Alice Walker, The Color Purple, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 1982
Published Online: 24 FEB 2012
DOI: 10.1002/9781444393675.ch61
Copyright © 2011 Christopher MacGowan
Book Title
The Twentieth-Century American Fiction Handbook
Additional Information
How to Cite
MacGowan, C. (2011) Alice Walker, The Color Purple, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 1982, in The Twentieth-Century American Fiction Handbook, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK. doi: 10.1002/9781444393675.ch61
Publication History
- Published Online: 24 FEB 2012
- Published Print: 21 JAN 2011
Book Series:
ISBN Information
Print ISBN: 9781405160230
Online ISBN: 9781444393675
- Summary
- Chapter
- References
Keywords:
- Alice Walker, The Color Purple, New York - Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 1982;
- The Color Purple, a large critical and commercial success, winning both a Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award in 1983;
- epistolary form of novel, allowing Walker to give full voice to two black sisters, whose futures take very different directions, forced to separate as young women;
- Celie, the sister whose early life - shaped by a stepfather, who is as abusive as Albert;
- distance separating them - the two sisters sharing their love for each other over letters, grammar, vocabulary and spelling reflecting each sister's life;
- In Celie's case, her stepchildren - the aggressive and independent Sophie, and the even more independent Shug Avery;
- Celie, learning that her father was lynched by white men - because his dry goods store took too much black business away from the white merchants;
- Olinka women, under the new conditions - achieving a degree of financial independence through paid employment;
- challenge to patriarchal oppression - extending to Celie's conception of God;
- critical praise, novel has received - and objections, commentators viewing the ending as overly sentimental
Summary
This chapter contains sections titled:
Bibliography