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'Celie Harris (The Colour Purple) ''

Biography
Celie is a main character found in Alice Walker's 'The Colour Purple' a 1982 epistolary novel where she is the main character in which the novel explores her life over many years beginning when she was 14. Celie is a young African American girl living in rural Georgia in the early twentieth century in which she was largely uneducated due to her being made to take upon the role of mother in the household due to her mother passing at the age of 14 in which the novel explores the mind of a venerable yet strong minded child who has been forced to grow up mentally through the traumas faced at such a young age with her going into adolescence believing she has been raped by her believed father multiple times in which she had birthed two children to her father which were taken from her in which she believed they had been murdered. However, her Christian faith gave her hope as throughout her early life she wrote letters to God explaining her abuse and her cry for help as God was the only person, she knew loved her and she could trust. Celie grew up with her younger sibling Nettie however she was too young to understand the traumas Celie faced so she remained oblivious to the traumas. However, throughout her life letters she never complains of her life but just seeks answers as to why she was victimised and no other siblings. Yet, later in the letters we see Celie rather than a victim as she uses her trauma to build herself into a strong female character who faces being forced to marry known abuser Alphonso in which she is placed into a family of a much older man with many children in which she is abused for many years verbally, physically, sexually and emotionally in which she faces an even harder life through marriage which was her only opportunity for escape from her father instead she becomes a slave. However, through this marriage she meets her husband's mistress Shug Avery who lives in their home to recuperate, and Celie ultimately becomes her nurse in which witnessing her physical and mental strength against men inspired Celie to show hers in her unloving marriage. Throughout many letters we see that Celie through all her abuse has no sexual feelings towards men and has this feeling towards Shug Avery as she is everything, she wants to become however this is never explored further so it is left ambiguous. Similarly, a great influence in her life was witnessing her daughter in law Sofia defy the physical and psychological abuse her step son tried to inflict on his wife shows her that she can refuse to accept the prejudices of being female and the injustices of abuse and that she can fight back and although this takes time through learning of her husband's deceptions of hiding her lost sisters letters she rebels her position as slave and throws it back to her husband and doing so takes back control over her life which had prior been controlled by men. Throughout the latter of the letters she writes we see this strength grow through herself and through the discovery that her sister is alive and has been raising her children who she thought she had also lost in which through letters she regains contact with those she lost and through her faith she kept hope which lead her to have the family back she dreamt of and becomes a resemblance of a modern twentieth century woman who begins making clothes in a successful business gaining financial control which was hers rather than her husbands by working in cotton fields. At the end of the novel we see Celie go back to her childhood home where her beloved father lived and discovered her most desires questions in which she learns she was victimised by a man which was not her father and that the home was left to her after her mother had passed.

Stănişoară, C., 2016. Alice Walker's Colors of Identity. [online] Davidpublisher.com. Available at:  [Accessed 20 February 2022]. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/c/the-color-purple/character-analysis/celie

Family
Celie grew up with her mother who was mentally and physically ill due to her husband being lynched, mutilated and burned to death and she died when she was at a young age due to poor mental and physical health after marrying Fonso. she had many siblings which included Nettie who she was closest to and ultimately became mother to at a very young age due to her loss of a mother in the family and her abusive unknown stepfather Fonso who fathers two of her children Olivia and Adam who were both taken from her at birth who were given to a wealthy missionary family in which she does not know them until they are fully grown. through the marriage of Albert her abusive husband she then inherits his son Harpo who resembles his father and Harpo's wife Sophia who she forms a positive relationship with through them being in the same traumatic fate of an abusive marriage.

Religion
Celie was born and raised in rural Georgia in which majority held strong Christian beliefs in which Celie carried these throughout her life in which she remains faithful through her trauma hopeful through the idea of God and the beliefs it teaches which enables her to cope through her life with the idea of a higher purpose to her struggle as religion teaches those in suffering, they will be rewarded in the afterlife.

Race
As an African American living in rural Georgia Celie faces the injustices placed on black people at the time through the labour of cotton picking and the unavailable educational opportunities for black females at the time in which we can suggest that this trauma would have been avoided if the society she lived in cared for young black women as there was no protection from the abuse in place at the rime which we can suggest there is now. Celie also witnesses the injustice racial discrimination faced by her daughter in law Sofia who is beaten for defying the word of a white male in power and is then made slave to them and their children for years.

Feminism
Throughout the novel Celie is a character which conveys the effects of young black women at the time and the traumas they faced in a society which not only condemned her for her race but through her gender as she falls victim to mental, physical and sexual abuse as a woman with little rights as if you was married you could not take legal action against your husband in which we can today however, we can see throughout each letter the growth from a young uneducated Celie who is open for manipulation and a target for abuse become an admirable character as she uses her struggle for a positive in gaining her independence. All women in the novel experience a form of abuse due to their gender however none of them let this define them which is a form of modern feminism.

Romagnolo, C 2016. Naturally Flawed? Gender, Race, and the Unnatural in The Color Purple. pages 113-133