CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEL “THE COLOR PURPLE” Name: A.N. Parvathy, Reg.no:- 1313297

A.N.PARVATHY                    
REG NO:1313297
AMERICAN LITERATURE CIA

                   CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEL “THE COLOR PURPLE”                                   
                  "The Color Purple" is regarded as Walker's most successful and critically acclaimed work.It primarily talks about the story of Celie, a poor, barely literate Southern black woman who struggles to escape the brutality of her treatment by men. The tale is told primarily through her own letters, which, out of seclusion and anguish, she initially addresses to God. As a teen-ager she is repetitively raped and beaten by her stepfather, then forced by him into loveless marriage to Albert, a widower with four children. To Albert, who is in love with lively and decisively independent blues singer named Shug Avery, Celie is merely a servant and an occasional sexual convenience.The novel begins in the early 1900's and ends in the mid-1940's.Celie frees herself from her husband's suppressive control. Celie eventually leaves Albert and moves to Memphis, where she starts a business designing and making clothes. Paradoxically, it is Albert's real love and sometime mistress, Shug Avery, and his rebellious daughter-in-law, Sofia, who provide the poignant support for Celie's personal evolution. And, in turn, it is Celie's new understanding of an acceptance of herself that eventually lead to Albert's re-examination of his own life .Walker explores the separation of men and women through a triangular love affair. It is Shug Avery who forces Albert to stop brutalizing Celie, and it is Shug with whom Celie first consummates a satisfying and reciprocally loving relationship.What makes Miss Walker's exploration so lastingly affecting is the choice of a narrative style that, without the interference of the author, forces intimate acknowledgment with the heroine.Initially, some readers may be put off by Celie's keyhole view of the world, particularly since her letters are written in a dialect and from the perspective of a naive, uneducated teenager.As the novel progresses, however, and as Celie grows in experience, her observations become sharper and more informed; the letters take on authority and the dialect, once accepted, assumes a lyrical cadence of its own.
              This plot reflects neither the density of restrained interactions among the characters  nor the novel's powerful emotional impact. Most prominent theme is the division and violence that mark the relationships between Miss Walker's black men and women.At that point, the strongly felt need for a more open inspection of black life led writers to challenge longstanding black middle-class proscriptions against dramatizing and thereby exposing anything that might reinforce damaging racial stereotypes. In "The Color Purple" the role of male dominance in the frustration of black women's struggle for independence is clearly the focus.The collective effect is that the novel is persuasive because of the genuineness of its folk voice. And, scrumptiously, it is not just the two narrator correspondents who come vividly alive in this tale. A number of memorable female characters come into view. There is Shug Avery, whose pride, independence and craving for living act as a catalyst for Celie and others. And Sofia, whose mutinous spirit leads her not only to desert her overbearing husband but also to challenge the social order of the racialist community in which she lives.If there is a weakness in this novel - besides the somewhat pale portraits of the males - it is Netti's correspondence for Africa. While Netti's letters widen and emphasize the theme of female oppression by describing customs of the Olinka tribe that parallel some found in the American South, they are often mere monologues on African history. After Celie's extremely subjective voice has been established, they seem monotonous and intrusive. The Color Purple is not an easy book to read as it is not written in the style of most novels. Walker does not tell us everything about the characters and the setting and why the characters behave as they do.
          The series of letters in this novel aren't dated, in order to have a time frame for the novel.We will have to read through it cautiously, watching for clues about social attitudes, clothes, and other telling details.Only after completing the book do we understand that the letters begin in a time when people ride around in wagons, and when the letters end, people are driving cars. Thus, the time span of the novel is about forty years. In addition, we realize that there are large gaps between letters, sometimes five years, but this information is not revealed by Walker herself. We gather this information from clues in the letters and by comparing letters. Walker does not write as an omniscient narrator, filling in the gaps and giving us background. We must rely on our own close reading and on the particulars that the women who write the letters Celie and her sister Nettie give us. There is yet another intricacy in reading this novel. We begin with Celie's letters and we come across a language problem.
            Celie's letters are not written in regular English. Celie writes her letters in non-standard language, what Walker has called black folk language. Thus, at first, Celie's language might seem uncomfortable to some of us.Celie is uneducated, and she is writing precisely as she speaks and thinks. There is nothing fake about her writing style. In fact, the most distinctive characteristic about Celie's letters is their naturalness. There is an incessant stress on the oral sound and sense of what Celie writes, rather than on the "written" style of the letters.There is also an eager and enduring quality of honesty throughout Celie's letters. She is writing to God, trusting him as she would trust a best friend for guidance and power to carry on, despite the awful, painful sadness that she feels within her and all those around her.We should also note that Celie doesn't sign her letters for a long time, which can be explained by realizing that Celie doesn't think of herself as a person of adequate worth to sign her name. When we meet Celie, she has very little self-confidence. She feels detested. No one has made her feel important. Thus, she turns to God but even in God's company, Celie feels of little worth.

          It will be a long time before Celie gains enough self-esteem to sign her name with pride, but by then, we will have realized that in reading this long series of letters, we have witnessed a incredible growth of a black woman who was born with all the odds against her. She began life as a virtual slave, the fatality of men, of traditional sexual roles, of racism, and of numerous social injustices. When the novel is finished, we will have seen Celie grow into a mature,twentieth-century woman.There are many women in this novel, and each of them has a unique, fighting sense of courage. They refuse to be beaten into submission. The fiery-tempered women, of course, are easily recognized, but the quiet growing strength of Celie impresses us mostly.She luckily has friends who convince her that it is not enough to simply suffer and "be alive." One must fight. By nature, Celie is not a fighter. In fact, she refuses to fight until she realizes how thoroughly cruel her husband has been.For years, Celie "absorbs" Albert's atrocious violence, but when she sees proof that he has concealed all of her sister's letters from her, trying to make her think that Nettie was either dead or that she never wrote to her, Celie can take no more. She revolts. She erupts, cursing her husband.Celie has struggled for many years, keeping alive the memory of Nettie, believing in Nettie, despite the fact that there was no proof that Nettie was alive. It is Celie's daring spirit that we admire, her fierce, untiring love for Nettie. And it is Celie's love for Nettie and for Shug that finally allows her to pardon her husband. Here we see that love heals heartaches, and love leads Celie to forgiveness and reconciliation.

          When the novel ends, we feel that Celie is "solid" (an adjective that she once used favorably to describe Sofia). She has learned to love herself and to share love in spite of continuous cruel pressures. In fact, not only has Celie won, but she has also claimed a sense of joy that she never realized was possible, as well as the knowledge that her constant faith and her capability to hold on reunited her with Nettie and with her own children. Celie has survived physically and mentally.Above all,the humor, the love, the hurt, and, finally, the confidence that sustains Celie are found in her simple, impervious phrases. Our first observation of Shug is negative. Though Shug’s sexy style, sharp tongue, and many worldly experiences make her appear cynical but she is actually warm and empathetic at heart. Shug reciprocates the care and attention Celie lavishes upon her. Despite her unpredictable nature and shifting roles, Shug remains Celie’s constant friend and companion throughout the novel.

THEME ANALYSIS
This novel creates a striking impact on us for its portrayal of domestic violence, which Walker fully develops through Celie's exploitation at the hands of her stepfather and husband. Furthermore, there is a powerful theme about how oppressed people can come together with harmony to overcome their oppressors. However, this book is a feminist novel about a powerful character finding out who she is and valuing what she can become. In the course of Celie's search for reality, she realizes that the patriarchal culture she has endured in the South is abusive to all women. When she meets Shug and escapes from Albert, she learns that women can be equal to men,in supremacy, in knowledge, and in matters of love and money. The two most abused women, form a deep bond; their suffering brings them together in strong solidarity. When Celie returns to live in Georgia near the end of the novel, she is no longer weak and submissive; instead, she has become a capable, self-assured female who knows she can be content without depending on anyone .This is the definitive lesson of feminism, which Walker calls "womanism." Walker clearly indicates in the novel that the long history of racial discrimination will be hard to overcome. In chapter 73, Shug says that she believes that it angers God if a person walks by the color of purple in a field without stopping to notice and admire it. In this statement, Shug summarizes her religious philosophy.To her, God is not some far-away deity, but a gender-less, race-less being that wants people to appreciate and enjoy life. It is also significant that she chose the color of purple, for it is the color of royalty; and yet a really deep purple seems almost to be black.
     This novel also explores the individual identity of the African-American woman and how embracing that identity and bonding with other women affects the health of her society at large. Although some reviewers have taken issue with the novel's depiction of Black men, the novel has largely been celebrated by critics and popular audiences alike. Alice Walker's choice and effective handling of the epistolary style has enabled her to tell a emotional tale of women's struggle for equality and independence without either the emotional excess of her previous novel "Meridian" or the polemical excess of her short-story collection "You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down."

REFERENCES:

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/c/the-color-purple/about-the-color-purple

http://www.enotes.com/topics/alice-walker/critical-essays/walker-alice           

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/04/specials/walker-color.html