Explore the opinions of critics you have read and present your own view of the success of 'The Color Purple' as an epistolary novel.
Kate Salmon Bell Hooks views Celie's letter writing as unbelievable: ' one of the most fantastical happenings in 'The Color Purple'. Henderson, however, sees it as 'a meaning of structuring her (Celie's) identity'. Explore the opinions of critics you have read and present your own view of the success of 'The Color Purple' as an epistolary novel. The role of epistolary form is very important to the novel 'The Color Purple'. It conveys some of the key ideas of the author and gives the reader a more interesting insight into the main characters' minds. The epistolary novel was popular in the 18th century with writers like Richardson but it was an unusual choice for Walker at her time of writing. She may have chosen this style to link back to Richardson who used women as his central characters. Epistolary is quite different to the format that other authors write in and this is why it has caused controversy among critics. In this essay I will look at Bell Hooks argument against epistolary form and try to challenge it with my own personal perception and by using other critics as well as Henderson to support my ideas. Bell Hooks has definite strong arguments against the novel being in epistolary form. She believes that the use of epistolary makes the novel unrealistic. 'Celie's letter writing appears to be a simple matter-of-fact gesture when it is really one fantastical
Compare how each writer presents Black women's struggles in 'The Color Purple' and 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'.
Compare how each writer presents Black women's struggles in 'The Color Purple' and 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'. 'As if Black women did not have enough to contend with; being exploited economically as a worker; being used as a source of cheap labour because she is a female. And being treated even worse because she is black, she also finds herself fighting the beauty 'standards' of white western women'. These are the words of a black feminist, Pamela Newman confronting the issue of sexism as well as racism faced by black women. Black women are victims of oppression in society as they are classed as third class citizens. Maya Angelou in 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings' and 'The Color Purple' by Alice Walker brings out this truth. They each present the lives of Ritie and Celie, the main female protagonists who face great struggle in their lives. 'The Color Purple' is an historical fictional novel written in 1982 by Alice Walker. Celie, the main protagonist suffers verbal, physical and sexual abuse by different men in her life. This leaves her with little sense of self-worth, no narrative voice and no one to turn to. Walker uses letters to illustrate this characters position of complete powerlessness. She trusts and hopes that God would help her come through and start a new life. She has found the person that would fight for her, so she starts every letter in the
Each writer believes that language empowers women. How successfully is this shown in the play and novel? Evaluate and investigate the ways in which each author achieves this and explore how satisfactory the end is to each text.
Each writer believes that language empowers women. How successfully is this shown in the play and novel? Evaluate and investigate the ways in which each author achieves this and explore how satisfactory the end is to each text. Both Alice Walker and Timberlake Wertenbaker write about how people are treated, what it means to be brutalised, what it means to live without hope and how language can be a humanising force. Alice Walker emphasises throughout the novel that the ability to express thoughts and feelings is crucial to develop a sense of self. Walker highlights the progression of narrative and articulacy through language. Walker acknowledges that existence to this development sustains Celie, essentially as an object, with no power to assert herself. This recognition, acknowledges the power that narrative and speech have, in resisting oppression and allowing the empowerment of characters such as Squeak and Celie. Timberlake Wertenbaker identifies themes such as the human ability to transcend circumstances, the theatre's ability to change life and the power of language. Each of these aspects of 'Our Country's Good', influence the convicts and develop the empowerment of the main characters. Wertenbaker presents the theatre as a means of liberating people. The language of the play, used by the convicts, offers them the chance to envision a future in which they are free and
Compare and contrast the ways the authors use first person narrative to present the abused heroines in 'The Color Purple' and 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings'.
Compare and contrast the ways the authors use first person narrative to present the abused heroines in 'The Color Purple' and 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings'. 'I know Why The Caged Bird Sings' written by Maya Angelou and 'The Color Purple' by Alice Walker both express the same main themes of, abuse, racism and overcoming difficulties. Maya Angelou tends to reflect past circumstances and often conveys her views through her novels and poetry. Alice Walker similarly writes about the situations between men and women, showing a more negative side to males. Both of these women use their styles successfully in both of the books I have chosen. The main protagonist in 'The Color Purple' is a black woman named Celie. Throughout the novel she finds herself struggling through degrees of abuse before finally finding her own identity. She is raped by her stepfather, who through most of the novel she believes is her real father, then abused a great deal by Albert (her husband) and is separated from her only family, her sister Nettie. All of what Celie is going through and Netties life is told in epistolary form. The opening letter is one of the most important letters in the novel, as it seems to have been written with the intention to shock the reader. Not only the content of what is written is astounding but also the language in itself is shocking. The letter is written
The “Color Purple” and “Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit” are both disturbing and uncomfortable novels, compare these two novels
This document was downloaded from Coursework.Info - The UK's Coursework Database Click here to visit Courswork.Info The Color Purple and Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit are both disturbing and uncomfortable novels. Compare these two novels in light of this observation. Pay close attention to the methods used. Both The Color Purple and Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit are written in the first person, "I am fourteen years old", "I lived for a long time with my mother and father". This means that the reader is engaged with the central characters in both novels from the start. Celie and Jeanette come from very different countries, cultures and races, but have fundamental similarities that both authors use to create feelings that are uncomfortable and disturbing within the reader. However, both authors also succeed in transforming that which we perceive as uncomfortable into something we view as empowering and liberating by the end of the novels. Thematically both novels deal with similar ideas, religion, spirituality, identity, sexuality and making the most of your birthright, but reducing the novels to such a list of ideas fails to communicate the intricate patterning of the themes throughout the lives and experiences of the novel's central characters. Both authors use first person narrators as the primary means of engaging the reader with the text and both authors
Celie - Character study.
Celie is in a position of complete powerlessness throughout the beginning letters. She is so powerless that the only person she can talk to is God, and even then she is forced to write letters rather than pray. Celie first loses the ability to control her own life when her mother falls ill. This forces her to assume the duties of her mother. Through rapes and beatings she is completely dominated by Pa, who treats her like a slave. The only living person who provides Celie with friendship and comfort is her sister Nettie. Celie is strongly disempowered by sex. The novel starts with her being raped by Pa, showing an immediate inability to resist on her part. When she is married to Mr., he mistreats her as much as Pa did. Celie describes sex as something, which is done to her, but never as something, which she enjoys. Thus, sex with Mr. reduces her status to that of an object, which lies there and waits for it to be over. Sex also plays a crucial role in empowering the other characters. Nettie is protected from rape by Celie in the beginning and thus eventually is able to run away from home. Sofia enjoys sex with Harpo and uses it to escape from her home by getting pregnant. The connection between sex and object hood emerges in Sofia's relationship with Harpo. Since sex is something Sofia controls, she is empowered to fight Harpo when he tries to reduce her to the status of
Alice Walker's depiction of men in The Color Purple has been controversial. Explore the opinions of the two critics and explain your own views of the way Walker presents men in The Color Purple.
Student: Jo Townsend Subject/Project: English Literature Coursework The Color Purple ==> Alice Walker's depiction of men in The Color Purple has been controversial. Explore the opinions of the two critics and explain your own views of the way Walker presents men in The Color Purple. Throughout this essay I intend to explore a variety of different critics' opinions based on how men are portrayed in Alice Walker's novel, 'The Color Purple'. I would like to argue/debate that Alice Walker is not pinpointing black males in the novel but an entire society. There are many different ways in which a reader could find this novel controversial and therefore it is very hard to define controversy. Alice Walker was writing 'The Color Purple' around the time of the Civil Rights Movement. This movement opened people's eyes to the inequality that black people suffered. Walker describes herself as a 'womanist' therefore it is clear that she would choose to write about the hardships that black women would face. It does seem very significant for the time Walker wrote the novel (approximately mid 1970's) as the life of black women had never been explored in the depth that Walker went to. Alice Walker spoke 'when others dare not' (Wesley : 1986). In many ways Walker's novel opens people's eyes to an unheard of topic and encourages discussion on it. I disagree that Alice Walker's
In Love and Trouble- A Book of Women with Triple Burden
Mandy Yu Dr. Christie English 1220 6 May 2005 In Love and Trouble- A Book of Women with Triple Burden Stories from In Love and Trouble, like other Alice Walker's works, are the portrayal of black women. I would interpret the term "black women" as women who have gone through all sorts of hardship and struggles, but not all women in the world or only those with black skin. I strongly argue that Walker's characters are better represented as women who suffer the way African American women do, than as women with black skin. I will justify my argument by referring to specific examples from two short stories in the book, namely Roselily and Everyday Use. The characters in In Love and Trouble are not represented by all women because not all women carry as many burdens as the characters in the book. One group of women excluded is the white. As Clenora points out African-American women suffer from "a tripartite form of oppression- racism, classism, and sexism" (192). All black women in the book have to bear the triple burden. Living in a white-dominant society, they are oppressed by the white. Their race also leads to their poverty. Being in a male-dominant society, they are abused by their husbands who are themselves abused by the white. "These women [are] simply defeated in one way or another by the external circumstances of their lives" (Washington 89-90). In Roselily,
The women in 'The Color purple' and 'Beloved' face great struggle in their lives. How effectively do Morrison and Walker present women and the problems they face?
A2 English Literature Essay Question: The women in 'The Color purple' and 'Beloved' face great struggle in their lives. How effectively do Morrison and Walker present women and the problems they face? We are introduced to Sethe in 'Beloved', the pivotal character. The narrative voice of the novel is mostly hers as she relives and 'rememories' the awfulness of her life as a slave. Sethe, an escaped slave from Kentucky, 'Sweet Home' feels the impact of slavery to its fullest extent. Slavery pushes her to commit infanticide. She feels that is the only way to protect her beloved daughter from the pain and suffering she would endure if she became a slave. The minute she sees schoolteachers hat, Sethe's first instinct is to protect her children. Knowing that slave catchers will do anything to bring back fugitive slaves and that dead slaves are not worth anything, Sethe took matters into her own hands. Sethe says, "I stopped him. I took and put my babies where they'd be safe." But the situation changes and so "They ain't at Sweet Home. Schoolteacher ain't got em," replies Sethe. This one incident does not only affect Sethe, but it changes things for Beloved and Denver as well. Beloved loses her life to slavery. Her own mother sacrifices her existence in order to keep her out of slavery. As for Denver, she is indirectly affected by the horrors of slavery. She has to put up with
'The Color Purple' by Alice Walker shocks us with rape and violence.
The Color Purple 'The Color Purple' by Alice Walker shocks us with rape and violence. Since the novel was written there has been controversy about what Alice Walker has revealed to the public about the men of the black community. The critic Tony Brown wrote for the Carolina Peacemaker an article on his opinions toward 'The Color Purple'. As Tony Brown is black himself, we get a different angle on he way black men are. The first point that Brown makes about the black community is that 'rape and incest can't be generalised'. The opening of 'The Color Purple' is extremely dramatic, it explains how Celie is raped by her father but she is too naïve to figure out what is happening to her. Therefore she realises that the only person that she can confide in is God. She explains in her letters that 'he push his thing inside my pussy', she goes on to say that her father verifies that 'you better shut up and git used to it'. As the reader we feel sympathetic towards Celie as she is only fourteen of age and has little knowledge of what is happening around her. This is shown by the grammar used in her letters, 'I ain't gonna'. Celie uses a letter to communicate with the reader; this is a fist person narrative. The format and structure of the letter seems as though a salve has written it. As in the early 1920's slaves wrote letters of this type so that people in different generations