The Color Purple, a movie about a black female growing up in the early nineteen-hundreds, involves many concepts that apply to Interpersonal Communication. Interpersonal Communication is made up of many different aspects that teach people how to communicate with others at any level without concerns such as inferiority or low self-esteem. If only the characters in this movie knew than what we know now, maybe things could have been different for them. Poor blacks had very little education, most of the characters led a life of poverty and/or degradation. .
Celie, the main character in the movie suffered from a poor self-concept. Self-concept is how a person tends to view his or herself usually influenced by the people around them. For instance, until her teenage years, Celie lived with her step-father, a man who continually made her feel bad about herself. He forced himself upon her when he pleased and when she gave birth to two of his children, he took them from her and gave them up. Not only did he make her feel inferior but he made her feel ugly as well. He continually told her she was ugly and talked about it freely in front of other people by making statements about her "ugly smile". Examples such as these tend to lead to a person having a poor self-concept which is very difficult to change. In Celie's case it took just about her whole life for her to realize what she was really worth. Although Celie left her step-father to be married at a very young age, she was not married for love, and her husband did not even find her attractive. She was once again living her life for someone else. Very often, Celie was not allowed to enjoy herself, but instead she had to do for "Mister", her husband. This horrible treatment from almost everyone around her made her feel as though this was there was no way out, she felt she was ugly, and worth nothing, she felt she was only living to please other people, and not herself.