"The Color Purple"

English > Analysis
Literature > American

"The Color Purple"

A discussion on how the power of "The Color Purple" arises equally from Alice Walker's radical political aims and her desire to create something that is impressive in literary and aesthetic terms.

1,616 words () | 1 source | MLA | 2005 United Kingdom

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how, in literary terms, "The Color Purple" is innovative and groundbreaking and how Alice Walker's desire as a black woman to create an impressive literary and aesthetic work to challenge the established canon, could in itself be described as political. It looks at how political concerns such as racism and its treatment were equally as important to her as her literary and aesthetic aims and how the novel enables her to introduce and contrast similar issues in America and Africa making it an extremely powerful work on many levels.

From the Paper:

"Walker's inclusion of the African sections in the novel can be viewed as superfluous to the main story of Celie and therefore a distraction only included to forward her political aims. The African element does seem to be almost mythical, its culture and history summed up rather briefly in Nettie's letters, with occasional references to art, social practices and language which seem to be included merely as tokens or symbols of the full picture. This could be construed as weakening the main narrative, that of Celie. However, I believe that the epistolary form allows the African sense to be incorporated in a convincing way, and the refreshing contrast in language structure between the two sisters reinforces the political messages from both continents."