In one corner of the world, out of our sight, a group of people are struggling for their life and never giving up. I believe Celie is one of them.
Celie lives just like dirt, so unremarkable and ordinary. Her life seems to be full of sufferings that we can’t imagine. The most fearful thing is that you are ignored by everyone, rather than you are struggling hard in the world. In all of our life, we just seek the meaning of our existence. Sometimes, we complained our own situation. But, compared with Celie, remember we are not the worst. Think about her, with nothing, she is an ugly black woman. It seems that Celie doesn’t have anyone of gifts from the God. There is a saying that “When the God closes a door, he will open another window for you.” However, from Celie, I totally disagree with this saying, sometimes, we don’t have anything innately. From this perspective, we are not able to claim that we are equal, in the innate conditions, we aren’t equal. But, there is doubt that everyone has his own meaning for his existence no matter which condition you are in innately. For a long time, we just ignore those people; in fact, lots of us may be those, without some excellent gifts. How could we seek our life meanings? Celie tells us. First, always with hope, in Celie’s bitter life, she lacks of enough hope. At first, she just lives in a brutal corner, suffering from abusing of her father. At that time, her hope may be her sister, Nettie. But it can’t be strong enough for her to fight and resist. It’s hope for living on with kindness. It’s hope for enduring misery. Then she comes across Shug, a beautiful and independent woman. She is Celie’s another hope, hope for becoming also independent. And it is also a significant crossroad for Celie. Inspired by Shug and observing other black women, she makes her mind to fight for herself, pursuing what she wants.
Celie’s dual identity, black and female, give us a new perspective. How do we feel about racial discrimination? How do we feel about feminism? Yes, it’s common conflict in our society.
In our real life, it’s difficult to be totally free from racial discrimination. I have no confidence to say I do well because of the unconscious uneasiness. But this is the necessary step from conscious discrimination to unconscious uneasiness. Now, more and more people are aware that we are equal no matter which race. So what I what to say to those who are always suffering from racial discrimination that” Please give us some time, we know we are wrong and we are trying our best to correct it, so please apologize our unconscious behavior.” Yes, we can see the progress when we appeal for equality. We are changing and ruling out these incorrect thoughts.
In the novel or movie, we can see feminism is mainly presented by sisterhood for fighting against men. At the same time, it gives us a path that unites women to struggle for equality. There is no doubt that male and female have lots of differences in physiology and abilities. However, I think the true feminism is about opportunities and rights. Yes, we have different strengths, but it shouldn’t be the reasons why we deprive the rights that female do it.
I hope that we can build a non-discriminatory society. Everyone no matter who you are can get the same rights and opportunities to pursue what you want.
