Narrative Features Study Of Epistolary Novel The Color Purpfe

Alice Walker (1944-) is one of the most significant and outspoken black women witers in the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She is best known for her novels, especially The Color Purple (1982) which won the Pulitzer Prize. She also writes poetry, short stories, essays and aut obi ographi cal pieces. Walker’ sfiction concentrates on the perspective and experiences of African-American women, particularly in the rural South. She has often met with controversy because of her revolutionary critique of both wnite racism and black patriarchy and misogyny.This thesis aims to draw a comprehensive study on the narrative features of Walker’s masterpiece The Color Purple. This novel has been the focus to a large number of researchers. Mobst of the former researchers mainly adopt the thematic point of view such as the transformation of women from feminist perspective. Some others studied on the racial theme of the novel. Based on the studies of the scholars at home and abroad, this thesis explores the narrative features in The Color Purple.This thesis can be divided into three chapters besides the introduction and conclusion.Chapter one is the introduction of epistolary and study on the narrative characteristics of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Walker adopts the third-person narrative and reliable narrator besides the first-person narrative to shorten the distance between the narrator and the readers as well as the readers and the author, which successfully arouse the readers’sympathy for the two female characters in the story and also strengthens the monologue and dialogue features in epistolary novels.Chapter two explores Walker’s creativity on slavery narrative of epistolary novels, mainly analyzing the transformation of the God by which Walker presents a brave black female character who finds herself finally. Walker also employs the unique structure "quilt" in this epistolary novel which is a perfect reflection of the theme and spirit of this novel.Chapter three focuses on the narrative language and clues of this novel, mainly concentrates on the vernacular or Black English and multi-clues in The Color Purple. The heroine is an illiterate black rural woman; she insists on using vernacular and refuses Standard English, which expresses her insistence on her own voice and also emphasizes the intent of this novel. Walker attaches the multi-clues such as the blankness of the name and time and the change of the receiver’s address to the heroine’s mental change, which perfectly presents the heroine’s changing process and also show Walker’s narrative techniques.From the above analysis, we can identify that The Color Purple is a masterpiece of narrative art, which errbodies Alice Walker’s brilliant narrative techniques. The art of this novel is not only reflected in the narrative features, but also the unity of the theme and form...