1. Criticism
In the color purple, there are so many different voices
contributing to the story, but they all become intermingled. My
critic thinks the story was a little confusing, trying to discern
which was Celie’s voice and which was not. The quilts that
Celie makes, with lots of different pieces of fabric all sewn
together, symbolizes the characters. They are all very different
from one another, but they all come together in the end as a
family. The quilt represents unity. The people in the Color
Purple are united because of their shared experiences of
discrimination, abuse, and common struggles. Their oppression
brings them closer together. Celie becomes a stronger woman
in the end because of the support of these friends and the
people in her “quilt”. Communicating about one’s struggles will
result in healing. Only through the support of others will

2. people overcome obstacles. For Celie, these people were
mainly the love of her life, Shug Avery, and her beloved sister
that she never gave up hope on seeing again. Celie’s survival
tactic was getting her feelings out in her letters. First, she
wrote letters to God. She eventually gave up hope on God
because nothing good ever seemed to happen in her life. It
was then that she began writing letters to her sister, Nettie.
Celie tries to portray emotional numbness in her letter, but
the fact that she writes all her stories down in letters shows
us her true feelings. She is shameful, angry, confused, and
hopeless. So much bad had happened in her life, that she
began to think she didn’t deserve for anything good to
happen to her. In the end, she was finally happy for once in
her life when she was surrounded by the people she loved.
The novel accurately portrayed what life was really like back
in that time period, and it showed the other side of the story
by being told from an African American’s perspective. The
novel was a success in that we see how poorly they were
treated and the real extent of the discrimination going on
back then.

3. Works Cited
• Fiske, Shanyn. "Piecing the Patchwork Self: A
Reading of Walker’s THE COLOR
PURPLE." GALILEO. Heldref Publications,
2008. Web. 25 Apr. 2012.