4/3/2019 The Color Purple Essay - Google Docs

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Nathalie Brand

Independent Study

Mrs. McGovern

12/18/18

Society Is Writing Our Lives

Societal ills create such expectations for people to follow, forcing many people to feel

like they must follow along as fitting in is part of the human condition. Many of these stories and

cases of life changing events of people dealing with the norm of society have been written by

authors who have either experienced or seen something similar. These authors use their platform

and styles of writing to help assist their ideas and pass their message along to their readers in

hopes to make an impactful change. Authors never write stores for the sake of it; authors use

their craft, with all that entails, as metaphors for societal ills and to provide deeper

understandings of the human conditions.

People have the ability to interpret what they believe the meaning behind certain stories

and novels in their own way. In the preface of The Elements of Eloquence, the author, Mark

Forsyth, describes on how one should learn how to write an learn the ways of manipulating

words to help support their argument. Forsyth expressed how writing is how an author expresses

their thoughts and voice. Forsyth compared writing without learning to use one’s voice was

similar to cooking blindfolded, one simply just throws different ingredients into a pot and hopes

for the best, and sometimes occasionally they are able to make a “delicious meal” (Forsyth 5).

The author of Eloquence wanted the purpose of his piece to be able to let readers and aspiring

writer know that by practicing and learning different ways to say things and show meanings and

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how to get words across can change the tone of one’s piece and help advance their writing skills

and that it is not a terrible tragedy.

The author, Alice Walker, wrote a novel named The Color Purple; encapsulating all the

struggles of being a black female in the early 1900s. The epistolary novel captures the thoughts

and emotions of a young black woman dealing with what is considered normal treatment from

society due to her race and gender. Walker wrote her story using specific language and writing

styles to enhance what she was trying to say to the world, using different techniques and

rhetorical devices in order to assist the purpose of her piece. She wrote the letters with

considerably poor sentence structure and words that are most likely not deemed as scholarly

writing. Her stylistic choices can be viewed as a metaphor for the struggles many had faced in

the early 1900s. Women, especially women of color, received little to no education, meaning that

they were unable to properly write or form coherent sentences due to their lack of practice,

knowledge and teaching. Women also had to deal with many issues with violence and assault, as

well as many cases dealing with rape; Walker describes such issues in her novel and evokes

emotions when discussing such topics that young women had to deal with. “He [Pa] never had a

kine word to say to me. Just say You gonna do what your mammy wouldn’t... When that hurt, I

cry. He start to choke me, saying You better shut up and git used to it. But I don’t never get used

to it. And now I feels sick every time I be the one to cook” (Walker 1). Although the entire quote

is not used here, one can take away the pain and violation people upon rape and how it is

something many have to deal with and cannot avoid. Quotes like this are able to produce the

good cry spoken about in How Narration Produces Gender: Femininity as Affect and Effect in

Alice Walker's The Color Purple; “Sentimental narrative discourse requires a particular handling

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of ‘internal focalization,’ narratology's term for narrative discourse conveying the perceptions

(vision, thoughts, feelings, etc.) not of the narrator but of a character, regardless,” (Warhol 183).

Walker’s choice to write her novel as an epistolary can be interpreted as a metaphor for the lack

of education as women were really only meant to stay at home to take care of the house and

family, rather than getting an education and becoming and functioning, contributing member of

society. It also helps discuss the issues of rape and violence many face and how they are unable

to receive help or justice, as well as how the lack of education and knowing of standards affects

how people perceive and take to the rape and violence. “The first fifty letters in the novel are

addressed by Celie to "Dear God." Up to that point, the narrative form more closely resembles a

diary than an epistolary fiction; the letters to God are a chronicle of Celie's isolation, inspired by

her supposed-father's injunction against her reporting his repeated, incestuous rapes: ‘"You better

not never tell nobody but God" (Walker 11)’” (Warhol 184). Upon reading Walker’s words and

writings, readers are able to sympathize with Celie and understand more of the struggle of rape

and violence and how women are silenced by others as those people know the damage that could

sometimes be done. Walker provides evidence into the human condition of greed and fear; greed

and lust to have what one pleases and the fear it provokes in others. Stories like this are still apart

of today’s society and have not changed. Many people are faced with the struggles and issues of

rape and are silenced when it comes to talking about it. That is why movements occur to make a

change, for instance, the #MeToo movement.

The way Alice Walker also decided to organize her novel was rather interesting and can

be interpreted as a way to describe the harsh setbacks of society and the ills/norms that follow

along with it. One can look more deeply into her organization and structure of her novel to figure

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out implicit meanings as to why she did certain things in certain ways. Writing the entire book as

letters addressed to God (and the occasional letter to Nettie) about whatever is happening in her

life. One can look more deeply into this and consider it to be letters written to society about her

series of struggles and hardships. God can be compared to society as society is this all knowing

entity that sets the standards for everyone to follow; everyone wants to fit in and be a great part

of society in similar ways that they would like to be seen in God’s eyes. Literature similar to

Alice Walker’s depicts such strong metaphors to society; in the article Naturally Flawed?: Race,

Gender, and the Unnatural in The Color Purple by Catherine Romagnolo, she discusses many of

the stylistic choices Walker used and how it affected the narrative and its meaning. She stated

that, “‘Afro-American literature has so often been misread as mimetic representation or

sociology. In other words, the verbal text has been treated as if it merely mirrored the social text.

To read that way is inanely reductive, but to read black writing as if it has no relation to political

reality is to vitiate its power’ (Wall 9).” (Romagnolo 113-114). Authors like Alice Walker and

many more have such powerful sayings against certain aspects of life and society that they are

easily represented metaphorically in their writings, many speaking against politics and

government due to their harshness and set ways. Walker wrote and set up her novel is a very

specific way that can be classified as an epistolary novel, which can sometimes be considered as

an unusual form of writing, not being one of the most common forms of narration. “The fact that

the unnatural is not bounded by temporal borders or literary movements makes it uniquely

situated for the analysis of forms that seem to defy categorization under one or both of these

rubrics.” (Romagnolo 114). Her unnatural form and its limitless boundaries allows readers to

interpret it as a metaphor for the limits and boundaries set for people of color by society. Society

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lumps many into one category of people when they are so much more than what society gives to

them. Walker’s novel speaks to this in many ways, discussing the boundaries between races and

how people of different colors and races are unable to be civil with one another or be around one

another unless they are giving instructions or telling them to do something. “Have you ever seen

a white person and a colored lady sitting side by side in a car, when one of 'em wasn’t showing

the other one how to drive it or clean it?” (Walker 106).

Characters and their journeys also affect narratives and and their messages as well. In the

article Piecing the Patchwork Self: A Reading of Walker's The Color Purple by Shanyn Fiske, the

author discusses more about stylistic choices of how a novel is written and how that affects the

reason why a novel is written. Characters are able to bring together ideas and concepts, but Fiske

stated that “what unites the characters of The Color Purple is a shared experience of suffering

and a common struggle to survive in the face of oppression, violence, and abuse.” (Fiske 151).

When it comes to understanding deeper meanings of narratives and novels, looking into

characters and their personalities assist readers in understanding the author’s intentions with the

book. Fiske stated that “Celie’s struggles and her strengthening sense of self are contingent on

her integration into a supportive network of friends constructed on the sharing of stories that

testify to the individuality of personal suffering and form the threads binding broken lives into a

stronger whole.” (Fiske 151). Using characters in ways like this give insight into the author’s

intentions as well as hinting as some specific stylistic choices that they make. How an author

chooses to use their characters reflects society as many of these characters represent or embody

certain aspects of society and its norms/ills. They speak to many different issues brought up in

life and how people are impacted/deal with said issues.

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However one may choose to write a novel/story depends on how this author wishes to

convey their overall message and teach reader’s important stories that they are able to take into

their own lives. Certain usage of different linguistic and stylistic choices author make really

impact the meaning of the story and how it is delivered to readers, as well as affecting the way

readers can perceive and interpret the novel in their own ways into their lives. Such writing

styles, for some novels, can be considered to be metaphors to the societal ills/norms that have

been created throughout time, generation by generation. Different aspect of writing and language

choice have the ability to impact an author’s story and how it is able to be perceived by the

reader’s, which plays into the metaphor for society seen with in a plethora of books.

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Works Cited

Narrative, Vol. 9, No. 2, Contemporary Narratology (May, 2001), pp. 182-187 Published by:

Ohio State University Press

Shanyn Fiske (2008) Piecing the Patchwork Self: A Reading of Walker's The Color Purple, The

Explicator, 66:3, 150-153, DOI: 10.3200/EXPL.66.3.150-153

Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, Volume 8, Number 2, Winter 2016, pp. 113-133

(Article)

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Chelsea House, 2001.

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