Night | The Color Purple| Book Analysis

Courage is a feeling that not everyone has, to have the capacity to react with courage when they are in certain problems. The majority of the people do not act with courage because they just do not have it. In the books Night and The color purple there are very good examples of courage in the main characters, for example Elie Wiesel is a very courageous woman; he demonstrates this with his acts. And in The Color Purple Celie is the one full of courage, she has the courage to stand up to others and fight for what is hers. She fights for her children and for her sister. She finally stands up to Mr. and finally achieves her goals that were to be with her family.

In the book night the presence of courage is found. Actually it can be found all throughout the book, but it will practically be focused in only one character, in the protagonist of this story. The historical context in which this book was written will also be considered. For example Night was written during the time all the Jews had to have courage, in order to survive their hard situation. The Jews were being exterminated just because of their religious belief. Everything they owned was taken away from them, they were left with nothing but with the cloths they were wearing.

On the other hand the color purple was written during the time that women had no rights they were just seen like objects. They were only used to do the chores and raise children. Celie is a perfect example of this, she did nothing but obey Mr. and just like Elie Mr. took everything away from her. At the beginning of the book she did not have the courage to fight but after she met Sofia and Shug everything changed for. She gained the courage and finally stood up for her rights and beliefs

Celie´s courage helped her in an unconscious way to become a better person. Therefore she stopped feeling pity for herself. Celie was not a bad person in the beginning of the book, her only problem was that she was the opposite of being courageous, she was a woman filled with fear. She did not know how to defend herself. Many people took advantage of this situation. They saw Celie as an object.

Her father raped her; she had two children with her father. When these were born they were taken away from her, and she could not stop her father, because she was filled with fear. If Celie would have been a courageous person she would not have permitted her father to do this with her. And she would have fought for her children.

From a different point o view it is reasonable that Celie had no courage because she had no one to teach her, she did not have an example of someone that had courage. Her mother had the same personality and form of behavior as Celie. And it was normal for her to repeat her mother´s pattern.

Unfortunately for Celie she met Sofia and Shug Avery. Sofia was a very strong women she did not fear anyone. She had a lot of courage and this gave her many problems. Sofia could not tolerate Mr. and Harpo´s attitude. When Harpo wanted to beat her, she did not permit it and she hit Harpo back. She defended herself, and was not afraid of any man especially her husband. Because of her courage Sofia was sent to jail, when she hit the mayor, she felt offended when the mayor´s wife told her to go and work as her maid. Sofia told the lady that she was no maid and that did not want anything from her.

Everyone in town was surprised with Sofia´s reaction, first because she was a woman and woman don´t hit men. Second because she was disrespecting that mayor´s wife, a very important person in town. And last and what was most important is that she was a black woman and she had everything to lose if she want to defend herself. Even though Sofia had the right to be offended, she could not express this, because she was no one in town.

The person that mostly influenced Celie is Shug Avery. Shug Avery was Celie´s role model. She was the one that told her that she was pretty and that was worth a lot. Shug was a strong person and did not care what others thought about her. She defended her profession with courage. She was never ashamed of whom she was or the things she was doing. She had the courage to tell her father that she was not going to change and also told him to please accept her the way she is. To her father this was something difficult especially because of the role he played in the community. For him it was embarrassing to be the priest and to have a daughter that did the opposite of God´s wishes. The courage she had was outstanding, she was fighting against the world and what affected her even more was that she was fighting against her father.

In the book the color purple there are many examples of courage but in women. These women fought for themselves. They defended what they thought was right. Analyzing night, courage is found in Elie and in a community. The courage found in night is different from the color purple. But this doesn´t mean it is not important or significant.

Elie Wiesel is the protagonist and she describes what she lived during the holocaust in a concentration camp. In a certain form Elie is like the heroine of the story, because she did everything in order for his father to be good. She was grateful with his father and also risked her life in occasions in order to save his father.

At the end of the story he has to take the difficult decision to leave his father behind. And with this he did not show his fear or regrets but courage. His father was an injured man; it is more than obvious that he could not keep up to Elie pace and this represented and obstacle to him. To be honest his courage is what kept him alive and safe.

It is wonderful that at the end of the book Elie had the opportunity to share his experience. This is not easy because he had to remember what he suffered and the grief of losing his family. And once more he had the courage to write a book about it. And have conferences to share his experience. After the tragedy she helped other Jews that had lived the same tragically experience.

Ellie was not the only character that was full of courage; the Jew community was also an important piece in this story. The Jews never lost faith and stayed together. When everything was bad, when they took everything from them, they fought back they wanted to live and they had the courage.

Courage is a feeling that is present when you most needed it. It helps in the most difficult situations and this is proved in both books, Celie fund the courage when she was feed up with the situation in which she was living. And the Jews found the courage to maintain themselves alive.