Alice Walker's The Color Purple

by Harold Bloom

-- Presents the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature -- The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism -- Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index.

Genres: Fiction, Criticism, African American Literature, Literary Criticism

251 pages, Hardcover

First published January 18, 2000

About the author

Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.

Reviews

[The-vault · Rating 1 out of 5]

By Alice Walker. Grade C

My reason for picking up The Color Purple at the bookstore was simple. It was my favourite color. But, before I started it, I came to know that it was highly praised by critics and had a movie based on it too. It was supposedly a classic. The biggest thing was that it had won a Pulitzer Prize too! Naturally, I was eager to read it.

Celie has grown up in rural Georgia, navigating a childhood of ceaseless abuse. Not only is she poor and despised by the society around her, she’s badly treated by her family. As a teenager she begins writing letters directly to God in an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear. Her letters span twenty years and record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment through the guiding light of a few strong women and her own implacable will to find harmony with herself and her home.
The Color Purple’s deeply inspirational narrative, coupled with Walker’s prodigious talent as a stylist and storyteller, have made the novel a contemporary classic of American letters.

Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of twenty years of her life, beginning at age fourteen when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to “Mister,” a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister’s letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self.

More than half of the book is written in broken English. It is so because it is a narration/diary of Ceilie who knows little of reading and writing. Walker has skilfully crafted several themes in the book like slavery, colonialism, racial discrimination and over the loads and loads of information she gives us about the twentieth century makes her really worth a Pulitzer.

She’s done a remarkable job of indicating the discrimination at that age. She got into the skin of her character and has been marvellous at showing how downtrodden women were at that time. And how ignorant people were. And it is unfortunate, some people still are as bad as they were then.

I love the character of Celie. She has such horrible self-esteem but tells things exactly how they are when it comes to situations and other people. I also liked how she was contrasted next to Shug as a strong female character.

There’s no doubt anyone would hate Ceilie bloody father, but I hated her husband Mr.____ too. You must be wondering who this Mr.____ was. Ah, that is how he was named all through the book. We didn’t have his name anywhere in the book. I wish he had a specific name. So, Mr.____ was an aggressive man who abused Celie, and took advantage of her in many ways. He beat her for no reason, married her because probably he wanted a nanny for his children and kept her because he wanted to sleep with her.

Alice Walker again proves her Pulitzer-worthy skills by potraying different sides of black women in different characters. While Ceilie was submissive, Sophia was a rebel. While Shug was considered to be a slut singing around here and there, Nettie was on a noble mission to educate people down in Africa.

The book was beautiful and moving in its way, yet ultimately failed to excite me in the author seems to expect. To me, this book dragged on and on. At times I really did wonder what the point of the story was all about, and it felt like it was going nowhere.

Yes, I know the book is about a woman who was abused by a father, a husband and invariably didn't know what it was like to exist in a normal life but sometimes it was written in such a monotonous way that I longed to put an end to it. I merely felt that every page I turned, the author was re-writing the pages I'd just finished. Like the old saying, "Same nonsense, different day."

While the letters by Nettie from Africa were nicely done and are my favourite part of the book, but on the whole, the book bored me to death. There was an excessive sexual content in the book and what killed me was the broken English. It confused me throughout the plot. I know it was necessary but still feel that I might have liked it better if normal English had been employed.

If you are one of those serious feminists, and like reading about lives of earlier people, you might like it. But, the risk would be entirely yours. And who knows, if you read it you may give it an A, since it is one those Pulitzer kinds.

Originally reviewed at : www.the-vault.co.cc

[Pamela Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reveals the suffering meted out to black women as a result of the patriarchal dominance in the society. Celie, the protagonist, writes letters to God and her sister Nelie. In her letters to God she tells the ills of life that she and her the rest of her family faces at the hands of her step father. He rapes her, then gets rid of the babies. He later sells her into marriage where the suffering continues. We continue and comes into contact with Sophie whose approach to life reveals that women can stand up for themselves of even give them self a voice. This is also evident through Shug who teaches Celie how to stand up for herself and let her about her own sexuality and thus by the end of the novel, Celie becomes an independent liberated woman. The novel also reveals the effects of sisterhood and it reunites Celie and her children. Her sister Nelie and she reconnects after Shug helps her find The letters Mr has hidden from her along real meaning of life.

[Cynthia Walsh-brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! I've read it a least twice and will read it again.

[Eric Seymon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book of 2013