Thursday, May 24, 2012

Celie on The Color Purple: Character Thursday (13)

Character Thursday is a weekly meme that requires you to post on every Thursday, your character choice from the book you are reading or you have finished with. It can be the protagonist or the antagonist, characters that you love the most or hate the most. You can pick any book of any genre as you like. Please feel free to grab the button below and paste it in your post. Last but not least, please add URL of your post in the linky at the bottom of this post.



Fanda Classiclit

This week I pick a wonderful female character:

Celie
The Color Purple by Alice Walker


Being a poor and uneducated African-American woman in 1910-1940s, Celie had been struggling in her life as a female in the domination of males. First abused and raped by her step father, and then abused and treated badly by her husband, a Mr. _______, yet Celie survived. At first she put her hopes on to God, through series of letters addressed to God, which became sort of her diary. After being separated from her younger sister Nettie, Celie did not have anyone to share her love. So, when a female singer with an independent mind named Shug Avery came into her life, she fell in love with her in no time, despite the fact that Shug is Mr. ______’s lover. From then on, it is Shug who became like a mother to Celie.

I think Celie loves Shug not only because Shug was a compassionate person to Celie, but because in Shug, Celie saw a person (or a woman) she’d like to become: assertive, independent, brave, sensual and attractive. One reason why Celie wasn’t quite jealous when Shug and Mr. _____ slept together under her nose, was because Celie never loved or even hated her husband.

Thanks to Shug, Celie learned not only passively accepted what men done to her, but to fight back. Her first attempt was by leaving Mr. _____ and moved to live with Shug in a new city. At the new place, Shug planted thr idea to build a business of producing pants to Celie. This was the first sign of her new life. When later on she came back, she was a different woman, stronger and braver. She was no more just a housemaid to Mr. ________, she was a companion. She can sit and talk equally to men. This only shows that friendships between females are very important, and often has a great impact on a woman’s life.

Besides Celie’s personal character swift, it is also interesting to see the change in her relationship with God. Although at first she has a strong devotion and can talk to God in her letters, in a certain point of her great disappointment, she run away from Him. This was when she began to address her letters to Nettie. However, when things finally got better for Celie, she returned to God in her final letter. It’s so typically us, human. We looked for Him in our difficult times to look for hopes, but we weren’t patience enough to wait till the hope come, and just runaway from Him.

I love Celie, the main character of The Color Purple. She is not a heroine who’s done heroic acts, she is just like most of us with all her weaknesses. Yet, she can survived through hard times, thank to God (yes, even when she runaway from God, God still took care of her through her dear friends: Shug, Sofia and Nettie).

Whoopi Goldberg, I think, is a perfect choice to perform Celie
So, who’s your Character Thursday of this week?

7 comments:

  1. karakter yg berkembang krn pengalaman, pasti byk pelajaran brharga di buku itu ya..
    btw, knp suaminya tnpa nama gitu?

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    1. Memang banyak pelajaran berharga di sini, buku yg bagus banget. Tentang si suami, itu sebutan Celie, orang lain menyebut namanya. Menurutku sih itu krn ada rasa inferior dari Celie thd si suami, atau justru benci? Yg jelas setelah Celie berubah di akhir cerita, ia mampu memanggil nama suaminya..Albert.

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  2. eh..pernah nonton filmnya tapi udah lama bangeeet, inget sama si Whoopi sebagai pemeran utamanya =)

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    1. Aku malah belum nonton filmnya, cari di mana yah...?

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  3. akhirnya saya bisa ikutan Character Thursday lagi :'). btw saya belum pernah denger sih buku The Color of Purple, tapi saya suka juga tuh buku yang karakternya berkembang karena pengalaman, apalagi buat perempuan biar nggak diremehin sama laki2 xD

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    1. Thanks Priska udah ikutan lagi ^^
      Buku ini memang blm pernah diterjemahin (eh kenapa ya belum ada yg mau terjemahkan?) Ini buku yg bagus sekali ttg perjuangan seorang perempuan yg minoritas secara ras maupun gender.

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  4. We looked for Him in our difficult times to look for hopes, but we weren’t patience enough to wait till the hope come, and just runaway from Him. <-- sangat disayangkan tapi emang sering terjadi sama manusia ya..

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What do you think?