context

• Alice Walker

  father was a farmer - mother a maid - sent to school at young age (rare for African American children in Georgia) - graduated first in her high school class and studied at Spelman and Sarah Lawrence Colleges
• Civil rights movement


  she became active in the civil rights movement and helped revive interest in work of Zora Neale Hurston (African American writer in earlier 20th century)
• Writing


  Wrote color purple in early 1980s and won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award - was made into a movie by Stephen Spielberg
• historical context


  was active in American Civil rights movement - beginning around 1960 by blacks and others that sought to remake nature of black and white interaction across US and most specifically in the south
• civil war


  civil war had been over for nearly a century but many African Americans were made to experience humiliating and devastating discriminatory laws which made it impossible for black people to use the same water fountain, lunch counters and bathrooms as white people - laws also made it difficult for African Americans to obtain educations at white dominated state universities and to vote for and win elected office
• epistolary novel


  provides two points of view and two styles - each sister writes as an act of faith, keeping up her spirits in difficult times.
• general context

  poor uneducated African American community, Deep South, legacy of slavery - set in early 20th century, world war 2, written in 1983 - no contraception, childbirth dangerous - oldest daughter used as a servant - sexual context, sexual rights of the man, abuse - non standard grammar and spelling reflects context - abuse of black women by black men, source of much of the novels controversy, role of religion
• Black English (AAVE)

  political and literary choice - validates it as a language form, gives it status and gives Celie status (her own voice) - crucial parts of identity - writes how she thinks - tells us directly about herself, her family, her community and her experiences in her own language