Although most of what Bell Hooks says I disagree with, she does make excellent points and is very good at analysing epistolary form using her own interpretation. However there are many opposing arguments. First of all, Celie is an exception to the rule and rises over her situation. She is able to gain strength and have confidence in her own ability. Celie is debilitated and oppressed at the opening of the novel but she has already experienced the horrific experience of rape and survived. In the second letter she has an unborn child that was conceived from her father and is expecting another. Her mother is dying and she is forced to look after her siblings. Is this a weak person? No” She is a silent survivor. Another key point to the understanding of Celie’s character is that as well as being a silent survivor she is a resourceful survivor. ‘I maybe black, I maybe poor but I’m here.’ Walker carefully builds the growing confidence slowly and realistically through a series of experiences with other women. First Sofia ‘I ought to bash Mr___ head open, she say. Think about heaven later’. Then Shug gives Celie alternative points of view that help to possess this strength. ‘What, too shame even to go off and look at yourself?’
In the past there has been much evidence of slave writing, which could link Celie back to her heritage and links her to a theme that runs throughout the Color purple, which is slavery. Harriet Jacobs wrote ‘Incidents is the Life of Slave’. Therefore, it shows that Celie is keeping up a tradition. This idea of slavery also links us to the period of the novel in which it is written in and this is why epistolary form is used as it sets a period in time that we as a reader can relate to (In this case it is the early nineteenth century). If people in slavery times managed to write why should not Celie.’ She addresses the first letter to ‘Dear God’, which shows us that this was a time when God was considered a very important aspect of black peoples lives. One must not forget that God has always played a major part in the Black culture since the time of slavery. Slaves always wanted their children as well as other descendants to stay close to God. God always played a major role in the lives of many people during their times of trouble. This was the time period in which many mothers and fathers in the South used to make sure that their children went to church every Sunday. In an indirect manner, this could show some aspects of Walker's Southern roots in Georgia and therefore this is why she uses epistolary. Walker is using this ironically because the God that Celie writes to is a remote figure who is part of this patriarchal oppression. I also think that despite Bell Hook’s intelligent arguments, she is narrow-minded. She assumes that The Color Purple is supposed to be a realistic novel. It is a book that conveys messages to the reader. Fiction cannot mirror reality and why should it! If it did then the novel would be boring and dull. A reader is intelligent enough to assume difficulties within the novel without them being totally realistic and obvious to them. Hooks is quite patronizing to Celie to say that she couldn’t have done it. The book is not meant to be realistic but as the some of the great slave narratives were secretly written despite the circumstances. One of the key points of Celie’s character is that she is a resourceful survivor. ‘ I maybe black, I maybe poor but I’m here.’ Other critics such as Katz believe that some other disadvantages of the form were apparent from the outset. The characters speak to us and we therefore we get a small point of view of what is happening. Only the character's (writer's) point of view is portrayed and no other.
Walker uses the novel's epistolary (letter-writing) form to emphasize the power of communication. Celie writes letters to God, and Nettie writes letters to Celie. Both sisters gain strength from their letter writing, but they are saved only when they receive responses to their letters. Therefore, although writing letters enables self-expression and confession, it requires a willing audience, which enables the sisters to be empowered. One moment that shows use the start of Celie’s self expression is her sexual awakening. ‘ Then my pussy lips be black. Then inside look like a wet rose.’ When Celie never responds to Nettie's letters, Nettie feels lost since Celie is her only audience. An example of this is when Nettie grows disillusioned with her missionary work because people will not listen to her and because the Olinka villagers are stubborn. Only after Nettie returns home to Celie, an audience guaranteed to listen, does she feel fulfilled and freed. This clearly shows how the purpose so letter writing enables the sisters to become close together and united.
Another advantage of using epistolary form is that it presents an intimate view of the narrator’s thoughts without interference from the author and that it conveys the shape of events to come with dramatic immediacy. It also expresses the true and honest feelings of the character, as Celie has no reason to lie, as it is her own personal feelings that no one will see. We know that these feelings true because she openly expresses her traumatic life on the page. ‘ But I feels dazed. My daddy lynched, My mama crazy. All my little half brothers and sisters no kin to me. My children not my sister and brother. Pa not pa.’ This also gives a horror element to the novel, as we hear exactly what happens to her in detail without the author diverting from the matter at hand. ‘ He say I’m evil an always up to know good.’ It’s Celie’s own perspective of her own life, which forms a bond between her and the reader. Therefore more emotion is felt and it takes the reader on the emotional journey that Celie endures. It also creates the feeling of isolation for the reader, as we know that only thing Celie feels she can talk to is ‘God’.
There are many reasons for which Alice Walker might have chosen the epistolary form. First, she might have wanted to be able to communicate ideas in the characters' minds through the book. It could be that since she wanted Celie and Nettie's points of view to be heard she narrowed herself only to that. She created direct contact between these two characters. If she had chosen another literary form she would have had more characters to examine and make her comments about each of these less precise.
Through this form, Walker gives us the idea that Celie and Nettie are not characters but real people. She changes the way we think. Celie and Nettie are characters but they seem so real to us because of how they communicate, and the best way of communicating is through letters. By choosing this literary form, Walker chooses the best to make her characters as human as possible. It makes Celie a dynamic character (how she acted before and after she got the letters from Mr.___).
Writing to one another means communication. Walker shows that Nettie and Celie are together no matter how far they are in distance. ‘Dear Nettie, I don’t write to God no more. I write to you.’ The author shows feelings, and most of all change. The change from writing to God and then to Nettie shows how Celie changes through the book. From an insecure person, afraid of society to a person that can communicate, feel, and finally, love. Epistolary form shows the emotional and spiritual progression of Celie, of how she 0does become this independent strong character. ‘ If she come, I be happy. If she don’t, I be content, then I figure this the lesson I suppose to learn.’ However, the fact that for long periods of time they do not receive each others letters, emphasizes the power patriarchy that they eventually over come.
Letter writing is able to show clearly this dramatic contrast in Celie’s character as we as a reader can easily revert back to the beginning and see the contrast. As well as the emotional progression of Celie it is important to realize that we actually see a physical progression in her writing. We first of all her see her at the beginning we she crudely explains her rape ‘ First her put his thing against my hip and sort of wiggle it around’ but then as the novel progresses we see how her writing become more fluent and expressive as she gain confidence in her own ability. We see how she towards the end of the novel is able to write lengthily passages and able to express herself more with words. This links the novel to one of the main themes that Celie has gained her own independent voice and is able to speak her own words. ‘ Dear God, Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear people. Dear everything. Dear God.’ All of these things come to pass by how well Alice Walker chose and used this literary form.
As well as this intimacy and emotion which epistolary form creates within ‘The Color Purple’ there are other things that it enables the author to do. It is able to miss spaces in time, which is very important, as we would be forever reading about the life of Celie from being fourteen to forty. It prevents the novel from becoming tedious and only focuses on the dramatic influential points of Celie’s life. By writing letters it makes ‘The Color Purple’ create this feeling of privacy that we as the reader truly experience. We are able to delve into Celie’s private thoughts that make us understand what Celie is going through within her life. It is original; it has not been done that many times before and gives the reader a new perceptive on literature. It creates realism, as the use of first person is direct. We know that this is happening to her although we as a reader may not understand why. Another point to consider of Alice Walker’s use of epistolary form is that in Celie’s case she actually writes how she would speak. She uses her own dialect, which is very clever of Walker as we truly get a grasp of Celie’s character more. We understand who she is, the society that she lives and where she is from etc. This truly gives the novel throughout that important realism that we as a reader experience. Walker also links the theme of quilting to epistolary form. The novel is made up of fragments (letters) that Walker puts to together to make a complete story. By using this theme of quilting it links Celie to the novel as a whole, as she gradually piece-by-piece makes up a whole quilt and a story about her life.
Overall I feel that this style creates an impact on the reader since we hear the story through Celie and Nettie's voices. We don't have to pass through the eyes of a narrator of any kind. We are reading letters that go through sisters that have confidence in each other. We therefore see the same things they do, only that we have a slight advantage over Nettie; we read Celie's letters to God. When Celie writes to Nettie and Nettie writes to Celie, they both think neither will answer. Celie and Nettie promise to write each other but Celie never receives any letters. I think that use of epistolary in The Color Purple is excellent as we go on an emotional journey with the character. I disagree with Bell Hooks, as there are many realistic points of view in the novel. She is quite narrow-minded and seems to look into the novel too much, picking out the slightest imperfection in the novel. I agree with Henderson, as it is a means of structuring her identity, as we are able to experience their thoughts, which we could not so as effectively with another literary form. We as the reader experience strong emotional feelings that enable us to understand the characters, themes and story line a lot more clearly. It has many techniques that other literary forms could not portray so well. The main thing that epistolary does is make the reader delve into the mind of the character and makes them experience the emotion of the characters from sadness at the beginning to joy towards the end. ‘ And us so happy. Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt.’
