Nov 12, 2009

The Color Purple | Critical Overview

Since its publication, The Color Purple has aroused critics to both praise and to sharply criticize elements in the book. Trudier Harris in Black American Literature Forum criticizes the media for dictating the tastes of the reading public. The book "has been canonized," she states. It has "become the classic novel by a black woman," because "the pendulum determining focus on black writers had swung in their favor ... and Alice Walker had been waiting in the wings of the feminist movement...."

Harris contends that the popularity of the book has...