Lesson ECP-7

An essay about the book ''The Color Purple''. The main character in the book is Celie and story of her life being a black women in the society futhermore you can see the postcolonial theory in her story, an exampel would be otherness or eurocintrism. The book was very much on from right the begining because we get to know that Celies father Rapes her and that was just the start furthermore we see that he abuses her both sexually and physiqilly. Later on her father impregnants her with a boy but she did not get then chance to raise the child because her father takes him away, she belielives that he was killed. It does not stop there and she did not seemed well but then he impregnants her again with a second child and this time it was girl, bacause of the last time her child got taken away by her father she did not want that to happen again so she gave her up for adoption so her father could not get his hands on the child. She has a very rough life but she get her sister Nettie who is a smart girl and has big dream or the future furthermore she study's and wants to become someone who can help other.

Then we get to know mister who lost his wife and now wanted to marry Nettie but her father did not aprove of this instead he offers Celie and later on mister marry's Celie just because he wanted someone to take care of his children. Mister then does the same thing that her father did to her which is abus her sexually and physiqilly desspite being his wife furthermore his children abuses her to and are very mean to her. A bit later later her sister runs away from her father to live with Celie but mister started to misstreat her aswell so Celie tells her sister to run away to a black women who she had met a while back but made her promise one thing and that being Nettie should write letters to Celie. After a while Celie notise that she does not get any letters from nettie but later on we get to know that mister has all letters Nettie had sent to Celie. Celie later on meets a women named Shug Avery, she is a singer furthermore they get togheter and move in to live with eachother. In the end we get to see a very selfconfident Celie who we could not reconize in the begining of the book. Because the society being so much againast black poeple it started a trend that not even black poeple wanted to be black. The norm was that the more white you are the more respekt you gain and that is connected with eurocintrism and otherness being many more.

Celie's story is one of the many that i can understand bacause you can see in the story that the black poeple were not respected and that was just becuase of their skin colour furthermore the norm was white as simple as that. In todays society many can try to get everyone to think that this not a problem anymore but if you are a white swedish man or women you get treated very diffirently in varies cases. For exampel if you are swedish you seem more trustworthy than a guy that is from antoher country or have diffirent facial futures. I am a guy who does not look like a swdish guy and therefore i have experienced that espacially the elder does not see me the same way the see other teenagers. I have been called many names and even if you are not swedish you have to try you'r much more to seem like a kind guy than a white guy have to. I have experienced otherness and eurosintrism because it's very easy to see that the norm in todays society is also being white or come from a western europa.

The epistolary novel, The Color Purple, movingly depicts the growing up and self-realization of Celie, the protagonist, and narrator of The Color Purple, who's a poor, uneducated, young black girl living in Georgia, who overcomes oppression and abuse in order to become independent. The novel displays how black women use their faith, relationships, as well as creative abilities to survive racial and sexual oppression. Therefore, it also addresses post-colonial theory, eurocentrism, where a European western perspective is the norm, in terms of world-view and culture, where the white woman is the ideal, since black women were seen as too dark and not the beauty standard or norm in the society. They suffered from that by, for example, not being treated the same or seen as equal.

Celie starts writing letters to God, due to her father, Alphonso, who's sexually as well as physically abusive towards her. Her father marries her off to a man who's referred to as "Mr.". She experiences the same torture from him as she did from her father. Mr. is seeing another woman named Shug Avery who's a popular jazz singer, as well as an advocate of women's rights. However, after Celie meets Shug, she discovers at first glance that she's attracted to her, Celie describes her as, "The most beautiful woman I ever saw". Later on, the two develop an intimate relationship. Eventually, they run away together to Tennessee where Celie establishes her own succesful fashion business. Shug helps Celie open her eyes to new ideas, such as female empowerment. In addition, Shug helps her discover Nettie's letters hidden in Mr.'s trunk.

Nettie is Celie's younger sister. The character Nettie is intelligent and utterly loyal to her sister. In comparison to Celie, she has the luck to be able to avoid the horrible things she goes through, such as being raped as well as abused by her father. Whereas Celie is taken out of school when she gets pregnant, Nettie has the privilege to stay in school. As the intelligent girl Nettie is, she takes advantage of that opportunity, therefore, she's dedicated to succeeding in school, in order to run away. Nettie meets a married couple who are missionaries, Samuel and Corrine. She leaves the country and moves to Africa to preach with them. Nettie spends most of her time with them, and proceeds taking care of their adopted children, who she later finds out are Celie's biological children. During her missionary trip, she writes letters to Celie. Her experience in Africa is an example of post-colonial theory, imperialism, the idea of expanding one's territory by taking over another country, often through employing hard power, especially military force. British colonizers come to the village and take over the local culture in order to turn it into a plantation for rubber trees. Some members of the African Olinka tribe show resistance through maintaining their cultural identities by embracing their rituals. However, despite that, a large amount of them get killed by the colonizers.

Based on the characters and events in this storyline, I can find personal connections. For example, Sofia meets the mayor's wife who wants her to be their housemaid. Sofia has had enough and refuses to be put in that degrading position, therefore, she declines the offer. However, the mayor doesn't accept that, instead he hits her without facing any consequences, due to his privilege as a white man. In that way, the book portrays how certain groups suffer from normalized racism and discrimination.

Therefore, I can find a personal connection to that theme, due to the facts that I'm Muslim, as well as not ethnically Swedish with immigrant parents.Throughout my childhood, up until today, I've experienced discrimination. It could be from strangers, as well as at school, especially from teachers. For example, I was questioned for speaking fluent Swedish, and my knowledge, because some teachers didn't want me to be smarter than the Swedish students. However, that didn't stop me, but it led to me having to work twice as hard as everyone else in order to get the highest grades. In comparison to the book, I haven't been affected by systematic racism or discrimination, in the same way as black people, due to my skin color. Despite that, I can say that I've experienced similar situations, where I'm being treated differently, but, in my case, because of my ethnic background and religion.

In conclusion, this mind-expanding novel is important due to the fact that the reader gets more in-depth knowledge about the normalized racism and sexism black women experienced, as well as post-colonial theories, such as imperialism and eurocentrism, how the topics influenced the individuals view of each other.

By AJZ