Stupidity

           The Color Purple by Alice Walker presents the idea that certain people are stupid. In the novel people who are “ugly”, not social (attract attention to themselves), and don’t go to school are perceived as stupid. However, this is not the case with Celie. Celie is an intuitive person, yet she doesn’t speak up about her insights. For example, “You too dumb to keep going to school, Pa say…. Yeah, like I know it. I never tell her how flat it look to me” (9-10). This quote simply demonstrates how even her dad undermines her own abilities. With that she tells the audience her own perspective of how flat the ground is to her.  I believe that the society the characters live in creates an image of women as: weak, stupid, and ugly. Celie is shaped into that image even though she is not that type of person.  Later on in the novel, a strong woman (Shug Avery) comes along and breaks that image. Celie will hopefully learn from Shug and become the empowered woman she was meant to be. She will get to speak her own truths and break the image that society shackled on to her. All in all, stupidity was a misperception of the way society viewed woman at the time.