The function of the epistolary format in The Color Purple.

The form that Alice Walker uses to write The Color Purple is in a series of letters called an epistolary. It allows the author the “opportunity to present the feelings and reactions without the intrusion of the author and gives a sense of immediacy, because the letters are usually written in the thick of the action” (196).
A reason why the novel is written in this way is to perhaps give the idea of a confession like slave narrative. There have been a number of critics who have called The Color Purple an allegory of slavery. As Winifred Morgan states in his article The Color Purple as Allegory, “The common narrative pattern encountered in slave narratives- an innately good, morally superior person is unjustly confined and maltreated by a corrupt individual; through heroic efforts, the victim escapes and lives to tell the tale…”(178). This description of a slave narrative almost reads like the plot of the novel, in which a helpless and kindhearted girl is severely mistreated by her father and husband but through the strength of others and the discovery of her own strong self will, she escapes from her oppressive situation. Morgan further explains” although not born a slave, as the novel opens, for all practical intents and purposes, Celie is a salve” (181). This is certainly evident in the beginning of the novel, particularly when her father is handing her off to Mr. and her father makes her turn around so Mr. can inspect her as if he were inspecting an animal. This experience calls up the “reasons slave women were bought - their ability to endure hard physical labor and their potential as sexual objects” (180). As this cruel and degrading instance is indicative of the way slaves were treated, perhaps what Walker is suggesting is that not much changed for black woman after the end of slavery and that they are still being treated in an unjust manner.
Another reason why Walker might have chosen to write the novel in this way is that Celie’s letters to herself allow her to find her voice and an audience to comfort her and help her. Molly Hite explains this by stating that “the drama of Celie’s epistolary self creation revolves around the discovery of a female audience that finally fulfills the ideal of co-respondence…The process of finding her speaking voice is a process of finding her audience”(130). This can be seen with Celie’s interactions with the other female characters in the books as she relates to them and the reader compares the nature of each of the other female characters to Celie. The females of the novel allow Celie to asses her self and her possibilities and her character slowly begins to change as the story moves on and the other females influence becomes more apparent. This first happens with Sophie, who is a strong and tough women and the opposite of Celie. The first time Celie seems to talk about her self and her condition is with Sophie, as she states that Celie is like her mother stating that “she never stand up for her self”(41). But it is Shug who has the strongest influence on Cecile and acts as a sympathetic listener and also encourages her to talk about her past and to realize that she has the power to stand up for herself. Carla Kaplan suggests that “without a sympathetic audience, such as Shug, Celie might never have been able to go from her first self-effacing statement “I am” to her later declaration, “I’m here” (130).
An advantage to having the story written in an epistolary format is that it effectively dramatizes the need to tell a story. In the case of Celie, this is made even more important because “finding a listener and finding her voice are inextricably related”(130) and the letters and her exchanges with the other characters in the novel leads her to have more dignity and a stronger sense of self.

Work Cited

Kaplan, Carla. The Erotics of Talk: Women’s Writing and Feminist Paradigms. New York, Oxford, 1996.

Morgan, Winifred. The Color Purple as Allegory. Southern Writers at Century’s End. Lexington, University Press of Kentucky, 1997.

Harmon, William and Holman, Hugh. A Handbook to Literature. 10th edition, Upper Saddle River, Pearson, 2006.

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York, Harvest, 2003.