Subjugation of women and sexual abuse in Alice Walker's The Color Purple are important issues because that was a major controversy in the rural south in the early 20th century. The main character Celie was abused, raped, and mistreated in so many ways. She was a slave to the male dominant force that was unwilling to pay attention to her being the man that she called father raped her, and Mr._____, as she called him, took her away and used her. There is, however, one woman by the name of Shug Avery that came along and brought Celie so much hope and love. Shug showed her love and sexual pleasures that she never knew before, and how much she could actually enjoy it and want it how the men do. Ultimately, Walker constructs an ideal world of true love and commitment where there is no erotic tension-where there is no sexual desire or sexual pleasure (Hook 218).

The book starts out: You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy(1). Alice Walker uses epistle writing to tell the story. In the beginning, Celie never told a single soul, but God, about what she went through. She wrote all her thoughts, feelings, and dreams in letters to Him.

Last spring after little Lucious come I heard them fussing. He was pulling on her arm. She say it too soon, Fonso, I ain't well. Finally he leave her alone. A week go by, he pulling on her arm again. She say Naw, I ain't gonna. Can't you see I'm already half dead, an all of these children "(1). When he was shunned away for the last time, he moved on to Celie. "First he put his thing against my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab my titties. The he push his thing inside my pussy." (1) He said that she was gonna do what her mother wouldn't. After she went through this for the first time, he made a note to tell her never to let anyone else know. Which was the originator of the opening statement in the book. Celie never knew God before then, she barely even knew how to read and write. She did not know that it was incest-rape and that it was wrong. As a result, she becomes pregnant twice. "She ast me bout the first one Whose it is? I say God's I don't know no other man or what else to say. When I start to hurt and then my stomach start moving and then that little baby come out my pussy chewing on it fist you could have know me over with a feather."(3) "He took it. He took it while I was sleeping. Kilt it out there in the woods. Kill this one too, if he can."(3) After going through this being only 14, God was the only one she could tell. To her no one else could possibly understand. God is her escape from all this pain and horror that someone close to her put her through. To a certain extent, the letters are confessions of she others would call sins.

Through learning this new skill and moving away from the man that took life away from her, she was growing and learning from her love of Shug Avery. As Diane and Paul Taylor stated:

The day finally came that Celie and Nettie reunited. She returned home with her children Olivia and Adam and Adam's wife Tashi and her husband Samuel. " When Nettie's foot came down on the porch I almost die. I stand swaying, tween Albert and Shug. Nettie stand swaying tween Samuel and I reckon it must be Adam. Then us both start to moan and cry. Us totter toward one nother like us use to do when us was babies. Then us feel so weak when us touch, us knock each other down. But what us care? Us sit and lay there on the porch inside each other's arms"(294). So that 4th of July, they celebrated their independence both physically and mentally.

Sex can be used to express love, the attraction between a man and a woman. It can be a deep sharing of closeness and pleasure. Sex can strengthen the bond between two people, giving satisfaction and a way of saying, 'I share my life with you.'

While continuing on with her ideas, she receives a phone call one day that her step-dad had past away, leaving her and her sister the house that they grew up in. She wrote to Nettie about it telling her to come home, that she could live with them with out the fear of being hurt anymore. Celie returned to the house one summer to fix it up and get it ready for Nettie's return. When she had the house crisp and clean, she called Shug, telling her that the house was in order and ready to moved in. "Last year," Shug say, " I hired a new man to work in the band. I almost didn't because he can't play nothing but flute. Who ever heard of blues flute? I hadn't. The very notion sound crazy. But it was just my luck that blues flute is the one thing blues music been lacking and the minute I heard Germaine play I knew this for a fact." Killing Celie softly in the heart,

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2359
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)