Critical Analysis of The Color Purple:

The Color Purple won the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 1983.
Alice Walker’s novel is unique in its preoccupation (concern) with spiritual survival and with
exploring (looking at) the oppressions, insanities, loyalties, and triumphs of black women. Walker’s
major interest is whether or how change can occur in the lives of her black characters. All the
characters except Nettie and Shug lead insular (narrow minded) lives, unaware of what is occurring
outside their own small neighbourhood. They are particularly unaware of the larger social and political
currents sweeping the world. Despite their isolation (lonliness), however, they work through problems
of racism, sexism, violence, and oppression to achieve wholeness, both personal and communal.
In form (structure) and content, The Color Purple is a slave narrative, a life story of a former
slave who has gained freedom through many trials and tribulations. Instead of black oppression by
whites, however, in this novel there is black oppression by blacks. It is also a story by a black woman
about black women. Women fight, support, love, and heal each other—and they grow together. The
novel begins in utter despair and ends in intense joy.
To discover how this transformation occurs, it is important to examine three aspects of the novel:
• The relationships between men and women;
• the relationships among women;
• And the relationships among people, God, and nature.
At the beginning of the novel, alienation and separation are evident in all of these relationships, but
by the conclusion of the novel, integration exists among all elements of life. In terms of the
relationship between men and women, no personal contact between the sexes is possible at the
beginning of the novel, since the male feels that he must dominate the female through brutality
(cruelty).
The correspondence between Celie and Nettie is the novel’s most basic example of the
alienation of women from women. Sometimes the alienation is caused by the men, as when Mr.——
keeps Nettie’s letters from Celie, but often it results from the attitudes of the women themselves. For
the first half of the novel, the women are against one another, often because of jealousy, as when Shug
mocks Celie and flaunts her relationship with Celie’s husband. Walker presents numerous examples of
women in competition with one another, frequently because of men, but, more important, because they
have accepted the social code indicating that women define themselves by their relationship with the
men in their lives.
The first indication that this separation between women will be overcome occurs when the
women surmount (defeat) their jealousy and join together. Central to this development is the growing
closeness of Celie and Shug. Shug teaches Celie much about herself: to stand up for herself to Mr.——
, about her own beauty and her self-worth, and about the enjoyment of her own body. The love of
Celie and Shug is perhaps the strongest bond in the novel; the relationship between Celie and her sister
is also a strong bond.
While the men in the novel seem to have no part in the female community, which, in essence,
exists in opposition to them, they, too, are working out their salvation. As a result of the way the
women have opposed them, they re-evaluate their own lives and they come to a greater sense of their
own wholeness, as well as that of the women. They develop relationships with the women on a
different and more fulfilling level.
The weakness of the men results from their having followed the dictates of their fathers, rather
than their having followed their own desires. Mr.——, for example, wants to marry Shug, but in the
face of his father’s opposition, he marries another woman and makes her miserable because she is not
Shug. Harpo tries to model his relationship with Sofia on the relationship between his father and Celie.
Ultimately, both men find a kind of salvation because the women stand up to them and because
the men accept their own gentler side. The men, by the end of the novel, become complete human
beings just as the women do; therefore, the men are ready for relationships with women. Near the end
of the novel, Mr.—— is content to sew trousers alongside Celie. By the end of the novel, Celie and
Mr.——, whom she at last calls Albert, find a companionship of sorts. Harpo is content doing
housework and caring for the children while Sofia works outside the home. Each individual becomes
worthy in his or her own eyes—and in the eyes of others. The separation between men and women is
shattered, and fulfilling human relationships can develop.
Alienation is also present in Nettie’s letters from Africa. The relationship between African men
and women is presented as similar to that of men and women in the American South. The social
structure of the Olinka tribe is rigidly patriarchal; the only roles available to women are those of wife
and mother. At the same time, the women, who frequently share the same husband, band together in
friendship. Nettie debunks the myth that Africa offers a kind of salvation for African Americans
searching for identity.
In Walker’s view, God and nature are inextricably intertwined; therefore, alienation from one
implies alienation from the other. Celie writes to God for much of the novel, but she writes out of
despair, not hope; she feels no sustaining connection with God. Through her conversations with Shug,
she comes to believe that God is in nature and in the self, and that divinity is found by developing the
self and by celebrating everything that exists as an integrated whole. Celie also comes to believe that
joy can come even to her; she learns to celebrate life’s pleasures, including the Color purple.
That spirit of celebration is embodied in the conclusion of the novel. At the Fourth of July
celebration, all the divisions between people—divisions that had plagued and tormented the characters
throughout the novel—have been healed. The characters’ level of consciousness has been raised, and
the seeds of feminism and liberation have been planted.