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

  • Word count: 2875
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

Ideas and themes in 'The Flowers' By Alice Walker

The Flowers By Alice Walker Written in the 1970's The Flowers is set in the deep south of America and is about Myop, a small 10-year old African American girl who explores the grounds in which she lives. Walker explores how Myop reacts in different situations. She writes from a third person perspective of Myop's exploration. In the first two paragraph Walker clearly emphasises Myop's purity and young innocence. "She skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen". This shows how happy Myop is in this setting, we know she feels safe here, "She felt light and good in the warm sun" Her innocence produces an excitement to the reader as it gives the character and the text somewhere to go. We learn that Myop is ten and is African American, however Walker does not present the reader with clear facts but instead reveals it to us. " The stick clutched in her dark brown hand", from the information given she allows the reader to form a visual image of Myop. Walker also highlights the setting around Myop, playing on the character's senses. "The harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts and squash made each day and golden surprise". By doing this Walker reveals more about Myop's background. We can see from the crops used "cotton and squash" that her family are obviously farmers. We can also see how Myop's senses are important to her and her reactions to the crops around her show off her

  • Word count: 1077
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

How do the writers gain interest in the opening pages of 'Great Expectations' and 'The Color Purple'?

How do the writers gain interest in the opening pages of 'Great Expectations' and 'The Color Purple'? "My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening." Such captivating and expressive descriptions are continuously used throughout one of the most well-known and loved classics of the 19th century and it was none other than Charles Dickens who was attributed for such a powerful and pensive story - Great Expectations. Published in 1861, Great Expectations was 14th in a long line of remarkable books written by Dickens. However, the book's popularity is often ascribed to its autobiographic qualities; many of the events from Dickens' early life are mirrored in Great Expectations. Written in Victorian England, Great Expectations was set during the Industrial Revolution; a time when England saw the biggest social changes yet. London, the country's capital, was the destination for all those seeking economic opportunity. It was crowded, polluted and filthy - industry had taken over. The rigid divisions between social classes remained as huge as ever; upper class citizens were of the elite few - the rest of the population were industrious labourers. Great Expectations include many aspects of the Industrial Revolution and through the book's narrator and protagonist, Pip, we are able to

  • Word count: 3204
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

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,

  • Word count: 2368
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

What, in your opinion, is the key moment In 'The Color Purple' by Alice Walker?

What, in your opinion, is the key moment In 'The Color Purple' by Alice Walker? Walker uses a number of key events or moments rather than just one moment, to help change the direction of the story. She does this in a number of ways but her favourite way is to use the characters and events surrounding Celie to help direct her character and show how Celie matures over time, and the sudden leaps in maturity that she takes. One of the key moments in Alice Walker's 'The Color Purple', is Shug Avery's first appearance, sick but too evil to die, and is a good example of how vivid and dramatic Celie's terse narrative style can be. Omission of grammatical markers gives freshness to everyday phraseology. Typographical simplifications are also effective. Dispensing with quotation marks and the convention of a new line for a new speaker produces a sense of intimacy, as Albert's and Shug's voices interrupt Celie's without formality: 'She is too evil for that. Turn loose my goddam hand, she say'. This first meeting with Shug is a turning in Celie's life. Before Celie has known Shug from a photograph and has found sisterly reassurance in her eyes. Now it is eyes that command attention. Though feverish, they look 'mean', ready to kill a snake and not scotch it. A more evocative term still is used twice. Shug is 'more evil than my mama' and that is what keeps her alive. She is too evil to

  • Word count: 1662
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

The Personal Development of the Narrator in “The Color Purple”.

The Personal Development of the Narrator in "The Color Purple". The narrator tries to persuade God she has done nothing wrong and she asks him for a sign or answer to the events of her life, "I have always been a good girl" - "maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me". She begins to find out what her stepfather is really like to live with and the demands of his sexual needs, which she also as to meet, " he never had a kine word to say to me" - "Your gonna do what your mammy wouldn't". The narrator only has a very vivid knowledge of sex, and therefore does not understand her stepfather raping her, "first he put is thing up gainst my hip and sort of wiggle it around", "Then he grad hold my titties". However she does know it is wrong and that she hates every moment of it: Stepfather: "You better shut up and git used to it" The Narrator: "But I never git used to it". As a result of these rapes the narrator becomes pregnant. On page 3 there is a subheading which reads, "You better never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mother". And at the start of the second diary entry (page 4) it begins "My mammy dead", this seems to suggest the narrators stepfather has told her mother about the rapings and the baby? Her mother begins "screaming" and "cussing" at her. This give the impression that the story told could have been in the stepfathers favor and

  • Word count: 1768
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

'The Flowers' is a short story written by Alice Walker. Walker is a black American writer, who is renown around the world, especially because of the 'book, turned movie'

Alice Walker- The Flowers 'The Flowers' is a short story written by Alice Walker. Walker is a black American writer, who is renown around the world, especially because of the 'book, turned movie' The Colour purple. Walker is extremely interested in the history of human rights, particularly the history of black women in the United States. Her writings often reflect this interest and they usually have dual meanings. Walker interpretates struggles of black women in her books, and The Flowers is no exception. It is about the end of innocence, of a young black child living in the 1930s. It reflects the unfairness of life, and the circumstances of the black people during that period in time. 'The Flowers' is about a girl named Myop, she is from an agricultural background (as most black Americans were in the 1930s). She is described as carefree and innocent. " It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen...they days had never been as beautiful as these". This suggests she is young and holds no major responsibilities, there are also connotations of lower class roots. The story goes on to describe her mini- travels throughout the fields, picking flowers and singing songs. This suggests the innocence she possesses as a young child. " She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song". This openly tells the reader her young age, thus her lack of

  • Word count: 1066
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

The Life Lesson of "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker.

Nicole Klotzle Mrs. Cain 4th April 2003 The Life Lesson of "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker When Alice Malsenior Walker married Melvin Roseman, they were considered to be the first legally interracial couple in the state of Mississippi. Walker is one of those writers who when someone reads one of her works they automatically get pull to all of her writings. She writes with her heart and writes from experiences that she has went through. She is an all around wonderful person who loves and would help everyone no matter their race, sex, and/or their status in society and she doesn't let her money get to her head. As said by Astrid H. Roemer, "She isn't the girl on the book jackets; and she isn't all glamour and chic like Toni Morrison; and she isn't provocative and flashy like Buchi Emecheta; and she didn't lose herself in all her American dollars. In everything she does with conviction, Alice Walker is very open-hearted and wonderfully unpredictable." Alice Walker's life along with her involvement in the Contemporary Era of American literature strengthened the literary merit of her short story "Everyday Use." Life Alice Walker was born on February 9th, 1944 to Willie Lee and Minnie Tallelah Grant in Eatonton, Georgia. Now her family wasn't very wealthy; her dad only earned $300 a year and her mother was a domestic who worked as a seamstress just so her family would have more

  • Word count: 1507
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

The colour purple - Analysis of the 1st three letters.

Analysis of the 1st three letters The book begins with a threat: "You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy." The threat is not immediately explained. In Celie's first letter to God, the reader learns that the main character is a fourteen-year-old girl. She explains to God how she has always been good and, therefore, does not understand why she is being sexually abused. Her mother has refused to engage in sexual activity after having another baby; as a result, Celie's father has begun to rape her continuously. When she cries, he chokes her and tells her to get used to it. In addition to this cruel treatment she receives from her father, Celie is also expected to be the housekeeper, performing all the domestic chores. Celie relates that she feels sick when she does the cooking, which is also the place Alfonso, her father rapes her. This 1st letter shocks the reader with its graphic description of Celie being raped by her father. Black and uneducated, she can only detail the abuse with words such as "titties" and "pussy;" although the words are crude, they are the only ones that Celie knows for her anatomy. But also this sort of language implies to us that it's the way Alfonso speaks to her. Almost as disturbing as the description of the rape is Celie's not being able to speak to her mother about it. In fact, Celie seems to be

  • Word count: 1132
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay

Compare and Contrast two extracts from the novel The Color Purple

Compare and Contrast two extracts from the novel The Color Purple The novel 'The Color Purple' by Alice Walker is set between 1904 and 1940 in rural Georgia, and traces the life of Celie, a southern black woman, emphasising the hardships and joys which black women experienced in a patricidal society. Through her diary and letters of correspondence which reflect an American slave narrative, the reader sees her growth from a meek emotionally isolated child living in a strong male dominated society to an independent spiritual woman, who has an capacity to express emotion fluently to those around her. The first extract1 (pg. 3) to be considered is, the first letter which Celie writes as an act of faith, through which we are introduced to the protagonist, a fourteen year old black girl. The second extract2 considered (pg.175) details the rejection of Albert, Celie's husband, and illustrates to the reader the emotion, physical and spiritual development which takes place throughout the entire text. In the first extract, Alice Walker portrays the character of Celie through the style and language in which the extract is written. In contrast to many other black American novels which adopt rich prose, The Color Purple, is marked by dialect features which keenly reflects Celie's status as a uneducated black girl in a time when society was dominated by males figures. Celies phonetic

  • Word count: 2067
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
Access this essay