Why The Book Has Been Banned

5.      The Color Purple chronicles the life of a young woman named Celie and her heartbreaking struggles that come with being a domestic housewife and a woman in the early 1900’s. For many the novel is an ‘emotional rollercoaster’ while learning about the trials and tribulations of Celie’s day; for others, however, it is an explicit and inappropriate text that should not be available for just anyone. Although it may seem absurd, there is a valid argument opposing the access of the novel; perhaps one of the most common would be the shared opinion that this story is very graphic and explicit. On the first page alone Walker depicts a horrific scene of young Celie getting raped and impregnated by her father, “First he put his thing up against my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my pussy. When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying You better shut up and git used to it” (Walker 1). Later on when the antagonist meets the character Shug Avery, it is discovered that they develope a relationship that is more than friends. There are scenes in which Celie and Shug Avery stay bed together all night, and this can makes the book controversial to people who have opposing views on homosexuals. “She say, I love you, Miss Celie. And then she haul me off and kiss me on the mouth. Um, she say, like she surprise. I kiss her back, say, um, too. Us kiss and kiss till us can’t hardly kiss no more. Then us touch each other” (Walker 118). The time we live in now is more accepting of homosexuality, but it is still a controversial issue today. Considering the views of American society in the 1980’s, when this book was published, many disagreed with the sexual issues depicted in certain scenes.
The reasons listed above, among many others, provide a lot of evidence as to why this book is banned across the nation. School boards have stated that the book is too sexulay explicit, conatins themes of rape and sexual harassment; and harsh language. It has also been banned for portraying African American people in a shameful and negative light. In the case of Oakland California in 1984, the book was removed of the syllabus and shelves of their libraries because of the work’s “sexual and social explicitness” as well as “troubling ideas about race relations, man’s relationship to God, African history [negative context], and human sexuality.” The novel has also been banned in Newport school library, Virginia, for students under the age of 18; the book was deemed to inappropriate to minors due to it’s “profanity and sexual references”. If students were over the age of 18 and wanted to read the book the must have had their parent or guardian sign a sheet that gives them permission to read The Color Purple. It has become evident through the various examples listed above that Alice Walker’s, The Color Purple has stirred quite the controversy and will remain challenged.