The Color Purple (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Alice Walker
- First Published: 1982
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The first half of the twentieth century
- Setting: Rural Georgia and Memphis, Tennessee
- Principal Characters: Celie, Albert, Nettie, Shug Avery, Samuel, Corrine, Harpo, Sofia
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism, Domestic realism, Epistolary literature
- Subjects: African Americans, Self-discovery, Africa or Africans, Racism, Sexism, Homosexuality or homosexuals, South or Southerners, Gender roles, 1940’s, Missions or missionaries, Friendship, 1920’s, 1930’s, God, Spiritual life or spirituality, Child abuse, Incest, Rape, Quilts or quilting, Lesbianism or lesbians, Women’s issues, Oppression, Letter writing, Sisters, Women
- Locales: Africa, South (U.S.), Georgia, Tennessee
The Novel
The Color Purple is an epistolary novel made up of letters written by the heroine, Celie, to God, and letters exchanged between Celie and her sister Nettie. The correspondence tells the life story of Celie, beginning at age fourteen, when she is raped by a man “us knowed as Pa” and ending three decades later, when Celie has overcome shame and low self-esteem.
Letter writing for Celie begins when her rapist stepfather tells her, “You’d better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.” Soon thereafter, Celie’s mother dies, and the...
[The entire page is 3078 words long]
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