Name : Ellyna Ade Ervanti

Student Number : A1B215004

Prose Final Assignment

Date : June, 2nd 2017

Analysis “The Color Purple” A Novel by Alice Walker from Literature and Biography
Point of View

Introduction

A biography is a description of real person’s life, including a factual details as

well as stories from the person’s life. Based on literary theory, the goal of the
biographical criticism is to understanding the author wrote what he or she wrote and how
biographical circumstances contributed to the creation of parts of the text. The social
structure or way of life of the author’s time period gives greater depth from which to
draw conclusions and better understanding the story. On the other side, discovering
details about the author’s life and time period also provides a way to further develop
ideas about understanding the story.

The Color Purple is a ground-breaking work in America fiction. This novel is

about feminism, a deeply inspirational narrative. The novel told about a black Southern
woman struggle to find her identity after suffering abuse from her father over four
decades. The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by author Alice Walker. This is one
of amazing novel that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Award
for Fiction. It was adapted into a film and musical of the same name. Moreover, The
Color Purple is a powerful novel with amazing of strong female characters.

The purpose of this paper is to look more deeply the relation between biography
of the author and literature. Is the background of the author influence of the character or
other elements in the story? On the other side, the primarily purpose of this paper is to
fulfil my final assignment of this course.
 Analysis

Biography Alice Walker

Alice Walker was born on February 9th, 1994 in Eatonton, Georgia. She worked
as a social worker, teacher and lecturer, and took part in the 1960s Civil Rights
Movement in Mississippi. She is one of the most admired African-American writers. The
youngest daughter of sharecroppers, she grew up poor. Her parents’ experiences with the
oppressive sharecropping system and the racism of the American South. When she was 8
years old, she suffered a serious injury. She was shot in the right eye with a BB pellet
while playing with two of her brothers. Because of the accident she felt ugly and
disfigure. It also made her felt shy and timid. Because of this, she isolated herself from
other children, reading and writing to pass the time. When she returned for her senior
year, she was shocked to learn that she was pregnant. She afraid of her parents’ reaction.
Then she considered suicide. But, a classmate helped her obtain a safe abortion. She
received a scholarship to attend Spelman College, where she studied for two years before
transferring to Sarah Lawrence College. After graduating in 1965, she moved to
Mississippi and became involved in the civil rights movement. She also married in 1967,
but she divorced in 1976. She is a womanism or black feminist and historical revisionism
with an increased focus on black women.

Structural Elements of The Color Purple

 Characters
Celie: she is poor and uneducated black woman with a sad personal history. She
survives from her stepfather who rapes and steals her babies and also survives an
abusive husband. After married her husband Mr.__. She met Shug Avery, a blues
singer. Shug Avery helps her to find her voice. By the end of the story, Celie is happy
and become independent and self-confident woman. Celie also the protagonist and the
narrator of The Color Purple.

Nettie: Celie’s younger sister. She is carefree, happy, insightful, helpful, and educated
woman. Celie try to protect her by their stepfather. Before Mr.__. Married her sister
Celie, he wanted to marry her. Then, when Celie married she brought Nettie. But,
when lived with her sister and Mr.__. He tried to abuse Nettie. So Nettie run away
and met a husband-and-wife pair of missionaries Samuel and Caroline. They moved
to Africa to preach. Samuel marry with Nettie after her wife dead.

Shug Avery: She’s a woman who helped Celie find herself. Shug was a blues singer
who first appears as Mr.__’s mistress. She’s a sensual, seductive, mysterious, and
shameful.

Sofia: A large, fiercely independent woman, who befriends Celie and married Harpo,
Celie step-son. The hardship Sofia endures serves as a reminder of the coast of
resistance and the difficulties of combating cultural and institutional racism. She’s
confused, misunderstood, and strong.

The fourth women characters in The Color Purple was a reflection of Alice Walker.
Each character has a symbolized every emotion that she felt at some point in her life.
The first is the protagonist Celie, all the emotions that Alice Walker felt as a child in
her life. She didn’t feel beautiful and she didn’t feel wanted after the accident. She
felt entrapped because society labeled without knowing her well. She shows through
Celie that her freedom was gained through her voice and the power of her word. The
second character Nettie, she represents who Alice walker was a child and who she
aspired to be. Alice Walker was educated and insightful, however she lacked the
happiness and carefree attitude most children possess. Next is Shug Avery, she was
reflection of Alice Walker as young adult. Alice Walker’s uniqueness made her
desirable, mysterious, sensual and seductive. However, she feels shameful because
she had a child without being married. In the novel, Shug uses music as her outlet to
escapism. While, Alice Walker uses writing and reading. The last is Sofia, through
her Alice Walker shows her confusion. Alice Walker knew what her want, but she
was confused about who she was. Through Sofia, she also shows how people
misunderstood her before they knew her well.
 Settings
The story of The Color Purple begins about 30 years before World War II. So it
covers half the 20th century. According to the Alice Walker’s biography that she was born
at Georgia and she’s a black woman, so the story mostly took place in Georgia or South
America. The setting of the Celie’s story in unmistakably among poor blacks rural areas
of South. In the story the another place was Africa. Africa being a place that Nettie
moved with a couple who are missionaries to preach.

 Theme

There are several theme of the Color Purple story :

1. Religion : Celie narrates the story through a series of letters, and most of the
letters are addressed to God. As a black woman who has abused by men all her
life, she eventually begins to see God as genderless and raceless.
2. Race : If we look more deeply about the story, it has a lot of race in America. At
the beginning of the story, Celie is extremely downtrodden almost to point of
being defeated. In the story, it’s also implied in some letters:

“Sofia and the prizefighter don’t say nothing. Wait

for her to pass. Mayor wait too, stand back and tap
his foot, watch her with a little smile. Now mille, he
say. Always going on over colored. Miss Mille finger
the children some more, finally looked at Sofia and
the prizefighter. She looked at the prizefighter car.
She eye Sofia wristwatch. She say to Sofia, all
children so clean, she say………………” (37.13-19)

This passage doesn’t end with simply Sofia being slapped, but being beaten
nearly to death and dragged off to jail. The mayor and his wife were a white
people, so they assume a black woman like Sofia is unwilling to place herself in a
 degrading position. The white people (the mayor and a police) beat her in order to
reassert their racial dominance.

3. Feminism: Women in the story learned to fight for themselves. They are
powerful, and physically strong. In the story, even those who have interest in the
same men, nevertheless band together to support each other. The story also shows
that in the end women take control of her life, even though men are expected to
have control over men before.

Based on Alice Walker’s biography, it is not surprising that Alice Walker wrote a
story about feminism or racism. Because she is an activist and feminism
(womanism). The novel deals with struggle, both in America, and Africa, that
believes women should gain recognition, and have fair treatment.

Conclusion

Biographical criticism become one of the elements to analyze a literary work. A

story cannot be separated from the author's background. Author's background is very
influential in the style of writing of his/her work. Like the novel The Color Purple,
because Alice Walker is a feminist then the story of the novel tells how a woman dared to
find her identity. Besides that all some female characters in the story like Celie, Nettie,
Sofia, and Shug is a reflection of the Alice Walker itself, whether it is her nature or about
her dreams.

In addition, the background of the place and time of the novel the color purple
also in accordance with the author's biography. The theme of the novel is also in
accordance with the circumstances of the social environment at that time. Where racism
and gender differences are rampant. After all, the novel is able to motivate its readers,
especially women to be a tough, intelligent, sincere, and independent woman like the
writer, Alice Walker.
 References

Li Hiasao. P. (2008). Language, Gender, and Power in The Color Purple: Theories and
Approaches. Feng Chia Journal of Humanities And Social Science, (17) 93-120

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (nd). Alice Walker American Writer. Retrieved from:
http//www.britannica.com/biography/Alice-Walker

http://www.shmoop.com/color-purple/literary-devices.html

http://www.shmoop.com/color-purple/race-quotes.html