Project Background: The Color Purple merges together repression and triumph of African American women. The repression of being physically and psychologically violent against women is portrayed through Celie’s writings about her sexual experiences. In the novel, Celie was abused and treated as a slave to men and since these experiences negatively resulted in her lack of self-value, Celie began to accept everything that has happened to her. By saying “I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you a tree,” (23), she has indirectly expressed her low self-esteem as a black woman. The feeling of unwantedness, hideousness, uneducatedness, and undesirability that followed the disturbances had led Celie to finding her happiness in her sister, Nettie. However, when Nettie went to Africa, Celie was left alone. Therefore, she started looking for another life that could cheer her up and there she found Shug Avery. The Color Purple explicitly connects the protagonist to explore on her femininity through her sexual relationship with a female partner. It is significant to raise some concerns with the behavioural characters on Walker’s protagonists to feminist attempts to provide a freedom to the notion of female homosexuality and relate it to their sexual behaviours.

Research Question or Hypothesis: This study is to explore the sexual relationships between the protagonist and other characters in Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple. This study aims to discover the roles of homosexual relationship in the friendship between Celie and Shug Avery. The study focuses on the following themes relating to homosexuality: 1. How black women’s relationships were generated through homosexuality? 2. How homosexuality empowers Celie? 3. How Celie’s mind be nurtured through her homosexual experience? 4. How homosexuality helps Celie to find her own identity through the exploration of her “virgin’s body”?

General Research Approach: Mixed / Multi-Modal

Data Available: Request data by contacting mmilton82@yahoo.com