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Walker is more successful in the genre of novel. The Third Life of Grange Copeland, her first novel, was published in 1970. It tells the history of a black family from 1900 to the 1960s. The novel exposes the racial discrimination and calls for mutual love and understanding among the black people by unfolding the experience of the three generations of this family. In 1976, her second novel, Meridian, was published, which dealt with activist workers in the South during the Civil Right’s Movement, and closely paralleled some of Walker’s own experiences. As a womanist writer, Alice Walker’s novels always contain a theme that African American women are struggling towards self-realization in a hostile environment. Strong women characters with heroic achievements are the new images of African American women Walker wants to create.
In Walker’s writings, she demonstrated a sophisticated management of narrative techniques, especially in the epistolary style of The Color Purple which was published in 1982. It is an epistolary novel that consists of 90 letters, most of which are written by Celie to God. The heroine, Celie, suffered not only from poverty and racism but also from sexual abuse and ignorance of her family. Yet she endured it all and rose to a serene accommodation in the end. The story begins with Celie at fourteen who was sexually abused by her stepfather and gave birth to two children. Later her stepfather married her to a man who abused her and had evil design on her sister Nettie. So Nettie ran away to Africa with a missionary. Celie never heard from Nettie for some 30 years. In the mean time, Celie took care of her husband’s children and endured a hard, loveless life. Shug was the lover of Celie’s husband. During Shug’s stay at home, the two women got along well with each other. From Shug, Celie learnt to love and know about herself. Celie’s self-awareness quickly grew. She made a living by sewing. With spiritual and economical independence, Celie was never be looked down upon by Mr. X. Finally, Nettie came back from Africa and reunited with Celie.
The Color Purple marks a new step of growth in African American consciousness. It raises questions for the African Americans: they need to know themselves better and get ready for accountability for their own lives.
The novel is creative. The first thing to note is the narrative strategies. The book experiments with epistolary form to present the linguistic strategies of characters who struggle to articulate their feelings about pinity, sexuality and identity from the complex perspective of African American experience. That is also studied by lot of scholars. Such as Mage G. Henderson in his book The Color Purple: Revisions and Redefinitions praises Alice Walker’s successful use of epistolary which is created and ruled by men, that determines her authority in literature world. Besides, in a paper named An Analysis of Epistolary Style in The Color Purple written by Chen Jian, he analyzes the narrative strategies and examines how Walker utilizes the epistolary to develop Celie’s characteristics. In addition, the novel’s symbolism is noticeable. The title, The Color Purple, indicates dignity, love, human fellowship. For example, In Wang Dongmei’s Decoding of the Symbols in The Color Purple from the Feminist Theoretical Perspective, she thinks house is a symbol of freedom, both in physical and spiritual. Trousers are not only the privilege of men, but also a reflection of sexual equality. Tree is the connection between women and nature. Purple is a symbol of human esteem and hope.
The author will use closer-reading and text analysis methods to accomplish the thesis. Firstly, this paper will introduce Alice Walker, the novel The Color Purple and the development of eco-feminism to provide the theory preparation. Secondly, analyze the symbols in the novel then find connection between woman and nature to interpreter eco-feminism according the novel. Lastly, analyze Celie’s zigzag process of achieving her emancipation and express great expectations toward a harmonious world.