Literary Elements of The Color Purple

Alice Walker may seem the usual type of author that is ordinary in her writing. Actually, she is not. She uses a different method to make us feel the suspense of the story with vivid details. You only live life once so why not take advantage of it? In The Color Purple, Celie’s life is the contrary. You may ask why, but there are people out there who are afraid to speak up. Alice Walker seemed to portray this novel very well making it seem realistic. The tone Walker used in the novel seemed confessional and private towards the only person she could actually tell her feelings to, God. The author wrote this novel in first person giving it more touch to it making it seem as if this actually happened in the past of an African American girl. Writing in first person gives the author the anonymity which is a traditional technique used in epistolary novels. It might seem simple to write in the style she did, but realistically it is very complex. The Color Purple is idiomatic and colloquial, in other words it uses direct speech without quotation marks.

Not only this, but she also did the story in the present tense, giving it a little more intensity, suspense and curiosity to what could and will happen. If you noticed closely to Alice Walker’s writing it is obliviously different than other author’s dialect in first person. She is using a type of a Southern accent in the story, for example, whenever Walker wrote “Naw” she actually meant “No.” When she wrote “Yassur, us do know it” for Mr.___ when he is talking to the sheriff, it would actually be “Yes Sir we know that” in proper English. I am assuming she is using this vernacular dialect due to the fact that they are in Georgia and being in the time period in which the story takes place. W...

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...or Purple in the first place. An absence of tone would leave the story naked of a purpose or attitude.

It seemed like throughout all the trouble Celie went through, a proving success came. She had started the sewing business, which made her be able to stand up for herself. She had the courage to fight back unlike before and is able to speak up without being afraid. This brought a key success into recognition, which symbolized her growth as a human being. This showed us how her self-respect had increased mostly thanks to Shug to help her through it all. Finally, towards her recognition and success she had a key to equality with her husband Mr.____. Mr. Albert had changed and realized what he had done was wrong and had accepted it as a mistake. Therefore, through all these major events in which Celie strived for brought her to success, recognition and equality.