The characters in The Color Purple have womanist traits. Through Celie, Shug Avery, Sofia and Nettie who are major characters in the novel, Walker suggests that women can get an upper hand at some point by challenging the authority of their husbands and oppressors, and dare to overcome their odds. These women also have great love for their people and culture of their community, love women and men sexually and non-sexually and in search for their self , the women become audacious, outrageous and courageous to show willful behavior. While dealing with the womanist nature of these women characters, Walker focuses on the abuse of women by their husbands and lovers. Alice Walker's In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose, proposes her fourfold definition of "womanist". According to this definition, Celie, the protagonist of The Color Purple is an outrageous, audacious and courageous woman who freely engages in 'willful behavior'. She is a victim of incest as her stepfather, Alphonso, forces her to do what her mother wouldn't. He further forces her to get married to Albert or Mr._ who she notices is not different from him as Celie had to fulfill his sexual needs and care of the house and children from Albert's first wife. She is a victim of sexism, yet she accepts this as a way of life and allows herself to be used by men only because she feels hopeless and helpless until she come in contact with Shug Avery and Sofia. Celie loves and develops a good relationship with Shug sexually, showing her shamelessness and fearlessness which in turn portrays a courageous behaviour. With the help of Shug, Celie takes charge of her life and becomes an independent woman, by opposing Albert who resisted Celie's idea to accompany Shug to Memphis and even starts her own business of Pants.
Sofia and Shug Avery are also considered as womanist characters. Sofia who marries Albert's son, Harpo challenges the notion of gender roles, engages in physical disputes and even leaves Harpo. This behaviour of Sofia is courageous and audacious as a womanist character. Like many African-Americans, Sofia pays for hitting the mayor and refusing to work as a maid by being jailed for twelve years showing her audaciousness and courageousness. Shug changes the course of the novel when she comes to live with Albert and develops a good relationship with Celie, she supports her family and keeps sexual relations with Celie. As a blues singer, she paves way for the upliftment of Celie. Carmen Gillespie writes about the womanist view of Shug as: "Shug's occupation as a blues singer foregrounds the ways in which she fulfils this role in Celie's life. She provides Celie with the means, the vocabulary and the methodology with which to find and sing her own song, her truth, her self-worth and her desires (Gillespie, G.,2011).
Black women's history is a history of self-empowerment by fighting external factors that try to silence them. This struggle of women is against racism and sexism. The racism has denied black women identity and self hence was considered as mere objects during slavery. Therefore, "...their main struggle to seek for a definition of themselves according to positive characteristics and according to what they lack."(Shukla, S. &Banerji, N., 2012). Through literary writing and production, African-American women have been able to build up their own identity. Alice Walker being an example has contributed to the foundation of women's rights and equality by discussing woman's culture, family and spirituality in The Color Purple. Celie, the protagonist of the novel, is a daughter of a Negro store owner who is a representative of race and class. His store works well as two of his brothers help him run it, and as months go by, they do better and better until the white merchants complain that he is taking all the black business away from them. These class relations make him a victim of racial violence leading to lynching ruining the social status of Celie's family. Sofia Butler bridges a class and racial gap between the mayor; his wife, Miss Millie; and their daughter, Eleanor Jane, who desires Sofia's approval for her actions, her marriage and her own children. Walker seeks a peaceful existence through the settling of differences. The issue of sexism is brought into greater focus in The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Celie suffers on basis of her sex by being raped by her stepfather, Alphonso, impregnating her twice. Alphonso treats her as a sex object, he also marries her off to Albert whose wife had died and who had an affair with Shug Avery way before marriage. While introducing Celie to Albert, Alphonso says, "She ought to marry first. She ain't fresh tho, but I specs you know that. She spoiled, twice. But don't need a fresh woman no how."(Walker, A., 1982). The view by Alphonso shows women as objects ought to be put on market auction and not treated as human beings. This is an issue of sexism presented by Alice Walker. While the story develops, Celie endures chaos and abuse in her early life. Most women characters, like Celie, are exploited and tortured by racism and sexism. Everyone has to meet misfortune but finally, the courage and support of each other bring the change in their plight and finally they celebrate a family reunion with each other's help.
The Color Purple deals with the issues of racism and sexism, it pulls together Walker's ideas about women's life and culture through presenting the socio-historical picture of the rural South of twentieth-century America with the help of the womanist characters. It is a story of a barely educated black woman, Celie. Celie's journey and search for her self-identity is a long one. Her knowledge of self-identity and self-worth grows with her understanding of her body, past and truth of her life. She gets support from her fellow women like Nettie, Sofia and Shug who provide mental, spiritual, material and financial support while her marriage exposes her to the world. She comes to know the reality and truth of her life with the help of Shug where she becomes aware of her individuality and personality, learns to fight herself and gets the skill of inner voice. This characteristic of Shug is a typical one within the African-American racial societies. Nettie remains the first person to instil a degree of confidence in Celie while Shug teaches her to believe in herself who is important for her psychological freedom from Albert's colonization of her mind and body. Therefore, Alice Walker shows the ability of black women to grow out of passive submission to male authority and oppression to a state of being an independent woman.
The African-American community inherits their traditionalism. As they suffer from racial discrimination, class oppression and poverty, they adopt art for development and survival. In The Color Purple, Alice Walker presents women characters with some skills (black artists), she revisits the historical era of the 1920s of black blues singers. Shug and Squeak or Mary Agnes revive the spirit of great blues that combines these women's songs and their lives with her concept of womanism. In concurrence to Walker's definition of a womanist as a feminist of colour, women who love women's culture, who love music -who sing and dance, women who are concerned with the survival of the entire race and who love themselves, Walker in The Color Purple presents a womanist artist to show how the black fight against sexual and physical abuse of women and men. Shug Avery and Squeak or Mary Agnes are black artists who connect Walker’s novel with the blues tradition of the 1920s in America. Shug Avery is a beautiful, strong and independent woman who plays a great role in the life of Celie as a friend, sister, teacher, preacher and comforter. She loves music, dance, struggle, folk and love and when she dedicates a song to Celie she makes her love herself. Celie writes, "First time somebody made something and name after me"(Walker, A.,1982). The blues helps the women create female community through their songs. Walker by exploring the blues themes of violence and abuse engenders a womanist story that deals with black women's struggle against racism and sexism. Walker's women are creators and artists by nature. While Shug Avery and Squeak get involved themselves in music, Celie is good at quilts developing her new art of folk pants making. Finally, all the women support each other, come together at Celie's home and celebrate their triumph and wholeness.
Alice Walker notes that a womanist is committed to the survival and wholeness of an entire people, male and female through confronting oppressive forces. Celie learns about the mystery of her body, the way of getting economic freedom by accepting abuse and victimization from Southern patriarch family. She learns from Nettie that for survival, resistance and struggle are necessary though she is ignorant about the methodology to use. She writes, "...I don't know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive"(Walker, A.,1982). She thinks fighting back can cause problems, hence submits to male authority and subjugation to father and husband. Walker affirms that the key to wholeness is forgiveness. Celie forgives herself and Alphonso after the wrongdoings done to her. In the process, she encounters Sofia and Shug who help her emerge as a courageous self-loving woman. When Celie gets the letters Nettie had sent, she stops writing letters to God and addresses her letters to Nettie. It becomes a means of structuring her own identity, her sense of self and healing of her wounds in relation to her sister and children. She starts her own business with the help of Shug for economic freedom and becomes self-supportive. She decides to create a new identity by leaving her husband which is considered as a further step to wholeness At the end, all the characters live a very insular life, get rid of problems and achieve both personal and communal wholeness.
In relation to language and behaviour, The Color Purple is considered a womanist manifest of Alice Walker as it deals with the depiction of women's plight and their search for self. Celie uses Black English or African-American English to write her letters. This way, Alice Walker tries to highlight the black voice by using the language used by her community in the rural South of America, in Georgia. Even after starting her own business, Celie struggles to use Standard English because she wants to keep her own autonomy. Unlike Celie, Nettie uses a standard dialect. With Celie's opposition of the language of the mainstream (Standard English) and using her own dialect, Walker represents the political and economic plight if the society that deprives women of education and power as it is for Celie in the rural community in Georgia. While struggling to search of self, the characters present their womanist behaviours. Walker presents characters who know more about their history and roots. They also love their people, their community and their self. Racial oppression has a psychological impact on men and results in domestic violence which leads to suffering of characters like Celie, Nettie, and even Sofia racially and sexually. Alphonso and Albert beat and abuse Celie, she opposes none as she wants to survive. Shug and Sofia are characters of masculine deeds and feminine charms. Eliot Evans takes Shug to be, "embodiments of feminist existential freedom"(Butler, E. E., 1989) as Shug frees Celie from oppression and sexism of her husband They develop a lesbian relationship as part of their womanist behaviour. Sofia also shows her womanist behaviour as she opposes her husband, Harpo and takes the hold of her home. She comes out of the house for economic freedom yet she loves her community, people and family which indicates her womanist behaviour.
Walker in Coming Apart talks of a womanist as an African-American heterosexual woman willing to utilize wisdom from African-American lesbians about how to improve sexual relationships and avoid being sexually objectified. Therefore, heterosexism and lesbian relationship according to Walker is seen as a way to define black feminist's sexuality. Additionally, Alice Walker defines a womanist as, "A woman who loves other women sexually and/or nonsexually"(Walker, A., 1983). This definition indicates that a womanist may be a lesbian or a heterosexual. The major characters, Celie and Shug Avery are women who love each other sexually as well as nonsexually. Through the hands of Alphonso and Albert, Celie is abused but in a sexist situation, she remains calm and quiet for survival. By the time Shug comes to Celie's home because of some illness, Celie nurses her in a good manner and she is attracted, falling in love with her. Celie reveals that she does not enjoy the intimate moments with her husband and prefers women to men. She says to Sofia, "Mr._ climbs on top of me, do his business, in ten minutes us both sleep. The only time I feel something stirring down there is when I think bout Shug"(Walker, A.,1982). Celie thinks of Shug sexually. A triangular affair between Albert, Shug and Celie develops more than a relationship between Celie and Shug. Therefore, Celie is considered to be a complete version of Walker's term womanist.
Alice Walker brings out womanism through the African-American culture in The Color Purple. The women celebrate their heritage of arts, style of dressing and hair. In the novel, the protagonist, Celie wishes to make herself a purple dress as it is the colour of the royal persons. Celie and Shug also used to make quilts with a different kind of material. The quilting is part of the African-American women's culture. Walker identifies the quilt making as, "the secret of what has fed that muzzled and often mutilated, but vibrant, creative spirit that black women inherited"(Walker, A., 1983). Alongside quilting is the shell collecting which is a symbol of black female imagery in the Western culture as the shells are compared to female wombs. In the novel The Color Purple, the black community blues culture is related to black women and this is represented by Shug who is a professional blues singer. African-American culture is rooted in Africa and it's greatly affected by the history of slavery. African-American writers include their distinct culture in their writing. Sheeja rightly writes, African-American writers find consolation in including their distinct culture within their stream writing. They deal not only with the psychological change of the people but also with the cause for such changes. Women writers like Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Maya Angelou and Alice Walker find the place in literature for their valid contribution for the cultural, racial and sexual issue (Sheeja, S.A.,2013). These writers present their culture through their writings because they want to maintain their own traditions. African-American culture has become an important part of American mainstream culture. African-American society and their religious, familiar political and economic behaviours are shaped by African culture, slavery, slave rebellions and the Civil Rights Movement. All these aspects have found a place in the literary works of African-American women writers like Alice Walker.
Alice Walker's much-cited phrase, " womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender" (Walker, A., 1983) suggests that Walker considers feminism as a wider ideological umbrella of womanism. Therefore, while black feminism focuses on the struggles, needs and desires of Black women; womanism exceeds this by focusing on the unique experiences, struggles, needs and desires of all women of colour(not just black women) in addition to critically addressing the dynamics of the conflict between the mainstream feminism, the black feminism, the African Feminism and the Africana Womanist Movement. From The Color Purple, Alice Walker is considered a writer of expressive fictions. Her concerns of racial, sexist and gender issues have found a place in this novel. The black women's struggle for wholeness and survival is also reflected. The black women and their families are presented by Alice Walker with their specific tasks. She says, "I am committed to exploring the oppression, the insanities, the loyalties and the triumphs of black women (Walker, A.,1973). The women presented in her novels demonstrate their concern for the black extended families as viewed by womanists. Her women range from the state of slavery t the revolutionary women. Walker has used in her works a distinctive voice of a woman immersed in her Southerness, blackness and womanhood. She attacks the sexual violence and physical abuse prevalent in the American Southern Black society. African-American women overcome huge obstacles and cycles of oppression in order to get where they are today. The achievement of The Color Purple remains valid as Alice Walker has taken Celie through a process of utter hopelessness as a black woman to full recognition and equality. Through assertive women characters like Shug, Sofia and Celie, Walker has shown women can rewrite their history.
Style in a given piece of literary work can be said to encompass all the devices that contribute to the beauty and effectiveness, and hence the success, of a piece of art. These devices include structure, language, and mode of writing, description and symbolism. Our major interest is; Language of characters, the letter form technique’ and ‘satire’ and symbolism in The Color Purple. In this essay, we seek to also analyse the style that Alice Walker has used in her novel.
Celie, the protagonist of The Color Purple, is the first-person narrator who relates information about the characters and setting from her point of view in the form of letters written to God and her sister. Celie's sister Nettie is a secondary narrator whose letters offer a perspective limited to the family she lives with, the people she meets in her travels, and her African experiences. The Color Purple is written in the present tense.
The structure of an epistolary novel relies on epistles or letters. Through letters only, the characters reveal the story's foundational elements—the characters, plot, conflict, and setting—and the structural components of the theme, symbolism, tone, and point of view. In The Color Purple, Celie, the primary narrator, writes to God and to her sister Nettie. Almost halfway into the story, Nettie becomes the secondary narrator through her letters to Celie. Crucial to readers' involvement and connection to the story, the letters reveal each narrator's private and public emotions, beliefs, and values.
The novel is seen as bildungsroman which is a coming-of-age novel. Although the protagonist's journey to find spiritual, emotional, and moral awareness often starts in the person's adolescence, the quest often continues into adulthood. The Color Purple opens when Celie, the 14-year-old protagonist, begins searching for answers that will help her understand her unjust life. Throughout her journey, she struggles with the challenges of oppression, male dominance, and racism, and with her personal beliefs about gender roles, sexism, and spirituality. Not until she is middle-aged does she realize joy and wholeness in her existence with family and friends and in the world.
The language of Celie’s letters reflects the country dialect of an uneducated African American from the rural South during this time frame. In contrast, Nettie's letters exhibit her proficient writing, grammar, and vocabulary skills because she was permitted to attend school. Through the sisters' letters, readers can compare and contrast some of the social expectation customs, and traditions of the early to middle years of the 20th century.
The Color Purple is written in a letter-diary form. At the beginning, Celie's addressee is God whom she sees as the only source of redemption at a time when she is distressed by a number of factors mostly those bordering on injustices perpetrated by men against her. Towards the end of the novel, Celie's addressee is her younger sister Nettie. After deciding to change her addressee, Celie ceases to write any missives to God. This is because Celie sees God to be a patriarchal God who likes all other men does not seem to understand nor is ‘he' sympathetic to women's plight. Celie concludes that this God is an unjust God since he is male and who therefore acts like all other men. At this juncture, Celie has undergone an evolution of sorts. She becomes awakened.
According to Kazumi’s thesis, “the letter form technique makes the structure: of the novel rather complex. The author has to resort numerous times to flashbacks. A letter is inherently very personal. Therefore by deciding to write a missive to God and also to her sister Nettie, the letter at once indicates that what Celie is writing or what Nettie is writing when the latter also writes to Celie is very personal Alice Walker is allowed to look at contentious matters on a very personal basis through the letter form technique and she delves into them to the greatest depth and brings out her innermost feelings.”
The letter form allows Alice Walker all freedom of expression and speech in that she is not curtailed or constrained to write in a particular style but is free to write in any style she finds suitable. This also includes the language she uses to express herself. The language in The Color Purple ranges from deep slang to average formal English due to the characters' levels of education. Celie's language is black American's communal folk English bordering on heavy slang with grammatical errors because she is semi-literate. But her rural idiomatic language gives straightforwardness and directness. Nettie's English is formal and grammatically sound because she has had the advantage of more education while staying with her missionary hosts. Although Walker has all the freedom of expressing herself, what comes out is not haphazard as one would expect, rather there is consistency and a definite pattern.
The letter form indeed gives an alert, direct and passionately involved account of the life of semi-literate African-American women. It shows painstaking honesty and is written with an intensity of feeling.
Satire has been effectively employed in The Color Purple. Most male characters in the novel have been satirized to a great extent. These are mostly conservative men who believe that the woman is sub-human and thus occupies a lower position in terms of human worth.
Mr.____‘s son Harpo is one male character who has been exposed to ridicule due to his dominant yet sometimes blatantly foolish convictions. When Harpo gets married to Sofia, he wants to treat her the way he sees his father treating his wife, Celie, that is with beatings and all.
But Sofia is a unique breed of a woman. She is assertive, aggressive and would never allow anyone, not even her husband to step on her toe. She believes in ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ regardless of who committed evil to her. When Harpo one day beats up Sofia in an attempt to make her obey all his orders, Sofia fights back and the amusing fact is that contrary to what Harpo was used to - a man beating up a woman without any resistance or challenge - Harpo is beaten up by Sofia until his face is just a mass of bruises and his lip gets cut. His teeth also ache. Harpo is hence brought to ridicule by the author in that although he defined himself as a man, who should always be above the woman (that is according to Harpo and his likes) in all regards, the truth is that he is even weaker than what he describes as the weaker sex.
Following the aftermath of the fight, Harpo is so ashamed of having been bruised by a woman that he blatantly lies that his bruises were a result of not only having been injured by a crazy mule in the field but also of having suffered other accidents such as hitting his eye and shutting the window down on his hand. According to Kazumi, “The writer satirizes Harpo by trying to show that contrary to what he thinks of himself, he is not just effeminate but is simply childish in his thoughts and deeds.”
Like his son Harpo, Mr____ has been used to represent other men. He is satirized by his traits that border on a grotesque, unqualified male dictator. Albert, as Mr___ is named, is repeatedly referred to as simply Mr. to show that the dash could be filled with a name of any other man and it would still be the same thing.
Such a style has also been employed by other writers of African origin. Most effectively it was used by the famous late celebrated South African writer, Alex La Guma in his powerful novel, In the Fog of the Season’s End. In the prologue of this novel, La Guma simply refers to the prisoner as ‘he’ to signify that it could be any other black South African. Any black person in South Africa was liable to the kind of torture and awe-striking ordeal that the prisoner in the prologue underwent at the hands of the racist white prison officer. It is only later in the novel that we learn that the prisoner referred to in the prologue is none other than Elias Tekwane, a black revolutionary leader. The style of only using ‘he’ instead of giving the name, while generalizing the experiences of blacks has also the powerful effect of creating suspense in this novel. The readers would crave to know who the prisoner really is.
Likewise, in The Color Purple, the use of Mr. while having the effect of generalizing the attributes of men creates suspense. We would like to know who this Mr.___ really is and what he really stands for. Like all other male dictators, Harpo’s father believes that men are ever right while women are ever wrong. Albert has been used to the idea of women prostrating themselves before him that he takes it as a joke when Celie talks of leaving his house. He has known Celie to be very submissive but when Celie goes as far as exchanging harsh words with Albert, Albert becomes the object of laughter. It is ironical that what he believes to be true is not necessarily the case. Mr tries even to blackmail Celie by saying that if she leaves the house, she would not get a single penny from him. He believes that Celie cannot do without him, and most importantly, his money. However, contrary to his expectations, Celie goes ahead and leaves the house, to Memphis, where she starts a pants-making business and earns a living without any assistance, and not depending on any man.
Satire on male characters as represented by Harpo and Mr.___, therefore, is geared towards deflation of the male gender. This style is what J.M. Bullit refers to as diminution, (p.45) Diminution is a technique of rendering somebody flabby, who is either rightly larger in status or who only believes so. Diminution is a common literary device which was discussed in Rhetorical handbooks under the Greek title "Meiosis", meaning literally "belittling". Diminution can be described briefly as the use of an ugly, negative images which are meant to diminish the dignity of an object.
Through Nettie, Alice Walker also satirizes men in Africa whose argument borders on irony. The men in Olinka do not want their daughters to be educated, but their sons. However, the ones imparting the education are women: Corrine and Nettie. These men argue that there is no place for an educated woman in Olinka. These men see education as of no good to a woman; but when Nettie suggests that Corrine and Nettie herself should leave Olinka for another place since an educated woman is like a curse in Olinka (that is according to the male supremacists), these men reject the idea and rather proposed that Nettie and Corrine should continue staying, but only to teach the boys. The irony is that these men consent to their sons being taught manly things which they allege go with education, not by fellow men, but women. The humorous part is that these ardent male chauvinists allow themselves to stoop as low as to allow beings they consider outcasts to educate their sons.
Alice Walker also satirizes women in Africa who are so indoctrinated that they clamour for a chance to become a chief’s wife even when that chance means being subjected to all forms of humiliation and brutalization. These are women who seem not to reason. Nettie also blames the women for encouraging their oppression by men:
They indulge their husbands if anything. You should just see how they make admiration over them. Praise their smallest accomplishments. Stuff them with palm wine and sweets. No wonder the men are often childish, (p. 172)
Symbolism is another style that Alice Walker uses in the novel, Pants represent independence, individuality, and strength to Celie as she liberates herself from Mr. ___'s control. They help her to breach gender lines when she decides to wear them; they bring her economic freedom when she begins making them as a business. Just as the idiom "wearing the pants in the family" is used to describe someone who is in control, pants help to define and shape Celie's control over her own life.
The letters are used symbolically in that they are the only escape Celie has in her oppressed life. She writes to God because, as a captive, she is desperate to find an audience or a witness for her pain. Even when she questions whether God is listening, she continues to write to Him as a way to think through her situation. Her letters to Nettie reflect the joy Celie feels that her beloved sister is alive and is leading a life of her choice. Nettie is an actual person with whom Celie can share the harsh realities of her life and her most intimate thoughts. The letters are proof that her sister, if not God, is listening.
The title The Color Purple represents all of the seen and unseen wonders in the world. After Shug explains to Celie that God only wants to be admired for all of the beauty and magnificence He created, she says, "I think it [angers] God if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." The author uses purple to represent both the physical grandeur of the world and also the impressive internal and external traits that define each individual.
To Celie, needles are a means to create something worthwhile by uniting items that on their own are insignificant. Because they take parts and give them meaning by making a whole, they are a positive force in her life. Needles are used to sewing pants, which lead to Celie's success as a seamstress and a business entrepreneur. Razors, in contrast, represent destruction. When Celie is blinded by her hatred for Mr. ___ because of his abuse, subjugation, and most importantly, because of his purposeful theft of Nettie's letters, she almost kills him with his own razor. The razor becomes the means to rid her life of her oppressor, but the act of violence for which she considers using it would eliminate all the strides she has made toward independence.
To conclude, The Color Purple has employed the use of letterform technique and satire. Satire, as seen, is mainly towards men who cling to patriarchal stances, yet at times contradict themselves or are humiliated by occurrences that prove their stances wrong. Albert and Harpo in the former work come out as diehard male oppressors yet, when their women separate from them, such men are the first to be afflicted by psychological trauma. When their wives leave them, they are mentally deeply troubled, yet as members of the so-called perfect and tough gender, they have always behaved as if matters related to love do not touch the surface of their hearts let alone the core. Women emancipation has been achieved in the end. In a nutshell, Alice Walker has attempted to embody her own particular vision of black feminism in a work that transcends ideology.
Works Cited
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Butler, E.E.(1989). Race, Gender and Desire: Narrative Strategies in the Fiction of Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
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Hill, C.P.(1990). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.
Kazumi. H. R (1997) The Use Of The Letter Form And Satire In The Treatment Of Gender Issues In Alice Walker’s The Color Purple And Mariama Ba’s So Long A Letter. ( Master’s Thesis, University of Nairobi).
Monarch Notes(1987)." Alice Walker's The Color Purple: Guide to understanding the Classics". New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Phillips, L.(2006). The Womanist Reader. New York: Routledge.
Sheeja, S.A. (2013). "Mapping the Black Culture in Alice Walker's The Temple of My Familiar." The Journal for English Language and Literary Studies 3. 4:9-15.
Shukla, S.& Banerji, N.(2012). " The Shadowed Identity: A Study of Alice Walker's The Color Purple." Academic Research International 2. 2: 729-745.
Walker, A. (1973). In love &trouble: Stories of Black Women. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Walker, A.(1982). The Color Purple. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Walker, A. (1983). In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose. New York: A Harvest Book Harcourt.
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