Celie's process of finding a voice and self-fulfillment In Alice Walker's 'The Color Purple'

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• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9783638266017
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: A (1), Southern Connecticut State University (English Department), course: Wives, Mothers and Harlots: The Work of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Miriam Mathabane and June Jordan, language: English, abstract: For just over two hundred years, the concern to depict the quest of theblack speaking subject to find his or her voice has been a repeatedtopos of the black tradition, and perhaps has been its most centraltrope. As theme, as revised trope, as a double-voiced narrativestrategy, the representation of characters and texts finding a voice hasfunctioned as a sign both of the formal unity of the Afro-Americanliterary tradition and of the integrity of the black subjects depicted inthis literature (Gates 29-30).In his article "Color me Zora: Alice Walker's (Re)Writing of the Speakerly Text", HenryLouis Gates Jr. talks about The Color Purple in connection with other novels by black authors(especially Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston) whose characters are alllooking for a voice throughout the story. The theme of finding a voice seems to be verycharacteristic of African-American writing. Tamar Katz points out that "The Color Purpleremains, above all, [...] a novel about the instruction of Celie and her coming intoconsciousness (69). And, speaking of The Color Purple, Diane Gabrielsen Scholl also clarifiesthat[t]he novel is [...] the story of Celie's changing fortunes [...] as Celiegradually overcomes the oppressive conditions of her despisedsituation, achieving in the end the prosperity and family security shehas longed for (109).Walker emphasizes throughout the novel that the ability to express one's thoughts andfeelings is crucial to developing a sense of self. According to Carla Kaplan, Celie "in someway hinges on her ability to narrate her life story and to find an audience fit to hear andunderstand it (181). She argues that Celie does not exactly need to find a voice but rather learnhow to use it: [...]