STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ALICE WALKER’S THE COLOR PURPLE

Introduction:
Style can be simply defined as a specific use of language. Each and every text has a certain style
and this style is an inseparable and crucial part of that particular text. The style of literary text is
the most commonly studied subject in the stylistic studies and it will be the focal point of this
study as well. The style of a literary text consists of various linguistic choices. These linguistic
choices, in other words stylistic features render the style of that particular text unique and
distinctive. These features should be coherent and they should be regularly repeated in a certain
pattern in order to be identified as a component of the style (Malmkjær & Carter, 2002, p. 510).
These components may entail various linguistic structures, different vernacular features, culture-
specific items as well as figures of speech. These stylistic features undeniably contribute to the
overall meaning of the text. Even though there is an ambiguity of whether these components are
selected consciously or unconsciously by the author, the use of certain components leaves no
room for doubt that the selection of them serves a certain purpose. For instance, the use of
culture-specific items is for the purpose of signifying that specific culture.

The question of how the style should be reflected in the translation is always a debatable issue in
the field of Translation Studies. This issue has been discussed by many translation studies
scholars although this discussion has been named rather differently such as the form or the
meaning, word-for-word or sense-for-sense and finally, formal equivalence or dynamic
equivalence, the concepts suggested by Eugene Nida (2000). One of the scholars who is
concerned about the transfer of stylistic features in translation is Antoine Berman. Although
Berman never claims that his methodology is a stylistic approach, the content of his analytic
immensely deals with the translation of stylistic features which create “the foreignness” of the
text. Berman’s major concern is to preserve the “foreignness” of an original text in the translated
text (2000). He suggests the categorization of twelve deforming tendencies and each of these
tendencies handles different stylistic aspects of the text.

In this regard, Alice Walker’s highly speculated novel The Color Purple and its Turkish
translation Renklerden Moru are selected as the source and target texts, respectively and they
will be studied within the framework of Berman’s analytic of translation. The questions of how
the stylistic features are rendered in the translation and to what extent the style of the original
work is deformed are the focal questions to tackle in this study.

The Color Purple possesses a distinctive style which is created by a number of various elements
such as the extensive use of African-American Vernacular English, contrastive usage of this
vernacular and the Standard English, idiolectal and rhythmical expressions of the novel’s
protagonist Celie as well as her simple style. All of these stylistic features of the novel
complicate the process of translation as they are intentionally asserted with superior motives by
the author. These motives will be discussed in detail in the case study. Thus, the study will
evaluate to what extent these distinctive stylistic features of the source text are reflected in the
target text under the light of Berman’s methodology.

The purpose of this study is to implement a comparative stylistic analysis between the source and
target texts, in order to explore the differences between the texts in accordance with Berman’s
categorization and enlighten the reasons which may cause such differences.

As mentioned above, Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple and its Turkish translation
Renklerden Moru by Armağan İlkin are chosen to be examined as a case study. In the novel, the
protagonist Celie, first, writes letters to God, then to her sister, Nettie. These letters are written in
a very simple manner due to her lack of education and they also contain African American
Vernacular English, in other words Black English. In this study, the questions of whether the
translator is able to capture the same stylistic effect which exists in the source text and if the style
of the source text is deformed or not will be discussed. For the evaluation of these points,
Antoine Berman’s analytic of translation will be adopted. Berman’s methodology is one of the
understudied approaches in the field of Translation Studies and in that sense; this study differs
from the other studies of this field on the aspect of adopting this methodology as a theoretical
framework.

The answers for the following questions will be sought: Is the style of the source text preserved
in the target text? If the style of the source text cannot be preserved, which deforming tendencies
do occur in the target text? What is lost in the style of the source text due to resultant deforming
tendencies?

the analytic of translation that is suggested by Antoine Berman will be adopted as the theoretical
framework. Berman introduces this analytic in his article titled “Translation and the Trials of the
Foreign” (2000). Berman expresses in his article that the “foreignness” of an original work
should be preserved in the translation. Within this mindset, he proposes this analytic as a
methodology in order to underline the key points that should be regarded by the translators.

This analytic is a stylistic one and it focuses on the stylistic deformations that tend to happen in
the translation process. Taking this fact into consideration, Berman proposes twelve deforming
tendencies that mainly classify these deformations which are likely to happen. These twelve
tendencies will constitute the basis of the analysis and they will be adopted as the criteria of
evaluation and comparison between the stylistic features of the two texts. These tendencies can
be defined as follows: rationalization, clarification, expansion, ennoblement and popularization,
qualitative impoverishment, quantitative impoverishment, the destruction of rhythms, the
destruction of underlying networks of signification, the destruction of linguistic patterning, the
destruction of vernacular networks or their exoticization, the destruction of expressions and
idioms, the effacement of the superimposition of languages. Each of these deforming tendencies
will be analyzed and discussed.

The comparative analysis will be carried out between The Color Purple and its one and only
Turkish translation Renklerden Moru which is translated by Armağan İlkin in 1984. The book
hasn’t been translated by another translator and there aren’t any editions of this current
translation. This analysis will solely focus on the stylistic aspects of both texts and the
methodology for the evaluation will be none other than Berman’s analytic of translation. This
study aims to enlighten the issues surrounding the reflection of stylistic structures in the
translation and what is lost with the deformation of these stylistic structures in the style of the
source text within the boundaries of this particular case study.

STYLE, STYLISTICS AND TRANSLATION

Style:
Style can be mainly defined as the specific use of language in a certain context. Although style is
an umbrella term which is hard to define, this short definition can give the meaning of style in
general. The context of style may vary and comprise a wide range of fields. Style is closely
connected with the linguistic concept register which can also be given as the variation of
language in a certain context for a certain purpose (Boase-Beier, 2011, p. 153). Register is the
language variation whereas style is the preferred language in the context. Consequently, style
overlaps with the concept of register.

Style is described as characteristic language use by Geoffrey Leech and Mick Short in their
groundbreaking book titled Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose
which can be identified as a pioneering work in the field of stylistics (Leech & Short, 2007).
Although style exists in various kinds of texts, style in literary texts i.e. literary style is the
mostly scrutinized aspect of the stylistic studies. Taking this fact into consideration, the focal
point of this thesis is the literary style and it will be discussed hereafter.

Style of a literary text enables us to fully comprehend the meaning of the text. Thus, style is
crucially important in literary texts. Style consists of linguistic structures that are used in the
literary texts for conveying the underlying and genuine meaning while achieving an aesthetically
pleasing text. Furthermore, stylistic features of a specific text distinguish it from the other texts
and thus create a textual uniqueness. In order to achieve this uniqueness, the concept of deviation
should be taken into account. These stylistic features are to deviate from the standard language
use which can be accepted as the norm (Leech, Stylistics, 1985, p. 40).
It is a fact that linguistic structures constitute literary style, yet not all of these structures can be
accounted as a stylistic feature. There is a fine line between a random literary structure in a text
and a stylistic feature of a text. The linguistic structures in a text are required to follow a pattern
and there should be a repetition of the same structures more than a couple of times. In other
words, style should be systematic with the patterned and repeated linguistic choices.

Writers choose one or a number of stylistic variants over the endless options of linguistic
structures intentionally or unintentionally and this choice makes up the style of that text (p. 16).
There is a wide range of linguistic structures one can find in the language system. To name a
few, these structures may include rhyme, metaphor, simile, irony, oxymoron and so forth. A
systematic use of a certain dialect can also be classified as the stylistic features of the text.

Stylistics:
Stylistics is the discipline that studies the style. Leech and Short define stylistics “as an exercise
in describing what use is made of language” (2007, p. 11). Stylistics aims to understand how a
text means what it means. It focuses on not only the meaning of the text but also the linguistic
devices that constitute the meaning of the text. Stylistics explores what underlies beyond the text,
what is implied, what is inferred by the reader and so forth by concentrating on the style.

Katie Wales describe and defines stylistics as follows;

“STYLISTICS: The study of style… Just as style can be viewed in several ways, so there are
several stylistic approaches. This variety in stylistics is due to the main influences of linguistics
and literary criticism… By far the most common kind of material studied is literary; and
attention is largely text-centred… The goal of most stylistics is not simply to describe the formal
features of texts for their own sake, but in order to show their functional significance for the
interpretation of text; or in order to relate literary effects to linguistic “causes” where these are
felt to be relevant…” (2001, pp. 437- 438)

Stylistics was born from the need to put stylistic studies on a scientific basis and create an
objective field of study. The main reason for objectivization of stylistic studies is the criticism
against the subjective and ambiguous nature of these studies. With the emergence of stylistics as
a new discipline and suggestions of new methods and approaches, stylistic studies have become
more systematic and objective.

The establishment of stylistics as a separate and brand-new discipline within the literary studies
is prominently influenced by two groups: Russian and European Formalists and New Criticism
which mainly consists of scholars and writers from Britain and America. These two groups
carried out studies within the same direction and framework but restrictively within their specific
geographic region and academia (Bradford, 2005, p. 11). Russian and European Formalists
include a number of important scholars such as Roman Jakobson – who has also prominent
works in translation studies –, Jan Mukařovský, Viktor Shklovsky and later Leo Spitzer; whereas
New Critics are formed by I. A. Richards, Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks. Afterwards,
scholars such as Willie Van Peer, Mick Short and Geoffrey Leech lay the foundations of modern
stylistics with their works.

At first, stylistics evaluated the style of the texts with a textual analysis while completely
isolating the non-textual factors such as background of the reader or circumstances in which the
text is written. Afterwards, stylistics moved towards a more comprehensive perspective by taking
into account of non-textual factors. With this step, stylistic analysis has become both textual and
contextual for exploring the style of the texts (McRae & Clark, 2004, p. 329).

Stylistics and Translation:

Stylistics is newly studied discipline in translation studies. This stems from the fact that stylistics
is a recently emerged field of study in the same way as translation studies. Preliminary works of
translation studies are merely linguistic approaches and these studies rarely mentioned the style
and its translatability even though stylistics is a branch of linguistics.

Style of a text has been referred as “spirit” or “energy” of the text from Cicero and Horace to
Dryden and Pope. It is mentioned by many forerunners in translation history yet it has never
been handled in detail (Boase-Beier, 2006, pp. 10 - 11).

Roman Jakobson can be regarded as an influential scholar for both disciplines. He not only laid
the foundations of modern stylistics but also made significant contributions to the field of
Translation Studies. Hence Jakobson is one of the first translation scholars who state the
importance of style in his article titled “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” (2000) which is
published in 1959 although he does not discuss the matter to the fullest extent. After Jakobson,
no linguistic studies within the field of translation studies have discussed the style in translation
(Boase-Beier, 2004a).

Stylistics gained prominence in translation studies with the works of scholars such as Mona
Baker (2000) and Jeremy Munday (2001) but it is Mary Snell-Hornby who firstly and
comprehensively discussed style in literary translation in her work titled Translation Studies: An
Integrated Approach (1995). With these initiatives, stylistics and the concept of style started to
integrate into translation studies and then it is further examined.

Jean Boase-Beier has become a household name in this field of study with her works (2004a),
(2004b), (2004c), (2006) and enhanced the field of stylistics in translation studies along with
other scholars such as Kirsten Malmkjær (2004) who suggests the concept of translational
stylistics, Catherine Claire Thomson (2004) who examines heteroglossia within the framework
of Antoine Berman’s analytic of translation (2000), and finally Josep Marco (2004) who
suggests a model for translation-oriented stylistic analysis.

Antoine Berman introduces a methodology in his work titled “Translation and the Trials of the
Foreign” (2000) for examining the translation of vernacular networks and other aspects, also.
Although it has never been referred as a stylistic approach in translation studies, Berman’s
analytic deals with a considerable amount of stylistic issues such as translation of linguistic
patternings and rhythms. Berman’s approach can be regarded as a stylistic approach because of
its focus on stylistic features of both source and target texts and hence this thesis will adopt
Berman’s analytic of translation as the theoretical framework. This methodology is discussed in
detail in the following section.

THE STYLE OF THE COLOR PURPLE

The Color Purple is written in a very peculiar style. Walker’s unconventional use of language
certainly plays an undeniably crucial role in the emergence of this style. The peculiarity and
originality of this style will be demonstrated with selected examples. First and foremost the
novel is remarkable for its effective usage of African American vernacular. This effective usage
is always praised by critics, even though other elements of the novel have been criticized.
Notable vernacular usages such as “I don’t never git used to it” (Walker, 1982, p. 3) , “He say,
Naw, Can’t say I is” (p. 9) or “I seen my baby girl” (p. 15) are striking elements in the novel and
they certainly grab the reader’s attention instantly. Additionally, the particular usage of this
vernacular is primarily motivated by the purpose of bringing the African American minority to
the fore as this vernacular is originated from this minority and it is their original way of
speaking. This vernacular is an inseparable part of the novel’s style and thus, the question of its
translatability is a pivotal one. Furthermore, Celie’s sister Nettie and her grammatically correct
sophisticated use of Standard English creates an exceptional contrast between her language and
Celie’s vernacular. This contrast is clearly visible when the two sisters utter the same sentence in
their own ways as “Pa is not our pa!” (p. 159) by Nettie and “Pa not Pa.” (p. 160) by Celie. The
representation of the differences between two different narrations in the translation is another
aspect to be explored in the case study.

One of the other eminent stylistic feature of the novel is the use of rhythmical expressions.
Primarily used by the protagonist Celie, these rhythmical units bear the traces of the blues i.e.
African American folks’ music. Blues is a music genre that originates from African American
people and it usually deals with issues such as heartbreak, melancholy, depression, loneliness,
domestic abuse, jealousy (Moore, 2009, p. 78). The passages such as “I say, Write. She say,
What? I say, Write.” (p. 19) and “I think she mine. My heart say she mine. But I don’t know she
mine. If she mine, her name Olivia.” (p. 15) display an unquestionable rhythm. These rhythms
convey sadness, melancholy, excitement and disappointement and thus, they perfectly overlap
with the concept of blues and the emotions that it represents. These rhythmical excerpts can also
be regarded as references to black American minority. Hence, the reflection of these rhythmical
units in the translated work will be further discussed.

Another outstanding stylistic feature is the simple voice of Celie. Celie’s lack of education and
innocence are embodied in her writing. Expressions such as “Shug so quiet I think she sleep” (p.
102), “You miss ‘em? I ast” (p. 48) and “But I feels daze.” (p. 160) exemplify her simplicity.
Even the way she describes the incestuous rape that she experiences as “Then he push his thing
inside my pussy.” (p. 3) is a clear evidence of her innocence and her inability to understand this
unfortunate incident. The transfer of this simplicity in Celie’s voice is another question to be
answered in the case study.

Celie’s Language: Features and Implications

In spite of critics’ affirmation of Celie’s letters as “an extensive interior monologue” and “a
medium of remarkable expressiveness, color, and poignancy,” students do have difficulty in
fully comprehending the seemingly chaotic narration. Appropriate guidance from the teacher,
however, can show them that Celie is speaking a rule–governed language. The representation of
Celie actually reflects Walker’s sense of history and aesthetics. Since the 1960s linguists have
noticed that Black English (BE) is “a quite distinct dialect” because of “its consistency and
widespread use.” Labeled as African American English (AAE) today, it is further regarded as “a
system of sound, word and sentence structure, meaning and structural organization of vocabulary
items and other information.” Walker attempts to utter “the black voice,” like many of her black
predecessors, by using “the recurrence of linguistic features,” although she adopts only certain
features and neglects others in order to eliminate difficulty in readability and to gain visibility. In
order to make the black voice heard, Walker knows she has to compromise her position in a
context where Standard English is the dominant language. However, she allows Celie no such
concessions. As the plot of The Color Purple progresses, Celie’s letters get more and more
sophisticated in vocabulary, sentence lengths, and subject matters, but she insists on using her
own language. After she starts her business, Celie is advised to learn how to speak properly, that
is, to speak like “Whitefolks,” so that people would not think her stupid. Celie, however, has to
struggle while speaking Standard English: “My mind run up on a thought, git confuse, run back
and sort of lay down” (215). She refuses to enter the linguistic system of white people because
she wants to keep her own autonomy.

To initiate students into the novel, I would read the first seven letters with students in the
classroom. For one thing, these comparatively short letters enable students to detect certain clues
in the context. They can meet most of the major characters. They will know Celie’s name in
Letter 7 although she does not sign it. Besides, they will see her vicious father, her poor dying
mother, her sister Nettie, her newborn brother Lucious, Nettie’s boyfriend Mr. ______, whom
Celie later marries, and Shug Avery, a woman who is going to change Celie in the long run.
Students are encouraged to read the letters aloud to experience Celie’s conversational writing
style, as exemplified in the very beginning of her first letter: “I am fourteen years old. I am I
have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening
to me. Last spring after little Lucious come I heard them fussing. He was pulling on her arm. She
say It too soon, Fonso, I ain’t well. Finally he leave her alone. A week go by, he pulling on her
arm again. She say Naw, I ain’t gonna. Can’t you see I’m already half dead, an all of these
children.” (1)

The reader will say Celie lacks confidence and linguistic proficiency as a writer. Besides
problems in verb tense (“Lucious come”), in verb to be (“I ain’t”), and in spelling (“Naw”), she
has difficulty in “reported speech.” However, an oral interpretation will be another story. Read
silently, the above passage looks chaotic; read aloud, it comes alive. Students can hear Celie
talking to them so that the “grammatical errors” do not hinder their comprehension.

Students are then encouraged to find out recurring patterns of “mistakes” in the seven letters and
analyze them. With some patience and their prior reading experience, students will soon realize
that Celie’s letters are not inaccessible, that she is actually using a rule–governed language. The
first line of the novel, the only line precedes the first letter–“You better not never tell nobody but
God. It’d kill your mammy” (1)–can be discerned as a very serious warning against telling, in
spite of (or because of) its multiple negation. The sentence “But I don’t never git used to it” (1) is
another example of multiple negation. Two other manifest rules are the consistent use of the verb
root, and the absence of the verb to be in third person present, such as “He say she too young, no
experience” (6). Once students get used to the major patterns, they can follow the plot
successfully.

One feature that especially gives pleasure to students is Walker’s aesthetic use of “eye dialect.”
Eye dialect, in Hans Sauer’s words, “shows that Celie does not master the correct orthography
and that she tries to write as she speaks.” Walker writes a lot of remarkable examples: tho (5),
flue, direar, neumonia (19), orkestra (24), and two berkulosis (43), etc. The above–mentioned
words, when contextualized, are definitely intelligible, especially as students read them out.
Walker’s use of “eye dialect” demonstrates the fact that Celie’s letters cling to the oral tradition
of her people.

Walker has Celie speak vernacular because she wants Celie to maintain her autonomy. The two
women who attempt to teach Celie to talk properly believe in speaking white people’s language,
but they fail to persuade Celie to do the same thing. According to Janet Holmgren McKay and
Spencer Cosmos, “all languages are complex, innovative systems and . . . it is inappropriate to
say that one language . . . is better than another on the basis of its vocabulary, inflectional
system, or other inherent features.”28 Walker takes a similar position when she depicts Celie’s
refusal to “talk proper” (216). In reality, however, Walker has to write properly so as to draw
public attention to her concerns. Students can discuss factors that place one language in a higher
position than any other language. The teacher can also have a discussion with his/her students
about Celie’s Black English. Does the study of Celie’s language change their initial impression
of the novel? How does Black English help with the representation of the black people in the
novel? What difference does it make if all characters speak Standard English? How far can they
defend Celie against using Standard English? Those questions can increase students’
consciousness of language issues.

Language and Voice

Ever since the eighteenth century when Samuel Richardson wrote Pamela and Clarissa, letter
novels have been a traditional genre which allows the female heroine to address her difficult
situations. Since the epistolary form creates sense of immediacy to what happens, readers will
find themselves caught in troubles together with the narrator. Starting from Letter 51, in which
Celie tells how Shug digs out all Nettie’s letters hidden in Mr. ______’s trunk, Walker alternates
the sisters’ letters and hence creates a double–voiced narrative. Though far apart from each other,
Celie and Nettie resort to writing and achieve self–awareness respectively. Due to the sisters’
divergent life experience, Nettie’s letters are in sharp contrast to Celie’s no matter in language, in
style, in rhythm, or in subject matters.

Unlike Celie, who is deprived of education because of pregnancy, Nettie has a good command of
Standard English. Nevertheless, critics generally have a lower opinion of her letters. Elizabeth
Bartlelme describes her as “a colorless character,” Robert Towers, “a mere reporter of events,”
and Joan Digby, “a biographer of [Celie’s children] Oliver and Adam.” If Celie’s letters read like
a diary, Nettie’s letters remind one of a textbook. As Walker’s spokesperson, Nettie addresses
issues like slavery, women’s place in society, colonialism, and environmentalism.

Critical opinions suggest that Nettie’s language is “stiffly didactic,” “conventional and
educational,” characterized by “tilted verbosity” and “dreary correctness.” Although Nettie’s
letters are “largely ethnographic readings of African culture,” my students found them intriguing.
When asked what interested them most, they mentioned the lifestyle and the concept of the
Olinka. They also reported feeling comfortable reading her letters. Students’ responses show that
reading a postmodern text takes more effort than reading a classic one. In other words, to subvert
from within is a great challenge for writers. On the other hand, tensions between the two kinds of
narratives will be lacking if Nettie’s letters are absent from the novel. In view of the novel as a
whole, Nettie’s letters have three functions. First, they broaden the scope of the novel. Nettie’s
African experience makes a grand narrative against which Celie’s confessional narrative stands
out. The letters also establish a connection between Celie and Nettie; therefore, Celie’s life and
writing becomes meaningful. Finally, they free Celie from hatred and sense of guilty. From
Nettie, Celie knows that their Pa, who rapes Celie, is their stepfather, and that Celie’s two
supposedly abandoned children are raised in Africa by a missionary couple.
In addition to her vernacular, one thing that distinguishes Celie’s letters is “the model of spoken
language.” Celie tells stories by faithfully recording the dialogues between the characters. The
effects are vivid characterization and verisimilitude. In her essay “In Search of Our Mothers’
Gardens,” Walker asserts that telling stories has made her mother “an artist.” Not having any
access to written words, Walker’s mother as well as many other black women resorts to the oral
traditions to pass down her wisdom and creativity. Lizbeth Goodman further elaborates: “[T]he
telling of stories is a way of presenting self in opposition to a language which is not your own,
not part of your people’s tradition.” Celie’s crude words represent Walker’s accusation of the
political–economic plight that deprives black women of their education and hence their power.

Seeking the “I”. A comparative analysis of Celie’s letters can help students recognize her
linguistic maturity. Celie’s vocabulary is getting larger, her sentences, paragraphs and letters are
getting longer, and her tone is getting more assertive. At the earlier stage of her writing, Celie
narrates events but scarcely describes her feelings. At the later stage, she comments, reasons, and
argues. As a result, Celie establishes her subjectivity through the process of writing. Celie writes
fifty–four letters to God, none bearing any signature. Actually, she is dubious about both her
writing and her addressee. Letter 68, her last letter to God, describes her bitter disappointment:
“My daddy lynch. My mama crazy. All my little half–brothers and sisters no kin to me. My
children not my sister and brother. Pa not pa” (177). It is not until Letter 76, when Celie moves
to Memphis to live with Shug and owns her own business, that she signs her letter to Nettie with
complete assurance: “Amen, / Your Sister, Celie / Folkspants, Unlimited. / Sugar Avery Drive /
Memphis, Tennessee” (214). It is a signature suggestive of Celie’s personal identity, financial
security, and social participation.

Celie’s letters also record her journey from silence to articulation. What mutes Celie is the
patriarchal language. In order to cover his crime, Pa threatens Celie and silences her. When he
suggests that Mr. ______ marry Celie instead of Nettie, Pa gives a commodity description: “She
ugly. Don’t even look like she kin to Nettie. But she’ll make the better wife. She ain’t smart
either, and I’ll just be fair, you have to watch her or she’ll give away everything you own. But
she can work like a man” (8). In a word, Pa’s remark defines Celie. When Mr. ______’s sister
tells Celie to fight, Celie doesn’t know what to do: “I don’t fight, I stay where I’m told’ (21).
Celie even tells Harpo to hit Sophia so that she will not talk back. Lack of her own language and
voice, Celie can only live by the patriarchal system. After the mute woman can finally assert
herself, however, she chooses to break away. As soon as Mr. ______ is informed of Celie’s plan
to leave with Shug, he attacks Celie fiercely: “Look at you. You black, you pore, you ugly, you a
woman. Goddam, . . . , you nothing at all” (206). Mr. ______’s remark rightly indicates the
“multiple jeopardy” that a black woman can encounter.39 But Celie refuses to stay in his
linguistic restriction. She assures Mr. ______: “I’m pore, I’m black, I may be ugly and can’t
cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I’m here” (207).

As Wibra I. Mainino indicates, most black women writers regard language “no only as a means
of communication, but also as an instrument of empowering the dispossessed.” 40 In addition to
letter writing, Walker employs three forms of expression to free Celie and other female
characters from male dominance: naming, singing, and sewing. Celie gains the power of naming
after she finds her voice. In Letters 89 and 90, she calls Mr. ______ Albert, which she knows
from Shug but which she has never endeavored to call. Urged by Celie, Squeak also reclaims her
identity as Mary Agnes and voices her desire to sing: “When I was Mary Agnes I could sing in
public” (203). As a professional singer, Shug knows the power of singing. “Miss Celie’s song,” a
song Shug dedicates to Celie in Harpo’s jukejoint, kindles Celie’s intense emotions: “First time
somebody made something and name it after me” (72). Walker believes sewing symbolizes
creativity and expression. With the help of Shug and Sofia, Celie works on a quilt using a pattern
called Sister’s Choice. The quilt turns out to be Sofia’s farewell gift when she separates with
Harpo. Rage seizes Celie as she makes an attempt on Mr. ______’s life, but Shug takes her razor
away and soothes her with the idea of pants making. Turning a razor into a needle, Celie
embarks on a career path and achieves financial independence.

Conclusion:
As The Color Purple unfolds, the reader sees the marvelous interplay of language, gender, and
power. Walker’s conscious use of language in The Color Purple provides a lot of opportunities
for classroom discussion. Language is not only a means of communication; it also conveys
political messages. Celie’s Black English, though challenging at the first sight, proves to be a
rule–governed language in that there is consistency in phonology, morphology, and syntax. Rich
in characteristically black usages, Walker’s conversational style enlivens the reading experience
of the novel. Although for the general public’s benefit Walker has made some modification to
the dialect, her primary concern is to preserve the black cultural heritage and to challenge the
superiority of Standard English.

Through her revolutionary employment of the epistolary novel, a genre traditionally used to
discipline women, Walker makes the silenced women heard. Celie and Nettie are empowered by
letter writing; in so doing, they acquire not only their voice but also their subjectivity. Walker
also creates a double–voiced narrative by contrasting Nettie’s formal English with Celie’s
vernacular. In addition to their languages, the two sisters’ subject matters also differ. Celie’s
narrative deals with private affairs, whereas Nettie’s primarily brings focus to African culture.
Although Nettie’s letters are of great significance to Celie, Celie’s personal matters subversively
overshadow Nettie’s historical and geographical overview of Africa. As an illustration of the
feminist slogan “personal is political,” Celie’s journey for autonomy and assertiveness
constitutes the main plot of the novel. Nettie’s African experience, on the other hand, is a perfect
foil to the plight of Celie and her women comrades.

In The Color Purple, Walker also voices concern over gender dynamics. The polarity between
masculinity and femininity causes the division of gender roles. Not being able to fit into role
models is frustrating; men and women are supposed to show masculine attributes and feminine
attributes respectively. The division of gender roles, however, is problematic, for it is an arbitrary
division resulting from language construction. Since men are empowered and placed in a higher
position of the hierarchal structure, they use language to manipulate and define women. Walker
experiments with the reversal of gender, sexual pluralism, and lesbian sexuality in the novel, and
eventually proposes a blend of masculinity and femininity for both men and women. Since for
black people race is closely related to gender, Walker also attempts to deconstruct the
white/black binary opposition, to subvert the hierarchal gender structure which is further
complicated by skin color and tone.

In the classroom, students should not be daunted by Celie’s vernacular. Instead, they should be
led by the teacher to fundamental rules and patterns of Celie’s language so as to explore her
world which is excluded partly by a mainstream language. The epistolary form corresponds to
the quilt imagery in creating a patchwork metaphor, and the metaphor initiates students into a
postmodern text, a text abundant in disruptive elements that students may have never
encountered in their reading experience. Since nowadays a literary text is no more regarded as
“an object of worship,” students should be encouraged to interact with the text in varieties of
approaches. Mark Currie’s remarks clearly indicate the reader’s responsibility in creating the
meaning of a literary text: “[T]he values of standardization have been replaced in literary studies
by the values of pluralism and irreducible difference; not only difference between texts but
difference between readers.”64 What Walker portrays in The Color Purple are not happenings
exclusive to black men and women in twentieth–century American South. The instability of
language, the fluidity of personal identity, and the combat for one’s silenced voice: those are
byproducts of globalization and, consequently, essential lessons for EFL learners to comprehend
and analyze western literature and culture.
 References

Abbandonato, Linda. “‘A View from “Elsewhere”: Subversive Sexuality and the
Rewriting of the Heroine's Story in The Color Purple,” PMLA, Vol.106 (1991),
pp.1106-15.

Butler, C. B. “The Color Purple Controversy–Black Woman Spectatorship,” Wide

Angle, Vol.13, No.3-4 (1991), pp.62-9.

Butler–Evans, Elliott. Race, Gender, and Desire: Narrative Strategies in the

Fiction of Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker, Philadelphia:
Temple UP, 1989.

Green, Lisa J. African American English: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge:

Cambridge UP, 2002. NetLibrary (26 May 2008) <http://www.netlibrary.com/>.

Mainino, Wirba Ibrahim. “The Problem of Language in Modern Feminist Fiction

by Black Women: Alice Walker and Calixthe Beyala,” New Literature Review,
Vol. 37 (2000), pp.59-74.