The Color Pucrple and Black Like Me
...o see racism in The Color Purple. We can see this when the white mayor’s wife speaks down to Sofia, asking her to be her maid. Sofia is furious and sasses her. The white mayor and his wife are appalled at her disrespect towards them and the situation escalades when Sofia hits the mayor. She is first sent to prison but then to the mayors house to be the maid as a punishment. There was no trial. She was black and that made her guilty enough. Racism is the hate toward a person because of their race, skin color, and/or appearance. Black like Me is a perfect picture of racism because it shows us both sides of the issue. The Color Purple gives us one view but it too is a good example for its time. Being Invisible has different meanings to different people. It especially has a meaning to Ralph Ellison in the “Preface to the Invisible Man,” to Alice Walker in The Color Purple, and to John Griffin in Black like Me. In the “Preface to the Invisible Man,” invisibility was his reality. He reminds me of an outcast of society. After realizing his invisibility to the real world, he learned how to manipulate it so he could live in it and not owe anything to anyone. He says that he is in a “...fight with Monopolated Light & Power,” (Ellison 196) which is funny because he is the only one aware of it. “The deeper reason…” (196) he says for this is because, “It allows me to feel my vital aliveness.” (196) Although invisible to the world he still wanted to feel alive, which is his explanation for his love of light. The 1,369 lights that illuminate his “…hole…” (196) “…confirms (his) reality, gives birth to (his) form.”(169) The light gave him reassurance to his existence yet he still remained invisible to the world. In The Color Purple, Alice Walker uses invisibility to let her characters escape reality; one in particular is Celie. She endures so much physical and mental abuse that when she knows she can’t control what’s happening to her, she begins to make her own reality. For example, when she is being raped or just letting Mr._____ “…do his business…, (she) pretends like (she) isn’t there.” (Walker 81) This is how she learns to escape from reality. In Black like Me, John Griffin can control his invisibility. He realizes that once he becomes black he is invisible most of the time to the whites. He becomes just another black person with no meaning. He noticed this invisibility when he is walking down the street as a black man and no white person looks him in the eye or even regards him. When he becomes white again he is instantly alive to people and they are aware of his presence. His invisibility is controllable by what race he is.In all three of these stories, invisibility is used in three different ways but is very vital to every plot. It shows how real invisibility can be to different kinds of people. ...