the Color Purple
general intro:
The Color Purple is a 1982 eistolary novel 书信小说 written by American author Alice Walker that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fictionand the National Book Award for Fiction.
Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on female black life in the 1930s in thesouthern United States, addressing numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture.
Plot summary (只选了关于书信那一截，大概晓得是为撒子写信就行了)
The Color Purple spans the years 1909 to 1949, relating the life of Celie, a Southern black woman virtually sold into a life of servitude to her brutal husband, sharecropper Albert. Celie, the protagonist and narrator of The Color Purple, is a poor, uneducated, fourteen-year-old black girl living in rural Georgia.
Celie starts writing letters to God because her stepfather, Alphonso, beats and rapes her. Celie pours out her innermost thoughts in letter form to her sister Nettie, but Albert has been hiding the letters Nettie writes back, allowing Celie to assume that Nettie is dead.
Letters Alice Walker highlights the power of communication through the characters letter writing form.
The letters that Celie writes to God, and later to her sister Nettie, symbolize a certain voice that only Celie has and one that she is only able to express in her letters.
She is able to express her true desires only in her letter.
These letters allow her to display any emotion, and they are very personal to her as well.
In the beginning, when she was writing letters only to God, the letters were very private and Celie would not have wanted anyone to see them.
The letters are the only way she can represent her true feelings and despair as she is abused.
Later, the letters she gets from Nettie give her hope that she will be reunited with her sister again.
Celie writes to God for a lack of someone else to write to. She writes to her sister because she gets mad at God because of her past and the people who have been hurt because of it.
She asks God "Why?" which is a question that cannot be answered.
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.
theme：
In the short story “The Color Purple,” author Alice Walker describes the life of Celie, a black woman growing up in the South. She must overcome racism and poverty to establish herself as an independent person. The novel also follows the maturation of her sister Nettie and the lives of Shug, Albert, and much of his extended family.
A motif in “The Color Purple” is the recurring concept of roundness.
The concept of roundness relates to the shape of the human body, and especially the female body.
The letters are also another motif in the novel.
The letters play an important role in conveying Celie’s thoughts and emotions throughout her life.
Walker suggests that oppressed people can unite with solidarity to overcome their oppressors.
A sub theme of “The Color Purple” is the harm inflicted on the Black community, both by their own cycle of violence and the racially motivated hatred of Negroes in the South.
Symbol:
The title of the book is an important symbol.
Celie goes through life having a hard time noticing the beautiful aspects and appreciating them.
She had a difficult life and was abused as an adolescent.
"The color purple is continually equated with suffering and pain.
Sofia's swollen, beaten face is described as the color of 'eggplant'.
Purple is the color of Celie's private parts, the site of her sexual violation.
However, later Shug points out to her that life must be enjoyed. When they are in a field of purple flowers, Shug tells Celie to look at the flowers and embrace their beauty. "You must look at all the good and acknowledge them because God placed them all on earth". After learning this, Celie has a better respect for life and everything it has to offer.
When Nettie arrives from Africa she is seen wearing a purple dress.
