SOURCE: Tavormina, M. Teresa. “Dressing the Spirit: Clothworking and Language in The Color Purple.” Journal of Narrative Technique 16, no. 3 (fall 1986): 220-30.

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 of accomplishment and freedom of expression.

When a message has no clothes on                     How can it be spoken? 

—Thomas Merton¹

Language is the clothing of thought, the skin of the soul. The mysterious entity of self is first expressed internally, in thoughts and feelings of various degrees of clarity; yet to give that self external expression, it must be “uttered”—made outward by being dressed in language. Just as clothing protects, adorns, interprets, and helps create the first impression of the body, the outer self, so language displays the inner self, giving shape to thought and feeling...