Colors And Independence In Alice Walkers The Color Purple

Alice Walker’s masterpiece, The Color Purple, uses ordinary things such as clothes, colors, jobs, and money as strong symbolism. In this book, pants symbolize independence. Pants change the way society views and treats a person. They also convey that a person is strong, confident, free, and equal to others. Alice Walker shows the reader how wearing pants can have a big effect on a person’s life, especially if that person is a woman in the early twentieth century. From the beginning of time to less than one hundred years ago, society forbade women to wear pants, because they did not want women to have freedom. Women were denied the right to earn a living, own property, and to vote; as well as denied the freedom to choose their style of†¦show more content†¦Katharine Hepburn, a beloved movie star of the time, fell in love with pants. Even the popular magazine Vogue featured women in pants in 1939. (Caplan-Bricker, â€Å"Women Who Wear Pants: Still Somehow Contro versial†) Soon, everyone wanted a pair. After the war, it still was unacceptable to wear pair in certain settings. In 1969, The Washington Post reported Congress’ outrage when Congress woman Charlotte Reid wore pants on the chamber floor. The 56-year-old widow†¦showed up on the House floor in a black wool, bell-bottomed pantsuit. Her appearance marked a first in the annals of the U.S. Congress. How did her male colleagues react? One incredulous congressman told her, â€Å"I was told there was a lady here in trousers, so I had to come over and see for myself.† Of the dozen or more men who spoke to Mrs. Reid about her outfit, none had other than compliments, she said. (There were no other congresswomen on the floor to comment.) (Ross, â€Å"Rep. Reid in a Pantsuit†) Most women in the 1950’s and 1960’s never wore pants, unless they were cleaning or not going out of the house. It was deemed unprofessional to wear pants at a formal event. The public opinion of women’s pants was that they were not dressy enough for more sophisticated occasion. Women’s pants were for working in factories or cleaning the house. Wearing pants outside of the house during this time is comparable to wearing exercise clothes or pajamas to a fancy party. As crazy as it sounds, women in the western world areShow MoreRelatedEssay about Autobiography in the Fiction of Alice Walker1077 Words   |  5 PagesWhen reading Alice Walker’s â€Å"The Color Purple† and â€Å"Everyday Use,† it is evident that she writes about her life through her use of allegory. Alice Walker uses the events of her childhood, her observation of the patriarchy in African American culture, and her rebellion against the society she lived in to recount her l ife through her stories. Alice Walker grew up in a loving household in the years towards the end of the Great Depression. 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