The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Letters 28-48
Answer with your essay group in Class Notebook
1. What types of figurative language are used in The Color Purple? Can you find a few examples of each? [simile, metaphor, etc.]
2. What would you say is the overall theme of the novel? a. What is the author's standpoint on the theme of the novel?
b. How does the theme play itself out throughout the novel?
3. The novel is called The Color Purple. What does the title refer to? What gives you that impression from what you have read in the novel?
4. Other than the color purple (which we notice because it is involved in the title) what other colors appear throughout the novel, and what is their significance?
5. Sewing appears frequently throughout The Color Purple, sometimes in relation to quilting and again in the fact that Celie creates a business in sewing pants. What do you think sewing represents in the novel?
6. Celie's opening letters are addressed to God. Her last letter states “Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear Everything. Dear God.” What caused the shift when addressing Celie's deity?
7. In what ways do each of the characters relate to God during the novel?
8. Would you say that racism is portrayed in the novel, despite the fact that all characters are of the same race?
9. The Color Purple is considered by many to be a feminist novel. In what ways do the feminist ideals create a motif in the novel?
10. What do the letters between characters signify in the novel?