The Development of Celie in 'The Color Purple'

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature grade: 15 Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald (Institut für Fremdsprachliche Philologien) course: Introduction to Postcolonialism language: English abstract: [...] In order to meet these ambitions I will present several general aspects on The Color Purple including setting and formal features in the following chapter. The third and fourth chapters serve as the main part of my paper since they deal with characteristics and the development of Celie in detail. Consequently I will seek to uncover reasons for her lack of self-esteem in chapter 3 by taking a closer look to her childhood first. Moreover I will concentrate on one main problem Celie has to face during her life: sexual discrimination. In this connection I find it also most important to examine key figures and scenes that have turned her into the woman she is.However as the story continues it becomes also obvious that Celie undergoes changes. Thus Chapter 4 will focus on her identification process and the respective result. While the preceding chapter demonstrates the establishment of Celie's personality the attention will now be turned to decisive factors that generate and support her search of identity. Hence especially the relationship between Celie and Shug the initiator of her transformation and marginally the influence of her newly-created social network will be taken into account. Lastly I will examine the final stage and result of her development: the evolution of a dignified self-confident woman. Eventually Chapter 5 will provide a brief summary of the discussion. Furthermore it will evaluate Celie's process in consideration of the given task and highlight the importance and universal validity of her development. The literature I have concentrated on is in large part taken from journals that hold a broad range of essays on The Color Purple in general and on the character