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 theory to argue that Celie's personal growth is realistically constructed, given her horrific childhood and adolescence.

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.

In the following essay, Selzer discusses Walker's confrontation of race relations and class distinctions through the underlying text in The Color Purple.

In the following essay, Taylor evaluates Walker's use of laughter in The Color Purple, asserting that the novel employs laughter as a shared acknowledgment of pain and camaraderie, rather than lighthearted banter.

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 women's repeated rapes and their rapists' attempts to silence them.

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 toward self-realization and self-acceptance.

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 the following essay, Abbandonato explores Walker's denouncement of the caucasian, patriarchal order in The Color Purple by displaying Celie's claiming of an identity and sexuality outside of traditionally accepted parameters.

In the following essay, Walton defines comic theory and classifies The Color Purple as a comedic novel based on examples from the work.

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 gradual rejection of the caucasian, male God figurehead.

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.

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.

In the following essay, Warhol explores the sentimentality of the themes and narrative in The Color Purple, and analyzes the reasons for a feminine gender designation to sentimental and emotional stories.

In the following essay, Heglar examines Walker's withholding of surnames and use of blank lines for the names of male characters in The Color Purple, and studies her use of surnames for three of the novel's atypical female characters.

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 once that "The Color Purple" is an American novel of permanent importance, that rare sort of book which (in Norman Mailer's felicitous phrase) amounts to "a diversion in the fields of dread." Alice Walker excels at making difficulties for herself and then transcending them. To cite an example: her story begins a...

Without doubt, Alice Walker's latest novel is her most impressive. No mean accomplishment, since her previous books … have elicited almost unanimous praise for Miss Walker as a lavishly gifted writer. "The Color Purple," while easily satisfying that claim, brings into sharper focus many of the diverse themes that threaded their way through her past work…. Most prominent [of the book's major themes] is the estrangement and violence that mark the relationships between...

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 black woman joins a select company of fictional women whom it is impossible to forget. (p. 93) Alice Walker is, of course, a feminist and she understands well the circumstances that force a woman into an anti-man stance. Her gallery of women are living examples of man's inhumanity to women: Sophia, wife of Harpo, Albert's eldest son,...