Themes in the Colour Purple
The theme of Alice Walker 's The Color Purple is very straightforward and simple. Like many other novels devoted to the mistreatment of blacks and black women especially, The Color Purple is dedicated to black women 's rights.
Much of the narrative in Walker 's novel is derived from her own personal experience, growing up in the rural South as an uneducated and abused child. In short, the goal of this book and indeed all her writing is to inspire and motivate black women to stand up for their rights. Celie, the main character, undergoes an inner transformation, from a submissive, abused wife to an unabashedly confident and independent black woman and businesswoman.
There are other more secondary themes, such as the rejection of the traditional, Christian, "white-man 's" God. Thanks to the influence of Shug Avery and Nettie, a new age kind of God is developed and is a great comfort to all three women. Even Celie 's last letter is written to this vague kind of god-- a god of nature and stars and people
Race and domesticity in 'The Color Purple. '
An important juncture in Alice Walker 's The Color Purple is reached when
Celie first recovers the missing letters from her long-lost sister Nettie.
This discovery not only signals the introduction of a new narrator to this epistolary novel but also begins the transformation of Celie from writer to reader. Indeed, the passage in which Celie struggles to puzzle out the markings on her first envelope from Nettie provides a concrete illustration of both Celie 's particular horizon of interpretation and Walker 's chosen approach to the epistolary form:
Saturday morning Shug put Nettie letter in my lap. Little fat queen of
England stamps on it, plus stamps that got peanuts, coconuts, rubber trees and say Africa. I don 't know where England at. Don 't know where Africa at either. So I stir don 't know where Nettie at. (102)
Revealing Celie 's ignorance of even the most rudimentary outlines of the
Much of the narrative in Walker 's novel is derived from her own personal experience, growing up in the rural South as an uneducated and abused child. In short, the goal of this book and indeed all her writing is to inspire and motivate black women to stand up for their rights. Celie, the main character, undergoes an inner transformation, from a submissive, abused wife to an unabashedly confident and independent black woman and businesswoman.
There are other more secondary themes, such as the rejection of the traditional, Christian, "white-man 's" God. Thanks to the influence of Shug Avery and Nettie, a new age kind of God is developed and is a great comfort to all three women. Even Celie 's last letter is written to this vague kind of god-- a god of nature and stars and people
Race and domesticity in 'The Color Purple. '
An important juncture in Alice Walker 's The Color Purple is reached when
Celie first recovers the missing letters from her long-lost sister Nettie.
This discovery not only signals the introduction of a new narrator to this epistolary novel but also begins the transformation of Celie from writer to reader. Indeed, the passage in which Celie struggles to puzzle out the markings on her first envelope from Nettie provides a concrete illustration of both Celie 's particular horizon of interpretation and Walker 's chosen approach to the epistolary form:
Saturday morning Shug put Nettie letter in my lap. Little fat queen of
England stamps on it, plus stamps that got peanuts, coconuts, rubber trees and say Africa. I don 't know where England at. Don 't know where Africa at either. So I stir don 't know where Nettie at. (102)
Revealing Celie 's ignorance of even the most rudimentary outlines of the
Cited: Abbandonato, Linda. "A View From Elsewhere: Subversive Sexuality and the Rewriting of the Heroine 's Story in The Color Purple." PMLA 106 (1991): Bell, Bernard. The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1987. Berlant, Lauren. "Race, Gender, and Nation in The Color Purple." Critical Inquiry 14 (1988): 831-59. Bobo, Jacqueline. "Sifting through the Controversy: Reading The Color Purple." Callaloo 12 (1989): 332-42. Temple UP, 1989. Christian, Barbara. Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892-1976 Froula, Christine, "The Daughter 's Seduction: Sexual Violence and Feminist Theory." Signs 2 (1986): 621-44. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., ed. "Race," Writing, and Difference. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986. Hooks, bell. Ain 't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Boston: South End, 1981. Jean Fagan Yellin. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987. Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford UP, 1986 Light, Alison Anderson. London: Edward Arnold, 1993. 85-96. Shelton, Frank W. "Alienation and Integration in Alice Walker 's The Color Purple." CLA Journal 28 (1985): 382-92. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "Explanation and Culture: Marginalia." Humanities and Society 2 (1974): 201-21. Stade, George. "Womanist Fiction and Male Characters." Partisan Review 52 (1985): 264-70. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Harcourt, 1982.