Color Purple

Making the Changes

Rape, incest, sex, forced labor, and a bit of reefer. These are some of the components of a Novel by Alice Walker. These views are illustrated proficiently in Walker’s third novel, The Color Purple. These aspects had a lasting impression upon ideals and beliefs of the time period. Her writing’s helped to break the racial tension and barrier that was present in some people’s minds. One of the ways that the barrier was eliminated was through her depiction of an imperfect black person. If a white person were to write about an imperfect black person it would be considered racist. “ I think the most chilling thing to me about the response to The Color Purple was that people said ‘ this doesn’t happen’, they said that this was ‘totally an anomaly’ (Ebony magazine, ‘Walker Confronts the Questions About Her’). With Walker’s writing about other blacks that are participating in situations that are immoral and corrupt, the subject is brought into a new frame of mind. These situations are talked about in the open, and the idea that everyone makes mistakes, is easier to understand. Walker combines all of these issues in her story in a deceptive way.

The film and text versions of, The Color Purple, are similar in many ways and yet different as well. Like most motion pictures that have been created through the book, it does not focus on detail in most situations that are described fully in the original writings. The film version also brought out controversy among audiences. The rage-positive among white audiences, negative among black (mostly males) critics and reviewers- over Spielberg’s adaptation of, The Color Purple, however has subsided since the film was released in 1985. Now days, it is not time to go over the film’s controversy again but to understand its popularity and its differences from the novel. In Walker’s short story, “Everyday Use,” which pokes fun at a character who puts functional quilts she once hated on her walls, showing them off a popular-culture art objects, we first see the symbolic quilt that runs through many of her stories, including, The Color Purple. What happened to the African and Afro- American folkways depicted in, The Color Purple- quilting and face scarring inparticular? Perhaps a certain amount of distortion was a factor for the film’s success in Ameri...

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... a valuable lesson in life, that love is a powerful force. Since Albert never talks to Celie after she had left him in the film, she never knows his thoughts.

Spielberg eliminates or distorts the solidarity-affirming aspects of quilting and sewing with Albert, even face scarring, traditions which Walker’s oppressed Africans practice in order to save culture or repair trouble relationships. The symbolic point of the quilting is that it is a social and individual way to cope with overwhelming odds. In adapting Walker’s African feminist novel, Spielberg did not translate the different folk traditions of the African and Afro- American. Important parts of this folklore were most likely left on the cutting room floor in efforts not to bore the audience. Walker’s novel is very unique in regards to style. Her use of black diction is very affective and adds the extra fragment of authenticity to the story line. The story line is very well wrapped up in both versions and there is a fulfilling finish to an entertaining tale. Everyone enjoys a story where there is a happy ending to the like of; they all lived happily ever after, and this story takes that path.