Lauren Queen Blue Group The Color Purple A.

) The Color Purple takes place in Georgia in the early 1900s, and it follows the life of young woman named

Celie. The movie centers around the theme, which is: sometimes taking a stand in your life can be helped by your friends. The movie begins with Celie, at the age of 14, being pregnant with the second child from her father. After giving birth to the child, her father sells the baby girl just like he did with her first born son. During this part of the movie Celies sister Nettie is constantly with Celie. Nettie acts as a support system for Celie and is the only one actually loves Celie. Nettie and Celies father marries a new woman, and during the service, Albert (who Celia calls Mister) is introduced. Albert is attracted to Nettie, but her father refuses to let him marry her because she s too young and pretty; however, he tells Albert he can have Celie instead. Miste r takes Celia back to her house where she suffers through a few months of abuse where Mister hits her, rapes her, makes her clean her house, and take care of her children. One day Nettie comes to live with Celie and Mister after their father tries to rape her. Nettie lives with Celia and Mister for a while until Mister follows Nettie on her way to school and tries to rape her. Nettie escapes Mister who then throws out Nettie, who while being thrown out, swears that Only death can keep me from writing! More time passes and Celie continues to live with Mister without receiving a single letter from Nettie, who Celia believes to be dead, and then one day, Shug Avery, Misters lover comes into town. Shug is sick, and Mister tries to care for her. Unfortunately, Master is inept at taking care of Shug; therefore, Celie ends up being the one taking care of Shug. All the time Shug and Celie spend together leads them to become good friends. Celie also ends up falling in love with Shug and the two kiss one night in Shugs bedroom. Shug helps Celie overcome her fears and one day the two go through Misters stuff and they discover the letters from Nettie that he had been hiding all these years. Celie finds out Nettie has been living with missionaries in Africa along with Celies long lost children. Celie then attempts to kill Mister because she is so angry over the letters, but is stopped by Shug, who takes Celie to Memphis with her. Time passes and everyone ages Misters life seems to fall apart since Celie left him, but he makes amends by paying to have Nettie and Celies children come back to America. Celies life in contrast has been much better since she left Mister, but it becomes even better when at the end she is reunited with Nettie and her children.

B.)

The movie The Color Purple takes place in early 1900s in the Deep South. The movie explores many

aspects of the time period. Racial and gender issues are the two biggest aspects portrayed. The Color Purple detailed life on a rural Georgia farm in the early 20th century, down to the smell of a rain storm and the crinkly sound of aged parchment (Cabin; Slant Magazine). While the movie was fairly historically accurate, it did have some biases in it. The movie seemed to have a bias against African American me n. In the movie, African-American women are strong, brave, true and will endure, but African-American men are weak, cruel or comic caricatures (Ebert; robertebert.com). Many African-Americans did not like the stereotype that was portrayed of African American men in the movie. They believed that it perpetuates the image that black men are rapists and irresponsible thugs (Page, Siskel, Scott; A&E). This bias was a bit inevitable however because the movie celebrates womanhood and talks about a woman discovering herself, and because this story is about women..the male characters are flat and this offends a lot of men (Page; A&E). Despite this bias, the movie does a very good portrayal of life at this time. C2.) The Color Purple contains several examples of imagery and metaphor. The first example is the field full of

purple flowers. The purple flowers, while they are an obvious reference to the title of the movie, they also represent beauty. In the movie, Shug tells Celie that purple is the most beautiful color God ever created. The flowers make an appearance during several parts of the movie, specifically the beautiful moments. For instance, when Celie and Nettie are playing together in the beginning of the movie, when Shug is giving Celie advice about being strong in the field, and when Celie and Nettie are reunited at the end of the movie. The next example of imagery and metaphor in the movie are the letters from Nettie. The letters represent the amount of control Mister has over Celie. When Mister is hiding the letters from Celie, he is at the height of his control over her. Once Celie finds the letters and begins to read them, his hold over her begins to slip and is eventually lost as she becomes more defiant and aggressive. The final example of imagery and metaphor in the movie is clothing. The clothing that each character wears depicts the quality of their life. In the beginning of the movie Mister wears nice clothes, but the quality of clothes decline as the movie progresses because his quality of life declines. When Shug is first introduced in the movie, her clothes are bit on the sleazy side, but as she begins to mature and lead a less fast-paced life, her clothes become more appropriate and less flashy. Celies clothes for most of the movie are ill -fitting and dirty, but once she begins to gain more confidence and break away from her abused life, her clothes reflect this by becoming cleaner and better looking.

Works Cited

Cabin, Chris. "The Color Purple." Slant Magazine. Ed. Slant Magazine. Slant Magazine, 4 Feb. 2011. Web. 2 Dec. 2012. <http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/the-colorpurple/1928>.

Ebert, Roger. "The Color Purple (1985)." Rogerebert.com. Ed. Rogerebert.com. Chicago Sunt-Times, 28 Mar. 2004. Web. 2 Dec. 2012. <http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040328/REVIEWS08/403 280301/1023>.

Page, Clarence, Gene Siskel, and Ruby Scott. "Does 'Purple' Hate Men?: Women Love It, but Men Are Seeing Red." A&E. Ed. Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune, 5 Jan. 1986. Web. 2 Dec. 2012. <http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-0105/entertainment/8601020159_1_black-males-black-men-color-purple>.