The Color Purple Analysis

They say don’t judge a book by its cover, yet everyday people are judged just based on skin color, gender or anything else that sets them apart. Walker’s pulitzer prize winning novel “The Color Purple” talks about the struggles of an African American woman, Celie, and the journey she goes through in order to overcome the barriers of sexism to become a stronger woman and discover her independence. Similarly, “In Love and Trouble: Everyday Use” - also written by Walker - goes into a story about an African American woman, Dee, and her struggles with sibling rivalry, racial identity, and racism during a chaotic period of history. Through narrator point of view, symbolism, setting, and imagery, Walker illustrates the prominence of discrimination

It stays this way through the first half of the book, and then it switches into a conversation of letters between Celie and Nettie. When Nettie’s point of view is added into the picture, the importance of the different point of views come to light. Celie, is an uneducated black woman, - unlike Nettie - as she couldn’t finish school due to becoming pregnant with her father’s child. Her lack of education is evident in her spelling and grammar. For example, Celie writes to Nettie “So me and Shug dress up in our new blue flower pants that match and big floppy Easter hats that match too, cept her roses red, mine yellow, and us clam in the Packard and glide over there.” (Walker 178) and it’s clear that she is not able to write as well as an educated person would. On the other hand, Nettie is educated, and therefore wrote in correct spelling and grammar, and about more elaborate topics like women’s rights, and politics. Celie being uneducated, and the reason behind it, shows the place of a woman in the patriarchal African American society at that point of time. Walker also strategically places symbols throughout her book in order to carry out some kind of message. Coincidentally, the color purple is a

Both of them have many components that evaluate the different aspects of racism and sexism. Although, these concepts are developed differently, they both definitely give the reader something to think about in terms of racism and sexism. Since Alice Walker is an African American woman herself, she must relate to the stories she writes, as most of the characters she writes about are African American as well, and are facing some kind of problem. Also in both stories, the characters have a clash between themselves and the society. In Everyday Use, all the characters, the narrator, Dee and Maggie, in some way clash with their society. For example, Dee has too much pride in being an African American, which would have definitely been a clash in that day and age. In The Color Purple, Celie clashes with society when she breaks out of the norm for an African American woman. Lastly, both books at some point, have a scene where a character questions their identity, except regarding different