The Color Purple

For the past few weeks I have been reading The Color Purple by Alice Walker. The topic is like nothing I have read recently and it is very engaging. It is a story about an African American woman living in the south during the 30's with a man who she was married off to. A lot of her experiences are difficult to read because her husband treats her so horribly and for most of the book she has no one to turn to for support or help.

What I find very interesting about this book is the language used and the style in which it is written. It is written in the point of view of the main character, Cecile. The book is basically a collection of Cecile's letters that she writes to God, raging from her childhood up until her adulthood. Because she did not receive a thorough education and has poor English, her letters have SO many spelling and grammatical errors. The reflection of her poor education in her letters helps to solidify her character traits--I can really imagine Cecile speaking in the same type of slang that she uses in the letters. However, especially in the beginning of the novel, I had a difficulty at times trying to understand what Cecile was actually trying to say. Gradually I have learned to comprehend her use of the English language and I now appreciate that Alice Walker wrote the novel in this style--it really seems realistic and suitable to Cecile's character.