwarming, The Color Purple is notable, emotive fiction. (4/5 Stars)
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