The Color Purple (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Alice Walker
- First Published: 1982
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: The first half of the twentieth century
- Setting: Rural Georgia and Africa
- Principal Characters: Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery, Albert, Harpo, Sofia, Mary Agnes (Squeak), Alphonso, Samuel, Corrine, Olivia, Tashi, Reynolds, Eleanor Jane
- 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
Form and Content
The Color Purple is a series of seventy short letters; the first fifty-one are from Celie to God. Celie’s stepfather, Alphonso, rapes her repeatedly when she is so young that she does not even realize what is happening to her. She does not know that she is pregnant until her first baby is born. Alphonso steals it, as well as a second baby, and threatens her not to tell anybody but God what he has been doing to her; he says that if she tells, it will kill her mother. Celie pours out her confusion and pain in her letters to God. Her mother dies anyway,...
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