The Use of Letters in
the novel “The Color Purple”
(Anupriya Chatterjee 1313273)
The Color
Purple by Alice Walker is an epistolary novel of 1982. The story is set in rural
Georgia in the southern United States focusing on the life of black women in
the 1930s, addressing the issues related to their extremely low position in the
American social culture. It is the story of a young black girl Celie, born into
poverty, segregation and misery.
Alice Walker emphasizes the power of communication
through the Celie and Nettie's letter writing form or the epistolary form. The
letters in this novel are used as a motif, which are recurring
structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform
the text’s major themes.
Celie writes letters to
God because the man she calls her father, Alphonso, beats her up and rapes her
repeatedly. She was warned by her father not to tell anyone about it but God, especially not her mother because,
according to him, "It'd kill your mammy." Clearly, the letter
Celie writes to God is not a prayer, as we might expect a letter to God to be.
We see that Celie is writing letters to God in the same manner as she would
write to, or speak to, a close, good, and loving friend. The writing style of
the letters is not so melodramatic, despite the sexual violence described in
the first letter. The author uses the black folk language in the letters, which
is the natural language of this black girl. Hence the language contains a
strong sense of naturalness throughout. It is very evident from the use of
language that it is the voice of a nearly illiterate fourteen year old girl. Celie
uses the words like "titties," "pussy," and "his
thing" without any sense of embarrassment, as she writes to her friend
God.
Celie writes letters to
God, and Nettie, her sister writes letters to Celie. Both sisters eventually
start gaining strength from their letter writing, but they are saved only when
they start responding to each other’s letters. The letters that Celie first
writes to God, and later to her sister Nettie, symbolize the voice Celie has,
through which she is able to express her true desires and the trials and
tribulations she experiences in her letters. These are her very personal
letters, and it allows her to display any emotion she wants to convey. Although
writing letters enables self-expression and confession,
it requires an audience who is willing to read them. When Celie never responds
to Nettie’s letters, Nettie feels disappointed and isolated because Celie is
her only audience.. Only after Nettie returns home to Celie, after her
missionary work, an audience is guaranteed to listen, hence she feels fulfilled
and freed. Celie
writes to God for she had nobody else to write to. She wrote to her sister
because she was angry at God. She asks God why she was being rewarded with
sexual violence and such misery for having been a “good girl. She seeks an
answer from God and justification for what was happening in her life. There is
also a sense of isolation in her life and hence she writes to God, someone whom
she trusts. After Celie and Nettie reconnect, Celie is
happier in her life, and tends to express joy by writing more. The
last letter she writes is to everyone, including God showing that she has
forgiven Him, and that her story has gone through a full circle of maturation.
Gradually, Celie discovers the power of her own spirit, which helped her
freeing herself from her past and reuniting her with her beloved ones.
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