Walker, Alice | Linda Abbandonato (essay date October 1991)
Linda Abbandonato (essay date October 1991)
SOURCE: Abbandonato, Linda. “‘A View from “Elsewhere”’: Subversive Sexuality and the Rewriting of the Heroine's Story in The Color Purple.” PMLA 106, no. 5 (October 1991): 1106-115.
[In the following essay, Abbandonato explores Walker's denouncement of the caucasian, patriarchal order in The Color Purple by displaying Celie's claiming of an identity and sexuality outside of traditionally accepted parameters.]
Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple begins with a paternal injunction of silence:
You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy.
(11)
Celie's story is told within the context of this threat: the narrative is about breaking silences, and, appropriately, its formal structure creates the illusion that it is filled with unmediated “voices.” Trapped in a gridlock of racist, sexist, and...
[The entire page is 7136 words long]
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