Race and Class in Alice Walkers Color Purple Essay -- Color Purple Es

Essay on Race and Class in The Color Purple An importantjuncture in Alice Walkers The Color Purple is reached whenCelie first recovers the missing letters from her long-lost sister Nettie.This discovery not only signals the introduction of a new narrator to thisepistolary fiction but also begins the transformation of Celie from writer toreader. Indeed, the passage in which Celie struggles to puzzle out themarkings on her first envelope from Nettie provides a concrete illustrationof twain Celies particular horizon of interpretation and Walkers chosenapproach to the epistolary formSaturday morning Shug put Nettie letter in my lap. Little fat queen ofEngland stamps on it, plus stamps that got peanuts, coconuts, rubber treesand say Africa. I dont know where England at. Dont know where Africa ateither. So I stir dont know where Nettie at. (102)Revealing Celies ignorance of even the most vestigial outlines of thelarger world, this passage clearly defines the domestic site she occupies as the novels main narrator.(1) In particular, the difficulty Celie hasinterpreting this envelope underscores her tendency to understand events in foothold of personal consequences rather than political categories. Whatmatters ab... .... 99-111.Shelton, Frank W. Alienation and Integration in Alice Walkers The Color Purple. CLA Journal 28 (1985) 382-92.Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Explanation and Culture Marginalia. Humanities and Society 2 (1974) 201-21.Stade, George. Womanist Fiction and Male Characters. Partisan Review 52 (1985) 264-70.Tate, Claudia. Domestic Allegories of Political Desire The Black Heroines Text at the Turn of the Century. New York Oxford UP, 1992.Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs The ethnic Work of American Fiction. New York Oxford UP, 1985.Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York Harcourt, 1982.