Comment on the second half of The Color Purple. Due: September 23rd, 2013
Quote a particular line or passage from somewhere in the second half of the book that feels important to the text, and explain why it feels important. Also, please feel free to ask questions, as many of you did in your earlier comments. (Make sure to cite the quotation's page number.)
In addition to your initial response, you are encouraged to enter into a discussion with your classmates and respond to their comments as well (even after September 23rd).
So the book is over now and I feel a little like it went down hill at the end. Up to a certain point, the letters were fairly constant and it was a fairly religious thing. Celie is addressing them to god in the beginning because she is writing down the things she cannot begin to say to other people. But when she starts reading the letters from Nettie, I feel like the story broke. So much changed so very fast. The letters from Nettie were good because it told a completely different story that I enjoyed. But at that point Celie lost her faith in "God" and started believing in what Shug believed. Next thing you know, Celie is living in Memphis in a nice house with a pot head. Then the person she thought of as her father comes back in and dies and she has a nice house and her life goes so very far uphill. But to me, it all happened way to fast. It was like the writer just wanted to give the book a happy ending but failed to put in the effort to actually write it. I don't think I would have felt this way if the letters were more consistent. All in all it was a good book, but I feel that in the end it was slipping.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the quote I thought was very important to the book was in the final pages. It is the way she addresses her final letter. It goes "Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear Everything. Dear God." Who the letters are being addressed to is a big thing because it not only shows who is writing the letter, but also the state of mind. It shows that Celie took in what Shug said and saw God in a different way. And that she said Dear God twice is interesting to me.
DeleteI am eager to hear which lines felt important for you in this last half of the book, but I am also curious about some other things you have blogged about in earlier posts. Do not feel obligated to reply, but, of course, go ahead and reply if you like.
ReplyDeleteCELIE REFERRING TO HER HUSBAND AS "Mr. ___":
Some of you found it ridiculous or unnecessarily confusing. Izzy found it to represent "how she doesn't have a strong relationship" with him; George found it to show the "distance" between them; Jenny noted that it "may be because she didn't like him so much that to say his name is disgraceful"; Julio proposed that it's "how she refers to men as a result of what her father did to her."
Now that you have finished the book, what is your reaction? Perhaps you feel the same but even stronger, or perhaps your thoughts have shifted.
(One of you asked about PAGE 91. Here's my answer: All the "Mr. ___" references are the same person, Celie's husband.")
On a related note, with which OTHER CHARACTER was there a naming issue?
In response to Julio's question on "Blog Two" about HOW MUCH TIME HAS ELAPSED surrounding page 100, what do people think?
ReplyDeleteOn page 85-87, Sophia gets put in jail.
On page 103, Sophia gives Miz Millie a driving lesson where they go to Sophia's home.
Eight years...? Give or take, that was the impression that I got.
DeleteThe only thing is it says she was in jail three years, and then on page 103 when she drives with Miz Millie, she says she hasn't seen her kids for five, so I'm thinking it's been five years total (three in jail, and two working for Miz Millie).
DeleteAfter finishing the book, I am a little confused. I know that 30 years have passed since Celie saw Nettie, and that Sofia was in jail/custody for 11 and a half years. I cannot figure out how much time passed from when Celie heard about Nettie’s ship sinking and when Nettie eventually returned home. I am guessing that it was at least 6 months, at a bare minimum, since a lot of things seemed to happen during that time. It was a good book, but the passage of time seemed a little ‘iffy’.
ReplyDeleteThe line that I chose for this response, was on page 198: “Anyhow, they kept her [Sofia] eleven and a half years, give her six months off for good behavior so she could come home early to her family. Her bigger children married and gone, and her littlest children mad at her, don’t know who she is.” I kept thinking about what it would be like to have a family member be missing from your life for eleven and a half years. It would be very difficult to accept this person again, especially if you only knew them when you were a small child. I have cousins who live in Oregon, and I have met them once. I do not think of them as family, just some people that I am connected to. I wonder what it was like for Sofia’s children to suddenly have this stranger coming to their home, claiming that she was their mother. It must have been very startling for them
And I will add, I somewhat agree with Julio’s response with the book going “Downhill” at the end. I feel like the end was dragged out longer than what it needed to be, and that the letters started to make less sense. I did read this backstage during a performance, so maybe that explains why it felt dragged out.
Reading and responding to this book was challenging, because I finished it Memorial Day weekend. I then waited to blog until the last minute, so I forgot what was going on, and I did not want to reread it!
DeleteDid you mean Labor Day Weekend, Izzy?
DeleteYes...
DeleteI agree with the other people who feel that the end of the book was not as good as the beginning. I felt that in the beginning of the book Celie was describing almost every day in letters to God, then the book changed to letters from Nettie to Celie that I thought were a bit confusing.
ReplyDeleteOn page 192 Celie says in a letter to her sister
"I don't write to God no more. I write to you.
What happen to God? ast Shug.
Who that? I say."
I think that this is an important line because it shows that Celie believes her sister will come back to her. I think writing to her sister also provides Celie some mental strength knowing that Nettie is still alive and may come back, also reading letters from Nettie and writing letters to her may make Celie think that her sister is closer that Africa.
I actually did enjoy the second half of "The Color Purple" more than the first half and maybe that is because I love happy endings. In the first half of the book like some people said, she did seemed to describe to God everyday of her life, but it was a horrible life that she was describing. She lived through terrible events with whom she
ReplyDeletethought was her father and, then againe with her husband. Cecile thought her only sister was dead and the only one she thought she had was God and she started to lose her belief in him too. But in the second half of the book her life seemed to slowly get better, especially when Shug came into her life and they found her Nettie's letters. Cecile left her husband, she moved and got her own house and store, she started to believe again in God but more timidly then before, as an example she ended the book with amen as though it was all a prayer.She believed in her sister and that someday they will be reunited. I was happy that she got a happy ending after the horrible life she went through and I am glad it did end this way.
A quote that I thought was important was “He try to make you think he everywhere . Soon as you think he is everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't”.(197) This is an important quote because it relates back and connects to this story from the very beginning. Like when Cecile stepfather tried to control her and then again with Albert than Harpo wanted to be in control, make himself God with his wife Sofia. Their all examples of terrible domestic abuse that happened which I think the author is trying to convey with this quote and actually the whole book.
I agree with Nic, I think 30-35 years has passed.
"...she ended the book with amen as though it was all a prayer." Good observation!
DeleteWow, that book went by really fast! I have really enjoyed reading “The Color Purple” and I’m really grateful that we are reading it now. I feel like I would not read it out of school.
ReplyDeleteI thought the beginning was better than the end, but I still like the ending. It was strange going from Celie’s story to also learning about Nettie’s story.
One line that I found to be important was on page 260. Celie and Mr…….. are out on the porch and talking. “After all the evil he done I know you wonder why I don’t hate him. I don’t hate him for two reasons. One, he love Shug. And two Shug use to love him.” This line stood out to me, because it showed how much Celie loves Shug. Celie changes how she feels about someone–who beat her and treated her cruelly, because she knows Shug loves him. It shows Celie's undying love and trust for Shug Avery.
I agree with your point about Celie and Shug's relationship. It really shows how Shug was the only one Celie could trust throughout most of the book.
DeleteBravo Alice Walker. I know a lot of people do not like happy endings to sad books, but I think that is nonsense. When I read a depressing book, that ends in a sad way, I tend to not like that book a lot. I also started to really understand, and like, this book after about the halfway point. Reading Celie's and Nettie's letters to each other was a lot more enjoyable read than the beginning of the book. I am not sure why this is so for me, it seems like most other people feel the other, that the ending was not very good.
ReplyDeleteOne important line in the book, I thought, was on page 259: " Mr.______ seem to be the only one to understand my feeling." I felt like this was the start of a deep friendship between two very unlikely people. Some people may think that Celie is wrong to be friends with this man who caused her so much hurt and trouble. But I think he relized what he had done to her when he saw how much she loved her sister, Nettie. He says this on page 260: "I know you hate me for keeping you from Nettie, he say. And now she dead." I think Celie is good person to forgive him and move on. All in all I think this was a great book.
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DeleteRobby, I am taken aback by your post! Having read your post on "Blog Two," I never would have expected this. It shows what an open mind you were able to keep.
DeleteI liked how you put the following: "I felt like this was the start of a deep friendship between two very unlikely people." Well said.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. I agree that it was hard to follow at times and was really confusing with the time period. But I also like how the letters were more constant in the beginning because Celie had more time and energy to write letters to God, but in the middle to the end, she didn't really have the initiative to write letters everyday. I am still pondering why Celie did not refer to Mr._____ by his real name. The idea Julio came up with (to put distance between them) seems logical.
ReplyDeleteCelie has told Shug that she has stopped writing to God altogether. Shug then tries to help Celie develop a new understanding of God. She tries sidelining Celie’s notion of a God who is white and male and with whom she feels she has nothing in common."Well, us talk and talk about God, but I’m still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?) (196-7)." This quote is important to the book because it shows how her religious belief is an important component to her own being. Celie has always imagined God as a distant figure who likely does not listen to her concerns. She sees God as a white man who behaves like the other men she knows and who does not listen to “poor colored women.”
I found this part of the book very weird, just because of Celie's perception of God. I think her journey in finding out what God truly is is the underlying journey throughout the book.
DeleteThe second half of this book was great! I really feel like the book took a turn for the better after all of the mishaps that happened throughout the first section of the book.
ReplyDeleteI admired how The Color Purple changed from just Celie’s perspective to Nettie’s as well. It tied everything together. Before Nettie’s letters were present in the book, I had so many questions, I felt overwhelmed.
I appreciated how we got to learn about Celie’s children through Nettie’s perspective. I feel like there were so many children present in this book that it was hard to keep track of them. I assumed that Celie’s children would be lost like all the others were in my memory. So I thought it was a neat the way the author tied the part about Celie’s Children into the rest of the plot.
One line from the book was on page 192 “I don’t write to God no more, I write to you."This was when Celie stopped writing to God and started writing her journal entries to Nettie, as well as the ‘letters’ she wrote to Nettie. I think this was when Celie broke out of her ‘old self’ and stopped appreciating God as much. Because of her many reasons that would lead her to disbelieve God. Even though Shug tried to convince her not to.
I think a line that was important to the book was on page 246 “You doin’ all right, Miss Celie, she say. God know where you live.” This is important because Shug reassures Celie about God after Celie inherits a beautiful new house from her not-so-dear departed stepfather. I feel that now Celie can finally believe that God is on her side after all of the awful things that happened in her past that may have lead her to lose hope in God.
Overall I liked the ending. She fixed her relationship with Albert. Finally got to see Nettie and her children, Adam and Olivia. And all the other female characters seemed to be living life just fine. Everything seemed graceful. For some reason to me it felt sad. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t expect it to end happy. I also didn’t really want it to end because she finally got to see her sister and children after some time ( I believe it was around 30 years?). I wanted the story to keep going, unfortunately it didn't. I really enjoyed this book, which to me is surprising because I never would have picked this book up if I was just skimming the shelves.
A quote that I think is important is, “By now my heart is in my mouth and I can’t move. Its Nettie” (287) I feel that that the book changed in the second half. It even felt sudden, like the author thought that the book was too depressing, so she changed it to become happier. I have to agree with the others that say the book got lighter at the end. An example is that the ship that that was carrying Nettie from her missionary work was supposed to have been sunk by a German submarine. This was never revisited, and there was never any explanation why she was not on that boat. I am wondering if I missed something, or if there really is no explanation. Overall, I think that the ending of the book got lighter, but I still like it as a book. I have to say though that most of the time reading it I was very conscious that I was reading a book. I am glad I read it, but I do not feel that I would have read it out of school.
ReplyDeleteWhy did you think this quote was important? Explain, please.
DeleteI too was confused about the sinking of the ship and Nettie's supposed death. At first, I didn't think she was actually coming home, and it was just Celie's subconscious creating a false reality for her (like she was just psychologically scarred), but then it seemed to be legit. Though, I am glad the book did end on that happy note.
DeleteWait, I'm really confused. Could someone clear this up?
Delete“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." (197)
ReplyDeleteI chose this quote because I feel that it accurately expresses what the book is about. In this quote, Shug is saying that not only do we do stuff for God, but God does stuff for us, like giving us the color purple. In the beginning of the book, Celie has no sense of the good things in life; she just putters along at this unemotionally dead state, living only to stay alive. As the book progresses, she learns from Shug the pleasures in life - the stuff God gives - and how to enjoy it all. The color purple represents all of this beauty in life, which is why God would be pissed if you ignore the color purple.
The second half of this book is a lot different than the first half. The first half is very melancholy and deals with some pretty heavy themes, but the second half is a bit lighter. As I said, in this half of the book, Celie learns how to love the beauty God gives in life, and in addition to the interesting Nettie subplot, I found this half of the book better than the first. Overall, I found the book okay. Sometimes, I found myself very confused about what was going on, but it all usually sorted itself out in the end. I didn't like the writing style, particularly, or the way it was broken up into letters. Although it was a good challenge, I did not enjoy it.
I like this comment very much, Finbar. I think you very much capture the essence of the book and I'm happy to see someone comment about the book's title. Well done.
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