Alienation In The Color Purple By Alice Walker

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Alienation in The Color Purple by Alice Walker The core definition of alienation is when individuals feels estranged or cut off from their traditional community, or are made to feel different by others in general. (The Social Science Jargon-Buster). The novel “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker is a study in the alienation of a poor, uneducated black woman named Celie. The story takes place between 1910 and 1940 in the rural south of America; where being black is looked down upon, and being a black woman makes you less than nothing. Somehow, Celie is even less than that. Her life is a story outlined by alienation: “you black, you ugly, and you a woman; who would ever want you?” In this novel Alice Walker illustrates through character development and structure the alienation that occurs when a person is forced to believe that they are “less than” and is unable to communicate with the outside world. Alice Walker has some personal experience with the subject of alienation. At eight years old she suffered a traumatic accident where her brother blinded her right eye with an air rifle. This accident caused Alice to transform from the happy, self-confident eight year old she was into an isolated depressed adolescent who retreated into reading stories and writing poems as an outlet. This escape made Walker more conscience of other people and their feelings, and she rose from the despair that her disability caused her to become a leader and the valedictorian of her high school class. (African-American Writers: A Dictionary) Overcoming the isolation caused by her disability and the civil rights era gave Walker a perfect recipe for an in-depth novel about the alienation of a black woman in the beginning of the century. Celie is introduced to us as a victim of abuse, from the very first letter she writes. Celie’s only form of communication with the outside world is her

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