The Color Purple

English ISU: “Pride and Prejudice” and “The Color Purple”

The novels “Pride and Prejudice” and “The Color Purple” both focus on the status of women, how they overcome stereotypes to accomplish their dreams and male dominance in societies. The language, which is unique in the texts, both define the author purpose, creating a long lasting effect on readers. The novels give images of strong values and cultural beliefs in society about women, many of which still occur. The works also endure because of their universal qualities that people can relate to. Readers connect mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to the texts because it tells emotional journeys to happiness that are universal and which every human experienced.

"Pride and Prejudice" and "The Color Purple” centralize around the struggles of women to fulfill their dreams. The main characters must endure many hardships before they find happiness. Both novels also depict women as to be controlled and discouraged to be independent.

"The Color Purple" is a novel describing the journeys of women joined by their love for each other, the men that control their lives and the children they care for. The main story depicts the life of the protagonist, Celie, an African American girl who writes letters to god telling her story about fighting her way through a white and black racist culture, eventually finding happiness and peace within her and others. The text shows strong views toward men, presenting them either mean or abusive like Albert and Mr.____, or idiotic like Harpo.

The novel portrays women as lowly human beings who are hurt by the men surrounding them.

"Well how you spect to make her mind? Wives is like children.

You have to let 'em know who got the upper hand.

Nothing can do that better than a good sound beating" (pg. 42)

Here, Alphonso is talking about his views about women, seeing them as lowly human beings that the only way for them to stay in line is for them to endure pain and abuse.

The novel is set in rural Georgia, USA in the 1930s. At that time, slavery, but the black community still faces discrimination, poverty, desperation, and no education. Financial and racial pressures beat them down. Men in the novel abused their wives and partners due to frustrations and suffering. Theses factor cause the characters to take drastic actions to have any voice in society. In this quote, Alphoso virtually sells Celie to Mr.______ to earn money to support himself.

"Well, next time you come you can look at her. She ugly. Don't even look like she kin to Nettie.

But she'll make the better wife. She aint smart either, and I'll just be fair, you have to

watch her or she'll give away everything you own. But she

can work like a man." pg. 18)

In Jane Austin's "Pride and Prejudice”, everything is focused around wealth, class, and status. Austen wrote the novel in the early 18th century when women of that time did not have the right to vote or equal as men. Equality between men and women did not exist. Women did not have a voice in society. The only way for them to gain respect and gain wealth is to marry in to money. The text show women are to have class, to give their lives to their husbands who are not encouraged to be independent. The novel depicts the duties of women society, that their only goal in life is to get married, have a family and have her daughters married to a well of family, which shown in this quote.

"the business of [Mrs. Bennet's] life [is] to get her daughters married." Chapter 1, pg. 3

Further, Austen highlights the inequality between men and women in freedom to choose whom they want to marry. Colonel Fitzwilliam complains that his choices are limited by his financial needs. Yet for women in early nineteenth-century England, there was little choice at all. They simply had to hope that a man who is reasonably noble and attractive with a decent amount of wealth would fall in love with them. For a woman, choosiness meant running the risk of being a poor old maid.

These events influence the text a great deal, because it sets the themes for the novel. The first sentence in “Pride and Prejudice” introduces the whole theme of marriage, wealth, and status.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of