Symbolism In Alice Walker's The Color Purple

The worst form of identity theft is stealing one’s right to sew themselves into a unique masterpiece. People who attempt to mold others into their idea of whom the other should become, instead of letting them evolve into their own, they steal an essential seam in the knitting together of one’s life. By the needles of setting, characterization, and symbols, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, presents to us a society based on objectifying and defining “colored” women and the main character’s reaction to these efforts, in the form of a quilt.

The Color Purple measures the years 1909-1949. By way of the needle of historical setting, in which society is built upon male supremacy, light is shed on the abuse and objectification of women—more

Walker uses color to signify renewals at several points in the novel. All her clothing choices are drab, contrasting with the colors later in the plot where Celie and Sofia use bright yellow fabric to make a quilt symbolizing happiness. Also during this craftsman time, Celie comes to notice the wonders God has created such as “the color purple.” The color purple signifies all the royalties of the world formed by God. Celie has no concept of the happiness of the color purple when the story line starts. Shug teaches Celie to live outside of the box that men have set for her. Shug is the color purple personified, which is how Alice Walker knits together symbolism and characterization. Shug is both red, full of life, and blue, representing hardships and things she has overcome. These colors blended create purple. The colors described bleed into the core of the novel and weaves itself into the narrative’s most essential symbol,

Like a patchwork quilt, the community of love that surrounds Celie at the end of the novel incorporates men and women who are bonded by family and friendship. Readers can perceive the entire book to be somewhat of a quilt. With the literary devices acting as the sewing needles, the seams being the places Celie’s mind and body travel and overcome, the color representing the fabric and the changing stages of Celie’s life, and the strong woman figures in the main character’s world that mold her into her own woman being the stitches that hold the quilt together and essentially begin the quilt. By the end of the novel we find Celie to be her own seamstress, the director of her own life. She no longer let’s any male control her. By breaking the mold that was originally set for her, Celie not only changes the men’s attitude around her, but the reader sees society and the treatment of women to be changing for the better. Celie stole back her right to find herself. She learned how to “stop and smell the roses.” She took back what was rightfully hers and established the finishing hems of her personality and life