THE COLOR PURPLE

The Color Purple

The Color Purple

Introduction

The film “Color Purple” directed by Steven Spielberg and edited by Allen Daviau revolves around the racism and discrimination in America. In the film, the lord and master is a husband and the women treated as slaves. The film has learning and education about the racial discrimination. The main character and center of attraction in the movie is Celie. This film revolves around her life. She is a black girl who born in the beginning of the century. It is the said story that Celie is pregnant by her own father. She lived harsh and sacrificing life for 30 years. Celie is a strong women and she keeps herself educating by learning and reading. She forcefully married to a farmer who is a widow by her father. The farmer has four kids his name was Albert in the film. The farmer take her to Africa and beat her abuse her. She separated from her sister. Her husband does not allow her to read the letters, but she keeps learning by reading. She receives a letter from her sister that the world is getting towards peace. The letter has information about the five women who are black, and they fight for their independence (Spielberg, 1985).

Discussion

While much criticism of The Color Purple acknowledges the importance of the letter form and the way it portrays the growth of the protagonist from a voiceless and cowed child who not acknowledged as a person into an independent woman who controls her life the way she controls the narrative of the film, there seems to be little work that investigates the role of Walker's epistolary narrative in any depth (Stepan, 38).

The screen translation of The Color Purple, Spielberg creates not only a faithful, but also a successful adaptation, by capturing the novel's central themes, characters, setting, plot, and symbols. First, Spielberg develops a faithful adaptation by sticking to the novel's key themes and developing in to the famous film. In The Color Purple, Walker uses the protagonist, Celie, to show how finding your voice and asserting yourself can help you resist oppression. Through Celie's letters to God and her sister Nettie, including her letters about her abusive husband (Albert), it becomes apparent to the reader that everyone possesses the strength to confront and overcome adversity. Similarly, the film embodies this theme, but instead of showing Celie writing letters, Spielberg turns persuasive letters into powerful scenes (Rose, 1986).

Character of Celie in Color Purple

The character of Celie became strong in the movie. A memorable scene occurs at the dinner table when Albert finds out that Celie is leaving him to go with Shug to Memphis. Celie stands up at the table and calls Albert a "lowdown dog." In a letter from the novel Celie wrote, "I'm poor, I'm black, I may be ugly and cannot cook, a voice says to everything listening. But I'm here" (Walker 207). In contrast, during the movie Celie said this line directly to Albert's ...