According to Forcey, Walker chose the epistolary genre to provide a new experience for reader of her novel: ‘The reader is required t

In The Color Purple, Walker effectively uses the epistolary genre to communicate the thoughts and feelings of the novel’s central character, Celie. Direct contact between Celie and Nettie enables Walker to focus on the characters whom she wishes to expand and, through this form, Walker gives the reader the idea that Celie and Nettie are not simply literary characters but real people. The use of the epistolary form gives the novel a sense of dramatic immediacy as events are revealed to the reader soon after they occur and a full picture of Celie’s character gradually emerges. Celie’s letters give the opinion that she is writing in the moment and a relative sense of spontaneity is conveyed. However, an obvious disadvantage of this is the fact that Celie’s letters can often sound fake and contrived, a problem also faced by Richardson in the writing of Pamela. Realistically, it would be almost impossible for Celie to remember events and conversations in such precise detail as is described in her letters. However, this is a factor that Walker has to ignore in order for the story to be conveyed in a way that is both interesting and detailed enough to hold the reader’s attention. This sense of dramatic immediacy may not be achieved to such an extent if a third person narrative was used and, in my opinion, would lack the detail of Celie’s personal letters and memoirs that enable Walker to achieve such successful characterisation of Celie.

As with any narrative form, there are clearly a number of advantage and disadvantages to the epistolary genre. I believe The Color Purple illustrates that the form can be used effectively as Walker expresses the central themes of the novel clearly and overcomes any problems of bias within the first person narrator through her strong and effective characterisation of Nettie. I believe Walker successfully overcame the limitations of the form and redefines the epistolary novel as a valid literary form to be used in the twentieth century.

The central part of the novel, made up of Nettie’s letters to Celie could also be criticised in that it involves very little characterisation of Nettie. This is a result of the occasional ineffectiveness of the epistolary form as a first person narrative as the reader only receives a limited vie

Some topics in this essay:
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