Tolog Review: The Color Purple

The Color Purple
by Alice Walker
reviewed by Genevieve Zix

The Color Purple, a novel that is now nationwide phenomenon, was published in 1982 and later earned the author, Alice Walker, a 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Alice Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1944. She became known through her excellent writing skills and intelligence, as it was rare for a young black girl to have such an impact back in the 1940’s-50’s. Later, in 1985, the famed director Steven Spielberg released her award-winning Literary Fiction on the big screen, creating awareness of injustice and inequality. Recently, her widely-known story has been adapted into play, even making an appearance in the Tony Awards. Walker continues to be an empowering activist, and inspires women around the world. The story of The Color Purple has become an immense success, as it’s story has been adapted into both movie and play format.

In the novel, Alice Walker introduces readers to Celie, a 14 year old African American girl living in Georgia. She is impoverished, illiterate, and is sexually abused and beaten by her father, leaving her writing letters to God in desperation. She had given birth to a daughter and a son due to her father’s harassment, later finding them missing because her father had stolen them away. Celie’s younger sister, Nettie, has discovered that a man known to readers with the name of “Mister” wants to marry Celie. However, Celie does not have any interest in Nettie’s potential husband and instead takes interest in his lover, Shug Avery. Their father does not allow Nettie to marry Mister, but instead wills him to marry Celie. This turns out to be unfortunately abusive marriage, in which Mister persists on making advances toward Nettie, who flees home for her own good. Later on, Harpo, Mister’s son, marries his girlfriend Sofia after he impregnates her. Shug soon becomes sick, causing Mister to take her into his home to rest and recover. At first, she is rude and indifferent to Celie, but the two later grow a bond while Celie is taking care of her. Celie develops a sexual attraction towards Shug, but does not know what to think of it, since it is the first time she is experiencing love. Before then, she had only known of abuse and pain. The story continues to tell of Celie’s exploration of true love, religion, and emotional healing.

Alice Walkers’ writing style in The Color Purple is as if she were uneducated, which makes readers feel closer to Celie because she is uneducated. Her brief sentences and scattered words tell the audience that the main character struggles with putting her thoughts together. These methods are used throughout the book in order to make the Celie more dimensional and realistic, in order to let readers grow close to her and feel what she feels. This novel has not only positively impacted African Americans across the nation, it has also impacted women. By raising awareness of things such as sexual abuse and harassment, women have learned to raise their voices and speak out about their experience. This contributes as to why it is such a successful novel. Its empowering and coming-of-age fashion appeals to readers of all kinds. 

Tolog Review: The Color Purple

The Color Purple
by Alice Walker
reviewed by Ivana Alejo 

The Color Purple is an intense and breathtaking literary fiction novel that leaves you wanting to read more and more from start to finish. The author, Alice Walker, from the very beginning of the story addresses topics that are difficult, and uncomfortable for most people to discuss in their everyday lives. Some of these topics include, rape, domestic violence, and a possible exploration of one’s sexuality.

The beginning of each chapter in the first half or so of the book, is introduced with a letter to God, written by African American protagonist, Celie. As you continue to read, the chapters are begun with letters from Celie to her companions, or written to her. In the very first chapter, the reader learns that Celie’s mother has died, and that she is now being raped by her father. We can immediately sympathize with Celie, as Walker writes her as an uneducated figure, allowing readers to understand her situation and life from a unique perspective. Celie is a relatable and selfless young heroine that is only ever concerned with others, even as she tries to make sense of the pain and struggles in her own home. Further down the line of the story, Celie is forced into a loveless marriage to Mr.____, later called Albert. The marriage is split three ways between Celie, Mr.____, and his mistress, Shug Avery. This “marriage” introduces a new idea of sisterhood within each of the female characters, in their unity against the men who have kept them submerged underground. This bond is physically represented by the quilt made by Celie and her stepson’s wife, Sofia. The cloth is formed with scraps of thrown out cloth, and fabric from old dresses and curtains, demonstrating that something previously shown to be useless has the ability to be repurposed and in the end become functional, even though it started out as individual fragments.

By establishing this bond between the women in the novel, Walker sets a feminist tone in her work that can inspire young readers to possibly adjust their worldview in the slightest way, or it can also allow for for the complete resolution of a primitive perspective on the importance of women in our universe. Walker challenges readers to glance into the lives of women from a defined minority culture and experience their hardships as if they were their own. I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys reading empowering stories about the quiet strength of women, or to anyone who is willing to extend, or maybe even alter, their foregoing impressions on this subject.