In brief: Brutally raped by her father, Celie desperately tries to save her beloved sister from the same fate, taking comfort in confiding her woes in letters to God. As Celie and Nettie take widely diverging paths – Celie bound in a loveless marriage and Nettie teaching as a missionary in Africa – the letters continue, turning slowly from sources of consolation to proclamations of joy as Celie finds strength, love and a new way of looking at the world.

In detail: Widely acclaimed as a seminal work of feminist – or ‘womanist’, to use Alice Walker’s own word – black literature, The Color Purple is set between the two World Wars in a segregated American South and explores racial oppression alongside a multitude of themes, from spirituality to gender to colonialism. The novel takes the epistolary form of Celie’s letters to God and to her sister Nettie, and Nettie’s letters to Celie. It has been compared to the ‘slave narratives’: personal accounts of slaves’ journeys from slavery to freedom which played an important part in the Abolitionist movement.

Raped, beaten, twice impregnated by the man she believes to be her father and terrified that the same fate awaits her sister, Celie turns to the only source of comfort she can think of and begins to write to God. Condemned as ugly and useless for anything but domestic slavery, Celie finds herself bound in a loveless marriage to the brutal man she calls Mr. When Shug Avery, a glamorous blues diva and the love of Mr’s life, falls ill Mr takes her in and Celie nurses her, beginning a friendship which deepens into love – both sexual and sisterly – and which proves to be Celie’s salvation. When Shug discovers a cache of letters from Nettie, whom Celie has long thought dead, Celie’s fury with Mr unleashes a fiercely independent spirit. As Nettie’s story unfolds Celie learns that she was taken in by a black missionary family and is now teaching in an African village, and that the children taken from Celie by her father at birth were adopted by the same family. Nettie’s letters continue for thirty faithful years without a reply or a sign that Celie is alive until the two are finally reunited in a joyful family gathering which neither had dreamt possible.

About the author

Alice Walker was born the eighth child of Georgia sharecroppers. She won scholarships to both Sarah Lawrence College and Spelman College, graduating in 1965. Her first volume of poems was published in 1968 followed by her first novel in 1970 shortly after the birth of her daughter. Although she has written many novels and published several volumes of poetry and essays The Color Purple, published in 1982, remains her best-known work. As well as being adapted by Steven Spielberg for his film starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, the novel won both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award, and is widely studied in both schools and universities. Alice Walker has been politically active on a number of issues including, most controversially, female circumcision in Africa (the central theme of both The Temple of My Familiar and Possessing the Secret of Joy). She is a passionate campaigner for women’s issues and coined the word ‘womanist’, proclaiming that ‘womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender’. She lives in northern California.

For discussion

• In Alice Walker’s preface she says that The Color Purple examines ‘the journey from the religious back to the spiritual’ (page ix). What do you think she means by that? How does the novel illustrate that journey?
• ‘But I don’t know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive.’ (page 18). What kind of woman is Celie? How does she cope with the appalling difficulties of her early life? How has she changed by the end of the novel and what has brought about those changes?
• Why does Celie write to God and why does she stop addressing her letters to him? Shug tells Celie that she believes in God. How would you describe her beliefs? How do they compare to those of the missionaries? How have Celie’s beliefs changed by the end of the novel?
• ‘Then I notice how Shug talk and act sometimes like a man.’ observes Celie (page 77), while Albert concludes that ‘Sofia and Shug not like men…but they not like women either.’ (page 244). What distinguishes Sofia and Shug from the other women in the book? Are there other comparable characters?
• How important is gender in the novel? How are men portrayed? Are there any positive portrayals of men?
• The Color Purple is set between the First and Second World Wars when the South was segregated. How is the issue of race explored in the novel?
• How are Corrine, Samuel and Nettie received in Africa? What difference does their race make to the Olinkas’ reactions to them? How different are the Olinkas’ attitudes to white missionaries? Samuel is eventually disillusioned with his role as a missionary. Why does he come to this conclusion?
• How are Africans portrayed in the novel?
• ‘Everyone learns something in life,’ says Sofia (page 255). What have the other main characters learnt?
• How would you describe the style of Celie’s narrative? How does it compare with Nettie’s letters? How effective did you find the novel’s epistolary form?
• What is the significance of the novel’s title?

Suggested further reading

Fiction
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Roots by Alex Haley
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Paradise by Toni Morrison
Native Son by Richard Wright

Non-fiction
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American: Written by Himself by Frederick Douglass