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Alice Walker
- 1944 –
- focus on black and female identity
- the importance of text, sexuality in people’s life
- writing the letters – self-determination
- 1970: The Third Life of Grange Copeland
- 1976: Merridian
- 1982: The Color Purple
- 1989: The Temple of My Familiar – collection of poems and essays
- 1984 – Collection of Essays: In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose
Through the device of letter writing, Walker brings her audience into intimate communication
with Celie, the principal storyteller in the novel. Celie’s letters for a time are her only sustaining
lifeline, as they confirm her existence. Celie’s words are evidence of a life lived.
In The Color Purple, Alice Walker explores the nature of God and religion. Celie shares a
traditional Christian view of God with the rest of her community. The church is an essential
part of this society, although there is a clear hierarchy within the congregation. The Bible is a
guide for correct behavior, and the local preacher uses it to help shape the moral values of the
community as a whole. The early letters demonstrate the key role that religion plays in
determining Celie’s behavior, even to the point where she refuses to criticize her father for
raping her because the Bible says she should honor her father. God, to whom Celie addresses
her letters, is both a confidant and a source of protection. She pictures God as he appears in
many Christian images, an Old Testament patriarch with long hair and flowing robes. However,
after the revelation that Mr.—— withheld her letters for all those years, God suddenly seems a
representative of the two groups that abused and betrayed her all her life, men and white people.
Shug Avery, a self-confessed sinner who is denounced by the churchgoing community, defends
God. God is not “him” to her, but rather “it.” She espouses a pantheistic view of the world in
which all nature is God, and God appears in all nature. God is a joyful and loving being. The
novel’s title reflects this as Shug tells Celie that she thinks God may become angry when people
walk past a field and fail to appreciate the color purple. In her view, God appears in church only
when the people themselves bring him in. Her religion stresses love, compassion, and pleasure.
This contrast between the conventional Christianity of established churches and more
nontraditional views is also reflected in Nettie’s letters from Africa. Although the Olinka
worship nature and pay homage to the rootleaf plant, the crop that sustains their lifestyle, they
listen to stories about the white Christian God. However, the destruction of the rootleaf and
their village by the white colonialists causes the Olinka to question all religion because no God
has been powerful enough to save them. Samuel and Nettie, too, find failures in conventional
religion. They eventually wish to establish a new church in their community, one that honors
the spirit of God rather than the image.
(Enotes)