Name ___________________________

Objective:
● Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately
through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
● Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from
the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

Directions:

1. Watch the clips of The Color Purple movie linked in each box below. Then, locate the identified portions of text (or similar
portions) within the novel.
2. In the boxes below, reflect on what is seen in the novel and film and provide a poignant quote from that section of text, cited
accurately in MLA format, in the novel boxes.
3. Then, provide analysis to identify what the text reveals about the educational, social and/or healthcare needs of the
character/s within the scene. Your analysis must be at least two complete sentences of analytical thought showing your
understanding of how the text connects to the case study.
4. Lastly, Read “Why Whoopi Goldberg Had No Problem With Spielberg Directing ‘The Color Purple’ and complete the reflection
after the chart to consider how the film and its director impact your thinking.

The Color
Purple Novel
by Alice
Walker
The Juke Joint The novel describes how Squeak
https://youtu.be/
TBKY_UvQ-Qs stayed out of the situation in the
beginning and just looked sad.
When Squeak got the nerve to say
something, she went up acting all
tough. The part when Squeak
confronts Sofia is pretty similar as it
is in the film, she slaps her and then
Sofia; “ball up her fist, draw back,
Film
It was a longer scene in the film than
in the novel, and there were more
people fighting in the film than
described in the novel. Celie was
close to laughing during the scene in
the film and when Sofia punched
Squeak, Squeak fell into some water
which didn’t happen in the novel.
Analysis
This scene was an example of how
Sofia always fights her own battles
and doesn’t put up with any drama ro
nonsense. The film showed Celie
almost laughing when this scene was
happening which could imply that she
enjoyed watching Sofia stand up for
herself and fight her own fight.
Name ___________________________
and knocktwo of Squeak’s side teef
out,” (Walker 82).
Sofia and Mrs. The novel described Henry as being
Millie
https://youtu.be/ right next to Sofia the whole time
Iy2GKyD2IoQ but the film showed him across the
street. Miss Mille asks Sofia to be
her maid and Sofia responds
multiple times by saying; “Hell no,”
(Walker 85). Celie is telling the story
to Squeak and she stops at the part
when the mayor slaps Sofia for
being rude to his wife. Celie then
continued the story after but it was
hard for her to and made her eyes
water.
Shug and Celie The novel didn’t say any of the
https://youtu.be/
eK3URAH760w actual lyrics Shug sang besides
Celie’s name and that it was about
a man doing her wrong. “It all about
some no count man doing her
wrong,” (Walker 72). The novel
didn’t describe much of Celie’s
emotions during or after the song.
American and The novel didn’t go into a lot of
Olinka Customs
detail about the experience Tashi
*Trigger had when she had her face scarred.
warning--
violent content
The novel focused on Nettie’s
is seen in this thoughts and views of the scarring,
The film showed Sofia’s children a
lot more than the novel described it
as. There was a much bigger crowd
swarming Sofia when she punched
the Mayor than in the novel too.
Henry was across the road from
Sofia and the kids when Sofia
punched the mayor, Henry tried to
yell at her not to do it. WHen the
crowd of people started to swarm
and yell at her, Sofia yelled to Henry
to take the children and keep them
safe.
In the film Shug sang a whole song
with lyrics. She looked at Celie the
whole time while singing it too. Mr.__
had his head down and away from
shug the whole time she sang the
song about Celie. Celie looked
grateful and very happy while Shug
sang the song to her.
The film showed the shaving scene
and Olinka customs one after
another with each clip. The children
looked very scared in the film during
the ceremony when their faces were
The film brought a lot more emotion to
the scene as a watcher and it did
when I read the scene from the novel.
This is again another example of Sofia
standing up for herself but this time it
got her into a lot of trouble. Sofia
cared a lot about her children and their
safety as shown in the film because
some of her first words and thoughts
were to keep her children safe. In the
novel when Celie was telling the story
it seemed hard for her to finish it
because it brought tears to her eyes,
this shows that she cared a lot for
Sofia. This could also imply that Celie
is inspired by Sofia.
The meanings of the song in the novel
and the film seemed to different but I
don’t think the meaning was supposed
to be a big deal. In this part of the
novel and the film you can see that
Celie has feelings for Shug the way
that she thinks and looks at her. Celie
looks up to Shug a lot.
The novel described how worried and
against Celie was about scarring or
cutting of tribal marks on young
women. This shows how much Nettie
cares about the children even if they
Name ___________________________

clip which she was against. “It is the about to be sacred. The film also are not technically hers.
https://youtu.be/ way the Olinka can show they still showed Celie to have a lot of anger
JHmBr6rlCRo have their own ways,” (Walker 237). towards Mr.__ when shaving him.

Reflection
Read “Why Whoopi Goldberg Had No Problem With Spielberg Directing ‘The Color Purple’”
(https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/why-whoopi-goldberg-had-no-problem-with-spielberg-directing-the-color-purple.html/).
Then, respond below in paragraph format and answer the following questions:

Do you think that Steven Spielberg (film director) left out, combined or distorted portions of the novel? How do the changes made in
the film impact your thinking, if at all? Do you think if Spielberg were an African-American director his understanding and thus
direction would have changed? Why or why not? Lastly, what makes him qualified to direct this movie?

I think that Steven Spielberg changed some portions of the novel but not in a way that changed the meaning of those
portions. The same overall plot of the book was seen in the film. The changes made in the film didn’t change my thoughts about the
novel or the main meaning behind each scene. I do think that Spielberg would have had a different understanding of the book if he
was African-American but he didn’t change the film enough to have taken away from the meaning behind the book. Goldberg had a
very good point about how Spielberg got a lot of criticism for directing the movie but no one else was stepping up to direct the movie
any time soon. Spielberg is a good director so he was qualified to direct this movie and he took a challenge that not many other
people were willing to.