Please post your response to pgs. 20-40 here. You may leave your five comments on any section/post, and are not required to comment on every post (in case that was confusing). Here are some questions to think about for this section:
*Compare/contrast Celie with Mr.___'s first wife
*How do Mr.____'s sisters react to Celie? How does this affect her?
*Analyze the effect Shug Avery has on Mr.___ and on Celie.
*Discuss Harpo's relationship with his father and the effect it has on his relationship with Sofia.
*Analyze Harpo's marriage. What are its positive effects, his concerns, and the consequences when he follows his father's advice? Will Harpo and Sofia's marriage survive?
*Why does Celie want a purple dress? What is the significance?
Analyze/discuss the following quotes:
"It like he was looking at the earth" (21).
"I don't fight. I stay where I'm told. But I'm alive" (Celie on 22). How does this statement relate to her statement "I make myself wood" (23)?
"The Queen Honeybee is back in town" (26).
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Edith Wharton
John Steinbeck
Mark Twain
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ralph Ellison
Alice Walker
23 comments:
Harpo and Sofia have a unique marriage in that they both love each other. Their marriage seems strong at first, but when Harpo becomes concerned that Sofia doesn’t listen to him and do what she is told, as Celie does, things begin to take a turn for the worst. When Harpo takes his fathers advice and tries to beat Sofia he dooms their marriage. This is because Sofia is a strong woman who will never let a man rule her. I feel that if Harpo just accepts Sofia as the strong woman she is their marriage will survive, but if he continues to try and have the upper hand their marriage is destined to end badly.
The color Purple is often related to royalty as well as things that are exotic. Purple is significant because while Celie is shopping for dress fabric she keeps Shug in mind. Celie sees Shug as 'royalty' and unknown or 'exotic'. This also helps to explain the whole 'Queen Honeybee' quote.
When Mr.____'s sisters came to visit, to a certain point, they had an uplifting affect on Celie. For example, they took her dress shopping. Celie was speechless with gratitude and she could not express how much it meant to her to have a brand new dress. Just before Celie went shopping is when she stated, "It like he was looking at the earth." This explains the loveless marriage Mr.____ has for Celie. Mr.____ couldn't even tell if she needed new clothes or not. He has no care in the world for Celie; only when he needs something from her. Even though Mr.____ cared little for Celie, his sisters picked up the role. They encouraged Celie to stand up for herself and fight back.
When Celie spelled out "G-o-d" at the beginning of her letter on pg. 20, I think that she did so because of Mr.___'s sisters coming to visit. Celie had trouble spelling many things they said (like the names of diseases) so she spelled out the name of one thing she knew she could spell.
[Is this too little? Do I need more info?]
Mr.____'s relationship with Harpo is strained. Harpo constantly strives for his father's approval by doing everything he says, but never gets it. Mr.____ is only concerned about his life, and Shug. This makes him a neglectful parent. Their relationship only gets worse because they refuse to talk to each other about their issues.
Harpo's relationship with his father also effects his relationship with Sofia. At first Sofia, and Harpo are madly in love. When Sofia will not listen to Harpo's orders he takes advice from Mr.___ to beat her. This causes problems in their marriage. It is because Harpo tries to empress his father that he does not see that beating his wife will cause problems in their marriage.
it seems like the abusive males in celies past, not to mention the bad treatment she first gets from harpo, have turned celie off of men. she talks about seeing shug avery as being the most beautiful thing shes ever seen.
also, she seems pretty smart to know the reason as to why she was jealous of sofia, proving that, u know, shes not as dumb as her pa and mr _____ say, but smart like nettie says
Mr. ______ and Harpo both have two very different marriages. I think Harpo, unlike Mr. ______, loves his wife. Harpo wanted to be a man and get married. But Mr. ______ married Celie for a nanny to take care of his kids. But then Harpo realizes that he can’t boss Sofia around like his pa does to Celie. Harpo looks up to his pa and wants to have the same relationship with Sofia as his dad does with Celie. He doesn’t understand that Sofia has a tough personality and she won’t let anyone boss her around. Harpo eventually tries beating Sofia and tries to get as strong as Sofia to take control of her.
So overall Harpo thinks that his dad knows how to treat and get respect from a woman and that causes problems with his own marriage when he tries to beat Sofia.
Mr.____ sister's support Celie in standing against the unreasonable things he does to her, which is why he has his sisters leave at one point. I think it sort of supports Celie in heer internal rebellion of Mr.____'s rule over her. As far as Shug Avery's relation to Celie and Mr.____, Celie regards her as an idol of beauty and royalty, which is also why Celie looks for the color purple. Purple has always been regarded as a color of royalty, and Shug Avery is called the "Queen Honeybee", so Celie looks up to her in that way. Mr.____ is hung up on her, and he's gone to see her all the time that shes in town. So to both Celie and Mr.___, Shug Avery is a symbol of obsession to them in my opinion.
In these pages Celie first develops a sense of what it takes to stand up to those who abuse her, men. Mr._____'s sisters demand that Mr._____ help her with chores and whatnot. This helps her realize that she must strengthen her voice to stand up for herself and that it is is possible with the results of a dress and less chores. Also it is seen with Sofia. Sofia explains that she stood up to Harpo becuase she had several sisters who stay together to fight her brothers and so on. Again Celie learns that she must develop her voice especially with the company of other women agains men. These pages are critical to Celie's development and are the first steps toward her voice.
Harpo and Sofia are both very interesting characters. Their marriage is very special because they chose to marry each other unlike Celie being forced to marry Mr. ____. It is positive because it's how a marriage should be they want to spend their lives together. Harpo longs to make his father happy with him. When his father tells Harpo that he needs to beat his wife and show her who is in charge he does it partly thinking that he will gain some amount of respect from Mr. ___. He never gets that approval and Harpo begins to tear down his marriage. Sofia fights back she does not just sit back and does what she is told like Celie, so the advice that Harpo takes from his father do a lot more harm than good.
Celie wants a purple dress because the color purple reminds Celie of Shug Avery. Since Celie thinks of Shug Avery as a outstanding figure, Celie hopes that she will be more like Shug Avery if she also wore the color purple. The significance of this color is that it is more of a color that commands attention. It will bring more attention to Celie, unlike the old "dull" clothes she used to wear.
When Mr. ____'s sisters come to visit, they seem impressed by Celie, especially with the ways she keeps the house and children clean. When Shug Avery comes to town, it seems to me that Celie starts feeling left in the shadows, but more now than before, mainly when she ends up staying at their house and Mr. ____ only pays attention to her. Celie is also left in the shadows while at church when she is cleaning and helping out. For Harpo and Sofia, they now have a baby and are married, but when Harpo gets nervous about Sofia's loyalty to him and what he says, he starts beating her, but Sofia is strong enough to fight back, as she later talks to Celie about.
Shug seemed to have a mesmerizing effect on both Celie and Mr.______. At first I think Celie was in awe as she had never seen a woman look and act like Shug did, Mr. ______ on the other hand saw Shug as the woman who he would have maarried if he could've. Knowing her from his past influenced the way he saw her.
Harpo and Sofia's marraige starts out with love, unlike many of the other marraiges so far. However when Sofia refuses to do what Harpo tells her, Harpo goes to Celie for help. Celie tells Harpo that he has to take the upper hand in the marraige and beat Sofia to get what he wants. Celie tells him this because it has all she has ever known in her life. When Harpo tries Celie's advice, Sofia fights back and refuses to be controlled by Harpo's agression. If Harpo would stop trying to take control by abusing Sofia, their marraige might be able to make it.
When Celie is abused she says that she makes herself like wood. This comment relates to how she acts when she is abused. She thinks she can do nothing about what is happening to her and must get used to the beatings. By making herself "wood" she gives away all of her feelings and emotions, and her will to do anything to stop Mr.______.
When Mr._____ sisters come around, I feel like Celie is going to get treated even worse because maybe they wont like her,like Mr._____ first wife. However I find it enlightning to know that they treat her with respect. The sisters tell Mr._____ to treat her better and buy her a material for a dress and saying she does house cleaning alot better than the first wife. I feel that shows respect on Mr.____ part for saying yes to the fabric for the dress. Maybe he is becoming more layed back and respectful to Celie.
Shug Avery makes both Celie and Mr.______ fall in love with her. Mr.______ spends all of his time with her and obviously likes her better than Celie, but Celie, instead of being angry at Mr.______ for spending time with another woman, is jealous of him because she also has feelings for Shug. Shug makes each of them stray even farther from eachother (even though they were never that close in the first place) and become closer with her.
Mr.__'s first wife didn't keep a clean house like Celie did. Also she didn't take care of the kids and didn't know how to cook well. Celie is submissive to Mr.__ unlike Annie Julia, his first wife. Annie Julia was prettier than Celie as well.
One of the reasons Celie wanted to buy a purple dress when she went shopping with Kate, Mr.__'s sister was because she thought it was a color Shug Avery would've worn. Also because she says Shug is like a "queen" to her and purple is a royal color as well as red which was another color she mentioned. This could be related to the title, The Color Purple, just saying.
Harpo and Sofia's marriage is a real relationship and they both love eachother. This makes it a positive marriage because it occured for the right reasons, and they are both happy in the relationship. Harpo is concerned because Sofia will not obey his every command because she is a strong willed person, which he tries to resolve by beating her. This doesn not work out as well as he planned because Sofia is strong and ends up hurting him instead. This marriage will survive because even though things don't work out as well as they could they both love eachother, and neither of them can cause much harm to the other.
It seems like Mr._____'s sisters feel bad for Celie. They encourage her to be strong and to stand up to him because they see how down she is because of him. Kate even gets in fights with her brother about the whole thing and tries to convince Celie to do the same. Although she doesn't get in any fights with him, their encouragement makes her feel stronger because someone is on her side.
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