The Color Purple Summary
Alice Walker

The Color Purple - Alice Walker - 1982 Introduction Although she is an accomplished writer of novels, short stories, essays, and poems, Alice Walker is best known for her award-winning novel The Color... Read more

Biography EssaySince 1968 when Once, her first work, was published, Alice Walker has sought to bring closer that day for which her maternal ancestors waited-"a day when the unknown thing that was in ... Read more

Best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Color Purple, as well as for its adaptation as a motion picture by Steven Spielberg, Alice Walker has become a totem for black feminism, what she c... Read more

Alice Walker is a talented, versatile writer from the modern South. Since the appearance of her first book in 1968, she has published poetry, fiction, and criticism, all of which have advanced her li... Read more

[This entry was updated by Donna Haisty Winchell (Clemson University) from her entry in DLB 143: American Novelists Since World War II, Third Series, pp. 277-292.]Alice Walker knows firsthand the soci... Read more

In the following essay, Tavormina analyzes the parallels between clothing and the perception of the characters in The Color Purple, noting how Walker's characters use sewing to create a sense o... Read more

In the following essay, Hankinson discusses how the development of Celie's religious beliefs in The Color Purple are instrumental in and indicative of her spiritual growth. Alice Walker�... Read more

In the following essay, Cutter compares and contrasts the character of Celie from The Color Purple with the character of Philomela from Ovid's Metamorphoses, noting the similarities between the... Read more

In the following essay, Ross employs psychoanalytic methods to analyze Celie's delayed emotional growth in The Color Purple and examines the catalysts that shape and encourage her progress towa... Read more

In the following essay, Weisenburger examines the temporal inconsistencies in The Color Purple, noting the popular and critical reception of the novel's errors and themes. I What would be re... Read more

In the following essay, Proudfit refutes the critical opinion that Celie's emotional development and actions in The Color Purple are unlikely literary contrivances, and uses psychoanalytic theo... Read more

In the following essay, Hall examines Walker's portrayal of female repression in society and religion in The Color Purple, commenting that Celie's emotional growth depends largely on her... Read more

Critical Essay by Peter S. Prescott Because I have an eerie feeling that any attempt I make to describe what happens in this story is likely to start the summer rush for the beaches, I want to say at... Read more

Critical Essay by Elizabeth Bartelme In this arresting and touching novel [The Color Purple], Alice Walker creates a woman so believable, so lovable, that Celie, the downtrodden, semi-literate, rural... Read more

The Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Color Purple, is a book criticized for its immoral issues, such as incest, rape, and physical abuse. The amazingly detailed text comes from a very active femin... Read more

The Color Purple is about a black woman named Celie who endures a lot of cruelty from men throughout her whole life. This book shows how she changed into a miraculous woman who stands up for what sh... Read more

"The Colour Purple" is a novel about womanism, slavery, racism and abuse. It was written by Alice Walker who based this novel on her own experiences. She received the Pulitzer for her novel "The Colo... Read more

All three texts I have selected, "The Color Purple", an extract from a girls notebook, and a scene from "Finding Forrester" express the idea that discovery and self knowledge are inseparably part of a... Read more

The Color Purple shocked me with the painful and shameful sexual crime committed against young Celie who is raped by who she believes to be her father, while her mother is at the doctor's office. Thi... Read more

Symbolism is one of the major elements in "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker. The woman's search for something she has never experienced is the symbolization of the mankind's search for love and happ... Read more

According to the Swiss psychologist, Karl Jung, we are all part of a collective unconscious. This means that we all fit into some archetypal pattern that describes our experiences and the experienc... Read more

In "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker, the tone, at the beginning of the book, is very confessional and uninhibited. Therefore, it illustrates Celie's state of mine as very passive. She does not have ... Read more

The Color Purple Book Notes is a free study guide on The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Browse the summary below:   Author Biography / Context of the Work   One-Page Plot Summary  ... Read more