Introduction
Celie is at the center of The Color Purple, an African American woman born and raised in the southern United States in the early 1900s, and the novel she narrates covers the first half of her life. The Color Purple takes us through a series of episodes in Celie’s life, tracing her lifelong quest for love and a sense of belonging in a world that had shown her none. At the same time, the novel is populated with an array of characters, each on a journey of self-discovery and empowerment, and its story unfolds resolutions for the characters, from the individualistic sojourns to the broader composition of community and the world at large.
Identity is the main concern of The Color Purple, as Celie tells the story of her psychological growth from a child disciple of a racist, sexist god to an autonomous, communal being, able to honor the sacredness of her body as well as her spirit. Celie is treated as the black sheep of her own family in her childhood and experiences the depths of prejudice while she is still a child, and her view is affected by both of these experiences. She is raped by the very people who are supposed to keep her safe from the corruption she faces outside, just because such men regard her and the other females of the world as mere objects of pleasure. Over the years, she is repeatedly told in many ways that her race and gender make her an inferior creature, that valuing herself is an obscene act, and that a child's dependence on adult family members excuses their psychological, physical, and sexual violence against that child. She is constantly made to understand that the importance and success of her womanhood depend on her silent subjugation and her readily swallowed anger.
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Celie’s Early Life and Trauma
Celie’s early life was, in stark contrast to Shug Avery’s, dominated by trauma and emotional hardship. From an early age, Celie was raped and oppressed by her father. As a result of this rape, Celie gave birth to two children whom she, on the instructions of her father, believed to be her siblings. Her second child was forcibly taken from her and supposedly killed. After the death of her mother, Celie remained almost mute. This early childhood was insignificant to Celie. Later in life, Celie was married to a man whom she knew as “Mr.” She loved him for his son and who beat her regularly. He did not allow her to leave her house for any reason. Celie developed no confidence and removed herself from society. Affected heavily by her early life, she was embarrassed and had no faith in herself.
Her identity has been based on her actions and sickness since childhood. Her father's raping her so often made her feel worthless and undermined her self-esteem. Women, because of being black, lack confidence. The reason for her shame is that Celie is black and a woman. Celie's withdrawal from society is evident. It is shown that rape traumatized Celie. Society’s attitudes toward women are criticized. Society believes that black women have to live as sixth-class citizens. Celie cleans the world and wishes to rediscover harmony. Shug is described as an idealized woman. Celie has her father and Mr. for her to admire and value her sexual organs. The oppressive behavior of men against women, including her father, is criticized. Celie has low self-esteem in the context of the psychological closet because of the stone-faced society. In the context of the critical identity crisis, the protagonist, Celie, has a voice. Individual identity is formed in the context of community and relationships. Celie is given the courage to create her authentic individual identity by refusing patriarchal oppression and domination. It is highlighted that it is not because of their identity as individuals, but because of their relationships with their partners, that women are oppressed and that they can create their own unique identities when they reject men and society.
Growth and Transformation of Celie's Identity
Throughout the novel The Color Purple, Alice Walker presents an observant and detailed study of the journey of Celie’s growth. Transformation, the awakening to self-identity, is a central issue of The Color Purple. The transformation process of Celie is small but significant, and it first surfaces as epistolary. Her letters to God are written in Black English Vernacular and are practiced as if transporting the speaker from silence toward naming. They are moments of Celie finding not only her written but also her spoken voice. The pivotal moments leading toward transformation occur during Celie’s relationships with women. Outward love does not predominate, but it stimulates the process of inner recognition. With the appearance of Shug Avery and the subsequent relationship between Celie and Shug, the awakening looms full and complete. The tone is one of potential and empowerment, the wordings of vulnerability and the discovery of love. Celie is interacting fully and unselfconsciously with Shug—the physical contact has been established with no regard for Kevin. We next see Shug intervening to act as a mirror to Celie. Shug actively assists in Celie’s rejuvenation and transformation. The relevant section occurs when the relationship between Shug and Celie is complete—when Celie has, in effect, escaped patriarchal submission and narcissism.
In the course of the novel, Celie discovers her voice. She begins to speak from within her silence and comes to a sense of self-empowerment and articulation—of love and sisterhood. She discovers and reclaims her own identity. In the beginning of The Color Purple, we find Celie writing letters through which she sends her silent prayers out to the Divine. Her letters are apologetic, submissive, and courteous. On the surface, they seem like despairing and helpless appeals to a just and attentive God. However, they manifest a will to live and testify against the abuse that has subjugated her. The practice of writing is one that enables the obliterated, the women, to name themselves. Celie’s emergence from silence is accomplished by the practice of writing, a desire to name the unnamed; she is in a way speaking to herself, thus making it possible to ‘speak an I’ to herself that she might hear and come to understand.
Intersections in Celie's Narrative
When reading the epistolary novel, The Color Purple, one finds that the narrative of the protagonist, Celie, largely revolves around issues of her identity, rooted in her being female and being black. The pillar of intersectionality—where multiple, mutually reinforcing institutions of oppression construct identity—provides us with the basic lens for accessing Celie’s narrative. This idea comprises interlocking structures that are mutually enforcing systems of domination—patriarchy and capitalism—manifest at the individual and collective levels. The novel highlights different intersections of race and gender as a part of identity, including class and blackness. The attempt here is to show the construction of self-identity from the perspective of womanist theory and African American women’s experiences. The solidarity conjured up among women, especially women of color, not only enables resistance to the prevailing culture but also helps to move women further along in the development of their authenticity. Shug and Sofia are the best examples in The Color Purple to discuss the issue of solidarity. Are black women in the novel actually engaged in “acts of solidarity, resistance, and empowerment?”
Stereotypes and societal expectations have impressed upon Celie the idea that she is inherently worthless than others. As a result, Celie experiences an immense dislocation from the sense of “oneness” of self. When considering her self-discontent as responses to dominative social constructs, she reveals the multi-faceted nature of her oppression inside and out, a reflection of the patriarchal society she negotiates. Being constantly oppressed, especially by the men in her life—Pa and Mr.—Celie notes that she began to lose a sense of self, to internalize the stereotypes against her black womanhood. Similarly, the low status of women in the pre-civil rights era is justified in the novel by characters who assert that because they own homes and are legally married, they are better than single women. Even Nettie tries to recognize herself within the master’s frame of reference, internalizing his ideas about blackness and othering. Celie declines to be master of the roof and slave of the home, typical for the stereotype of enslaved black “Mammy,” housekeepers who earned more respect than other black females. His wife, and so is Celie, has to accept this because of her femininity. Comments about photography documented women’s everyday lives and ancestors “universalized their own exclusions.” Often, the images of black people focus on some characteristic, particularly even belittling criterion, such as teeth, bodies, or skin color. Celie’s understanding doesn’t damage her irreducibility; on the contrary, it posits the intersection of race and gender, which means that she gives particular emphasis to her black woman’s body as a problem.
Conclusion
After walking with Celie through her complex journey that challenges her body, psyche, and voice, quite possibly the most significant element to consider, given such an account as this, is the meaning of Celie’s identity. Who is Celie Johnson? The counselor who listens to her truly and really cares about her as though she were a real woman rather than a fictional character—free of postmodern skepticism—knows who Celie Johnson is. She is a Black girl from down South who eventually becomes a self-empowered woman capable and willing to forgive and express reason for the pain she has been through. She is a woman who is finally empowered to speak her mind in her own words. That is who Celie is. At first, though, Celie doesn’t say much at all and is more survivor than empowered spirit or free subject. After enduring years of abuse from her father, she is given, at 14, to a badly dressed, no-good man named Albert, and thus begins her long journey toward an identity beyond that which the people around her have given her. This experience certainly shapes her, but so too does the relationship she maintains with her sort-of sister Nettie, her friend Shug, and even the people she might call enemies or terrors. And, throughout her life, we can surmise her skin color has also shaped her and who she is, and as experience tells when she denounces the preachers’ hell, this “color” certainly mattered immensely. Obviously, race and identity have quite the fraught relationship with one another. Simultaneously, she identifies herself not as a privileged white male teenager, but as an oppressed being told time and time again that she is even far inferior to the male Black child of the cotton-picker. Celie Johnson is quite a special kind of woman, and she provides the foundation and chronicler to a story of struggle and resilient love exceeding beyond merely human dimensions.
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