Essay Sample on The Color Purple: A Journey of Faith and Hope

Originally written as a novel by Alice Walker, the motion picture depiction of the same name "The Color Purple," directed by Steven Spielberg, was released in the year 1985. The movie, just like the book, is an outstanding depiction of the story of an African American girl called Celie growing up in the southern states of the USA. As a victim of segregation in society, Celie decides to turn to Christianity and religion for her solace. In this context, this discussion will use the characters and themes in the movie to explore the various psychosocial elements of development demonstrated in the film.

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Steven Spielberg's film adaptation of the novel illustrates a teenage black girl living in isolation in a rural neighborhood in Georgia (Dole, 1996). While in Georgia, she struggles to break free of the self-concept imposed by society. Celie uses the letters she writes to God to narrate to the audience of her struggles as a young black woman. She even fails to find happiness or solace at home since her abusive father regularly rapes her and also gets the teenager pregnant. At this state, Celie has no one else to turn to but God. Alphonso, Celie's father, even pushes her daughter into an abusive marriage.

With time, Celie initiates interactions with other black women, especially the iron-fisted women who took a forceful approach towards fighting oppression. In the endeavor, Celie becomes friends with Sofia, a defiant young woman who ends up being the protagonist's daughter-in-law as well. Throughout the movie, one gets to witness Celie mature from being a naive innocent girl to a woman who finds her place in society. Consequently, this confab considers Freud's theory of personality to analyze Celie's growth (Si, 2017).

Sigmund Freud's personality theory discusses the development of human behavior because of the interactions that an individual experiences, as they grow older in their life. According to the method, events occur in three components of the mind, the id, the ego, and the superego. The theory suggests that human behavior is dependent on how one balances between the three parts in how one approaches different scenarios in their lives.

In this context, the id represents the most primitive of all three structures. It represents our primal instincts that typically lead to impulsive behaviors.

In the movie, Celie seems to have mastered the control over her primal instincts since she rarely reacts impulsively for the better part of the film. Instead, she is reclusive and maintains a timid or scared young woman. Even when she is hit or continuously abused by her father, the protagonist fails to react aggressively. In response to her father's cruelty, she does not mean to escape, fight him, or take revenge. She instead seeks solace in God through prayers delivered in a monologue of sorts (Si, 2017). After being married, she continues with the same behavior, rarely acting impulsively even when her husband hits her. The second component of Freud's theory is the superego, which revolves around sociality and morality.

In this context, Celie seems to be in control of her superego since she considers the possible consequences before undertaking anything. She would consider the actions of her father if she talked about the two children he took from her and chose to keep quiet since she was raised to know the man as the head of the house, however, after coming in contact with Sofia and Shug Avery. Celie's first compromise was due to the intrigue she felt after seeing her husband Albert reacting strangely after the arrival of Shug Avery (Dole, 1996). It was at that moment that she compromises and serves water laced with spit to a guest who had talked ill about Avery.

The next theory applicable to the analysis of Celie's character is Jean Piaget's preoperational stage of cognitive development. This stage starts around age two and lasts until roughly age seven. During this period, kids are thinking at a representative level yet are not yet utilizing psychological tasks. Celie's intuition during this stage implies the youngster cannot use rationale or change, consolidate, or separate thoughts (Piaget, 1952). The youngster's improvement comprises of building encounters about the world through adjustment and progressing in the direction of the (solid) arrange when it can utilize the consistent idea. During the finish of this stage, youngsters can rationally speak to occasions and items, and participate in symbolic play.

Nevertheless, Celie seems to last longer at this stage. Her sister Nettie even surpasses her since she flees home before any defilement by her father and also rejects Albert's moves when at Celie's. Albert beats Celie usually; her stepchildren are mean, yet she cannot control them. She is encouraged to battle her stepchildren by both Nettie and Albert's sister, Kate. She stays latent, nonetheless, revealing to Nettie that she did not know how to fight, but she knew how to survive. When Kate advises her and suggests that she could discipline the children, the protagonists are shocked and cannot even comprehend a reaction. Instead, Celie endures and finds solace in God and her naivety.

Endurance becomes the thought process that shapes her conduct and way of life. She even derives pleasure from seeing that her husband cannot function in a primary setting without her. In one scene, when her husband is late for an occasion, viewers can see Celie smiling as she hands Albert his socks, shoes, tie, and cuff links before he leaves. She knows that without her, Albert would be a mess. Celie's impulse for endurance and her powerlessness to well-spoken are upgraded by Walker's presentation of a picture which uncovers Celie's view of her relationship to the world all through the novel.

References

Dole, C. M. (1996). The return of the father in Spielberg's the Color Purple. Literature/Film Quarterly, 24(1), 12.

Si, C. (2017, May). Analysis of the Color Purple from Freud's psychoanalysis. In 2017 International Conference on Culture, Education and Financial Development of Modern Society (ICCESE 2017). Atlantis Press.