Literary Techniques and Rhetorical Situations in The Color Purple

Introduction: Language as a Mirror of Self

In The Color Purple, Alice Walker uses two primary literary techniques to chart her protagonist's transformation. The first is Celie's initially halting and basic use of language — evident in both her verbal speech and her letters to God — which parallels and underscores Celie's lack of self-confidence and undeveloped sense of selfhood at the novel's opening. The second is storytelling: Celie and her female friends bond by sharing stories with one another while quilting or sewing, and these exchanges become a powerful vehicle for mutual understanding and personal growth.

In terms of rhetorical situation, Celie's fluency is at first severely limited. However, as her bonds with female friends strengthen and her self-confidence grows, so does her command of language. Her letters to God become more confident and fluid — a considerable change that parallels the emergence of genuine ego strength and selfhood as the novel draws to a close.

Celie's Early Letters and Underdeveloped Voice

At first, Celie's letters to God are uncertain, hesitant, and very simple in their expression of ideas — comparable to the underdeveloped language of someone far younger than Celie's fourteen years. In her first letter, replete with crossed-out words, she writes to God: "I am fourteen years old. I am [crossed out] I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me" (Walker 11). There is very little of Celie's self in this letter because Celie has not yet developed a sense of self — she has never been encouraged or allowed to grow as an independent person. She has only been used and abused.

By the time she writes this first letter, Celie has already endured prolonged neglect and serious sexual and emotional abuse. She states, of her stepfather:

He never had a kine word to say to me. Just say You gonna do what your mammy wouldn't. First he put his thing up gainst my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my *****. When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying You better shut up and git used to it. (Walker 11)

Understandably, Celie's first letter to God reveals her feelings of helplessness and confusion about why she has suffered as she has and why she remains so alone. As the story continues, however, and these core questions begin to be answered, Celie's letters and her verbal expression slowly become more confident and fluent. The Color Purple, published in 1982, is widely studied for its innovative epistolary form and its portrayal of Black women's interior lives in the American South.

Quilting, Sisterhood, and the Sister's Choice Pattern

Because Celie idolizes Shug Avery, she wants to make her a special quilt as an expression of affection. At the start of this endeavor, Celie writes to God — now more fluently than before:

Me and Sofia work on the quilt. Got it frame up on the porch. Shug Avery donate her old yellow dress for scrap, and I work in a piece every chance I get. it's a nice pattern called Sister's Choice. If the quilt turn out perfect, maybe I give it to her, if it not perfect, maybe I keep [emphasis added]. (Walker 62)

The pattern name "Sister's Choice" points rhetorically toward the sisterly closeness Celie feels toward Shug and Sofia, a bond forged through their conversations together. Earlier, Celie had been submissive, meek, obedient, and unable to assert herself. Now, however, her increased fluency in both written and verbal communication corresponds to and accompanies her deepening friendship with Shug Avery and Sofia.

Metaphorically, Celie has always felt torn away from her deepest attachments: her sister, her mother, and — as a consequence — her own yearned-for sense of self, which can develop in a child only through close identification with and assurance from those who can be deeply trusted. In contrast, quilting and later sewing are acts of bringing separated things together and binding them into a new, more complete whole — not merely pieces of fabric, but people. The tradition of quilting among African American women has long carried cultural and communal significance, a resonance Walker draws on deliberately throughout the novel.

Conclusion: From Helplessness to Self-Affirmation

At the beginning, Celie is capable of little independent action, and her lack of rhetorical fluency within her letters to God underscores her helplessness. As her sense of self grows, Celie reveals herself through much more confident language, followed by assertive, self-affirming action as the novel ends. For example, inspired by conversations with Shug, Celie plans to open a pants-sewing business and to profit from it.

As her self-confidence steadily increases, so does Celie's fluency with words — thereby creating ever newer and more empowering rhetorical situations, as well as real-life ones, for Alice Walker's once helpless and inarticulate protagonist. The trajectory from Celie's first crossed-out, trembling letter to her final, purposeful self-expression is the true arc of The Color Purple, and it is carried entirely through the power of language reclaimed.

Works Cited

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Pocket, 1982.