Analysis of The Theme Through The Protagonist in Alice Walker's 'The Color Purple'.

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ABSTRACT

Alice Walker adalah salah satu pengarang berkulit hitam di Amerika pada abad ke 20. Dia berasal dari Afrika dan dia adalah seorang penulis novel, pengarang puisi, dan pembuat esai, tapi dia lebih dikenal sebagai pengarang novel. Dia sangat aktif dalam banyak gerakan politik, terutama yang membela kaum wanita.

Karya novelnya yang terkenal dan mendapatkan penghargaan adalah The Color Purple. Dalam karyanya ini Alice Walker menceritakan seorang wanita kulit hitam bernama Celie yang berusaha membebaskan dirinya dari penindasan yang dilakukan oleh kaum pria kulit hitam dan yang berusaha untuk mendapatkan kebebasan dan kehidupan yang lebih baik. Pada akhirnya wanita kulit hitam tersebut bisa mendapatkan kebebasan dan merubah hidupnya menjadi lebih baik berkat dukungan yang diberikan oleh para tokoh wanita yang lain, yaitu, Kate, Sofia, Nettie, dan Shug.

Dalam tugas akhir ini penulis membahas tema novel The Color Purple melalui tokoh protagonis yang ada dalam novel tersebut. Tokoh protagonis yang bernama Celie berhasil membebaskan dirinya dari penindasan yang dia alami dan

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dia dapat merubah kehidupannya menjadi lebih baik dan mendapatkan kebebasan.Perubahan dalam hidup Celie tersebut terjadi berkat dukungan dari tokoh-tokoh wanita yang ada dalam kehidupan Celie, yaitu Kate, Sofia, Nettie, dan Shug.

Setelah menganalisis tema novel ini, penulis pun berpendapat bahwa tema tersebut adalah “dukungan dari para wanita sangatlah penting bagi seorang wanita untuk berubah dan memiliki kehidupan yang lebih baik”. Dan akhirnya penulis pun berpendapat bahwa dukungan yang diberikan dapat menjadi motivasi bagi seseorang untuk berubah.

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APPENDICES

Synopsis of The Color Purple

The novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker tells a story about a black woman who had suffered a lot in her life because of oppression. From this novel, Alice Walker is trying to show us how the woman can survive from the oppression and how she can be strong and independent as a woman and get a better life.

Celie has been raped by her step-father, Alfonso, when she was fourteen years old and she becomes pregnant twice. When Celie had a baby for the first time, Alfonso takes the baby and kills the baby. When Celie gave birth for the second time, Alfonso also takes the baby. This time he did not kill the baby, but he sold the baby.

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Celie knows that her husband has an affair with Shug Avery, but she does not care about it. Shug Avery is a bar singer, and Celie adores Shug so much because Shug is very pretty and kind to Celie. Shug helps Celie and supports Celie to change and to be stronger. Shug tried to convince Celie that she is important, and she does not deserve to get such bad treatment in her life. Shug always tells Celie to fight for her rights. Kate, Sofia, and Nettie also support Celie to change and get a better life. Nettie gives support in her letters. The support given by the women are important in Celie’s changing.

Celie can eventually realize that life is so important and she has a right to enjoy her life with freedom. Celie can finally feel satisfaction for her life.

Biography of Alice Walker

Alice Walker is a novelist, poet, critic and essayist. She was born in Eatonton, Georgia, USA, on February 9, 1944. Alice Walker was a black child who was born in poverty and had many disadvantages in her life. When she was eight years old, she lost her eyesight in one of her eyes. This happened because her older brother shot her with a gun accidentally.

Her childhood was bad, because she had to face racialism, confrontation and also sexual abuse. This situation made her isolated from her community. She spent much of her time reading and writing about people around her. She was inspired by her mother to be an independent black woman.

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She attended Spelman, a leading black woman’s college in Atlanta, and received a BA degree from a prestigious white woman’s college, Sarah Lawrence, in 1965. She was also active in many political movements, including Civil (Human) Rights, Native American Rights, the Women’s Movement, the Anti-Nuclear Movement and movements for peace, freedom and justice in South Africa and Central America.

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Alice Walker is a twentieth century African-American woman writer. She is a novelist, poet, critic, and essayist, but she is famous as a novelist. She is actively involved in many political movements, such as Civil (Human) Rights Movement, Native American Rights Movement, the Woman’s Movement, the Anti-Nuclear Movement, and Movement for Peace, Freedom, and Justice in South Africa and Central America. Her most famous novel is The Color Purple, for which she has received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the American Book Award. The novel is an excellent piece of writing by Walker as it focuses on some important topics associated with women, suppression and liberation.

As a woman novelist, Walker has her own tradition in writing the novel. She possibly has the same traditions with the other women novelists, but they never talk about the same thing. This can be seen from the following quotation.

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terms of narrative strategies, themes addressed, and voice. This is not to say that all women write about the same things; but there is a tradition known as women's literature, which has developed with a consciousness of women's traditions of writing as distinct from men’s' ways of writing. (Lavender, 1998:1)

From the quotation above, I can see that Alice Walker has her own style and characteristics. She has a different way of writing than male writers, especially about feminism. We can see the differences by reading her novel The Color Purple, and comparing it with other novels.

In The Color Purple, Alice Walker is trying to tell the readers about the oppression of women that usually happens among black people. She tells about oppression in her novel, because she wants to fight for women’s rights and freedom. She creates Celie as the protagonist to show the readers that a woman also has a right to live and needs support to get freedom from the oppression.

I have chosen The Color Purple to analyse because I find in the novel that the female protagonist can survive in facing oppression, can change, and can get a better life because of the help and support from the other female characters. The support that is given from the other female characters can change the female protagonist to become an independent woman. From the female protagonist’s characteristics, the readers can see the condition of women in black communities who need a lot of support from the other women to survive because of the oppression they face from men. And by seeing the changes, the readers will find that a woman who has support can survive and have a better life.

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in his book Dictionary of Literary Terms (Shaw, 1972: 365) states that “Protagonist is the main character in a work, on whom the author focuses most of the narrative attention.” Harry Shaw states that “Theme is the central and dominating idea in a literary work.” (Shaw, 1972:378) Moreover, he also says that “Theme is the message of moral implicit in any work of art” (Shaw, 1972:378). And by analyzing the theme, I hope that the readers will be able to find that good relationships can help someone to change, and support is important in affecting the changes.

Statement of the Problem

I would like to state the problems of this study as follows:

1. What is the theme in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple? 2. How does the protagonist help reveal the theme?

Purpose of the Study

My purposes of analyzing Alice Walker’s The Color Purple are: 1. To show the theme in the novel.

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Method of Research

I use library research in this analysis. First of all, I begin by reading Alice Walker’s The Color Purple as the primary text. Then I read the references which deal with this work and gather some information which is useful for my analysis from the Internet. Then I use the collected data to support the analysis. Finally, I draw some conclusions.

Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER THREE

CONCLUSION

Having read the novel The Color Purple, I conclude that the author has been successful in presenting the theme. The theme is revealed through the protagonist. I come to the opinion that the theme of The Color Purple is “Support from other women is very important and can help a woman to change and have a better life”.

In this story, the protagonist, Celie, is a woman who has been oppressed by men. She has never been appreciated, especially by her father or her husband. She becomes a woman who has never struggled for a better life and who never fights against oppression she faces because she is afraid of the men who have oppressed her and she does not have courage to fight.

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gets support from Shug, who gives Celie moral and physical support, which changes Celie a lot. The support from Shug is the most important in Celie’s changing and makes Celie have courage to decide to do something good for her life.

Celie’s character changes because of the support that she gets from other women. The other women want to help Celie even though they are not related at all, except Nettie, who is Celie’s sister. They give Celie courage and inspiration to fight to have a better life. In the end, Celie becomes a woman who can gain her self-respect, and who has courage and independence to move on with her life without depending on somebody else.

I conclude that support can help a woman to change and have a better life, as I can see from the novel. This can be a motivation for other women to follow this example and learn to help other women by giving support, because support is very important in our life.

Most black women did their best in helping other women who have problems in their life, especially about oppression. They did this because, at that time (1910-1940), they have been oppressed by both black men and white people, which can be called a double oppression. The black men and white people always underestimate the black women, so the black women at that time have a high sense of solidarity and always support each other to get freedom from the oppression.

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can have the same freedom as men. Besides this, we can see a lot of women’s movements which fight for women’s freedom.

The writer, Alice Walker, writes this novel because she wants to show us about oppression and how the other women support Celie to solve her problems of oppression. The writer also wants to show us that support is very important in changing someone’s life.

I think that The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a very good novel. The novel can teach the readers much about how to support someone to survive from oppression by men and how to get a better life. We, as the readers, can also know that support is very important and can be a big motivation to change and be better.

The novel can be a motivation for us, especially for women, to give support to others and fight against any oppression. We can learn that giving support is important and helping each other is a must, because support can make someone survive and have a better life.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

References

Shaw, Harry. Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: McGraw. Hill Inc, 1972.

Internet Website

About The Author by Aniina. n.d. 18th March 2006.

< http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/alicew/ > The Color Purple. Alice Walker. 1998. 18th March 2006.

< http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/purple.html >

Primary Text