SOURCE: Wall, Wendy. “Lettered Bodies and Corporeal Texts in The Color Purple.” Studies in American Fiction 16, no. 1 (spring 1988): 83-97.

In the following essay, Wall examines the epistolary format of The Color Purple, arguing that the protagonist Celie becomes stronger by using writing as an outlet, yet hinders her emotional growth by creating private discourses instead of verbalizing her fears and needs to others.

In Gyn/Ecology, Mary Daly describes how one ideological group establishes power by imprinting its traces on the bodies of other people. Imprinting, she explains, often involves invading, cutting, impressing, and fragmenting.¹ In its depiction of rape, wife-beating, genital mutilation, and facial scarification, The Color Purple abounds with instances in which the human body is made to submit to and to register the forces of authority. In the text, a patriarchy maintains power by forcing the female body into a position of powerlessness, thus denying...