The movie A Color of Purple was adapted from the book the same title written by Alice Walker in 1982 and then it was directed by Steven Spielberg in 1985. A Color of Purple was awarded the Oscar awards after it was released and it was first about a prominent black feminist story.
The word “Purple” stands for “distress” as well as “courage” and “insight" in Christianity. The “distress” of a fourteen-year-old girl and the “courage” and “insight” could be found in the character Celie in the movie
The leading character Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of her life, begging at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister Nettie from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to “Mr”, a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister’s letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, push her forward an awakening of her creative and loving self.
The sea of color purple stretched beyond the eyes, with flying bees, dancing butterflies and shinning sun, two black girls were having fun in it. How chaste and warm their smiles were and how comfortable and touching everything looked like!
That was the beginning of the movie A Color of Purple
A middle-aged man came from the distance and bawled the elder girl, he said even without standing steadily: “cover the ugliest smile on your face”. Her smile vanished and she looked down as if having made a big mistake. She staggered and left. An unbearable fact is that how young she conceived appeared before our eyes.
Actually, the more intolerable fact leaved behind: the baby’s father is the girl’s stepfather.
The life to her seemed to be bankrupt of hope. She faced humiliation and maltreatment of her father at home, ridicule and insult of others around her and defiance and jeer of the white on street outside. A stream of uncontrollable sadness and loneliness revealed her internal monologue: I’m Celie, a mother of two babies, but I’m fourteen years old. Well, my god, you know, I’m good girl.
But the lord could accept her prayer rather than to help fulfill. The young girl Celie soon married a brutal man she called him “Mr” and started her long miserable life again. She had to deal with miscellaneous housework day and night, tried hard to take care of the three naughty children of former wife’s, and always ready to withstand cuff and kick, bullying and oppression by “Mr”. She didn’t have any right and simply was a slave who was forced to lost herself.
Maybe it differs in the size of what we have experienced, but everyone must go through this stage: life is not our own and there is a hopelessness of revolt. Moreover, so many people have the similar experience with us. So I we bow our head and intend to replace “strong” with “patient” in our mind and live a life we don’t like at all day after day.
The difference of this stage doesn’t lie in length, but in its meaning. It’s like pulling the arrow string in archery, which is necessary to prepare that an arrow can make farther or wait for a useless sacrifice until the bowstring snaps?
Sadly, many people pull the string so long that they forget what it is for. So the perfect arrow only should be shot in a dream lonely and they must continue to endure the pain of (heart)string without a purpose when they wake up. Therefore, we learn that personal power is often limited when the distress surges from outside and we know that help and support are very important in this period when we don’t have power to be strong enough. Remember a faint flame would burst into burning sparks in breeze.
Just like Celie, there are only abuse and humiliation in the world of her which make Celie mistakenly think that this is the whole life of her, so she exposes herself in the suffering and to her the valuable thing is only patience.
Fortunately, three angels accompany with Celie: the sister Nettie, the daughter-in-law Sophie and the former wife of “Mr” Shug. They are three women beneath contempt at that time but they flicker beautiful glory of freedom. They affect Celie unconsciously or not, leading her through the thick darkness, and make her move towards the true light.
The life epiphany is usually in the moment and everything turns out to be so simple after you speak it out.
The “Puppet” entangled with weakness for decades delivers with a sledged hammer: I’m poor, and a black woman, even I’m ugly. My God, but I am here!
Yeah, Celie is here. As a woman of dignity, I want to be recognized, to be accepted and to be loved! If you just take me as a robot without feelings, then I have the right to leave and dare to pursue my own happiness.
In the end of this film, there is still the sea of color purple as far as the eye could see, flying bees, dancing butterflies and shinning sun. Forties years later, two sisters finally meet in the sea again. The happy family reunion shows that Nettie brings back two children of Celie who were taken away by two children’s father, i.e. the stepfather of Celie and Nettie in the film.
Well, compared taking A Color purple as an education of miserable life, I’d like to regard it as a history of growth with the blend of tears and blood and a journey of the heart fed on bitterness. That’s just like Phoenix Nirvana, a new lease of life！
The sea of color purple is so simple that we can sum up in one sentence and it is so complex that we have to interpret it in a lifetime.
Nov 25th, 2014
