Important Themes from The Color Purple
Important Themes from The Color Purple Alice Walker's The Color Purple, published in 1982, tells the story of Celie, a Black woman whose journey toward self-realization and growth as a person is filled with many joyous moments, as well as, many moments of tragedy and abuse. According to Dale and John Reed, authors of 1001 Things Everyone Should Know about the South, Southern writers display several characteristics in their writing (Reed and Reed). The most important characteristics that Walker used in writing The Color Purple are: “Sense of Community,” “Family,” “Love of Storytelling,” and “Love of Language.” (Reed and Reed) One of the first characteristics shown in this novel is Walker’s love for storytelling. The novel is written in the form of letters. According to David Bradley, “it was an epistolary novel, with most of the letters written by Celie, a black Southern woman, the victim of every virulent form of male oppression short of actual femicide, who eventually finds true love…..” (Bradley 32). This novel is clearly written so the reader can see things through the eyes of the main character, Celie. In the beginning of the novel, the letters written by Celie to God are written in first person; she never signs he . . .
Immediately after the argument between Sofia and Celie, Sofia offered to Celie that they “make quilt pieces out of these messed up curtains” (Walker 40). In conclusion, Walker truly relays to the reader a sense of community and family, her love of language, and of course her natural gift of storytelling. Their sufferings bring them together in a strong African-American, Southern style, sisterly type relationship. Another milestone in Celie’s transformation is shown in letter seventy-eight; Celie begins to sign the letters that are written to her sister, Nettie (Walker 212). If Walker would have used Standard English, she would not have been able to correctly portray the true African American Southern character from years ago. The community of love that surrounded Celie in the last letter included the men and women who were bonded together by family and friendship joining together for a “family reunion” and “spend the day celebrating each other” (Walker 288). From that point on, Celie and Sofia became friends, quilting together, offering advice to each other, and offering mutual aid to each other over the years. Also, according to Margaret Walsh, “Relationships among these women formed a type of refuge, providing a reciprocal type of love in a world filled with hate, violence, sexual abuse, and male domination” (Walsh 99). Hot like cooking dinner on a big stove in a little kitchen in August and July. “Although urged to become ‘educated,’ to learn to talk as the books do, she refuses to change her speech patterns by submitting to white language” (Tucker 92). When her husband, Albert, brings home his old flame, Shug Avery, Celie’s transformation starts to take place. Over the years, Shug and Sofia helped an abused, adolescent wife turn from a shy, scared girl to a woman that thinks for herself and speaks her own mind. The actual completion comes when she is finally reunited with her sister, Nettie, and her children, Adam and Olivia. The last instance of community appearing at the end of the novel is the community of love.
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