Structure

I found it very interesting that this entire book, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, is written in epistolary format. The book appears to be a compilation of letters that happened to be published, which was probably the author’s goal. The book begins with Celie writing letters to God. Everything has been taken away from her and He is really the only one she can talk to. Later on, though, she discovers the letters from her sister Nettie that Mr. ____ has been hiding from her since the day they were married. The letters from Nettie add a second plot to the book. After reading her letters, Celie begins to write her letters to Nettie rather than God, and she actually sends them to her, though they never reach her in Africa. The final letter begins, “Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear Everything. Dear God,” (291). This is the first letter in a while that is written to God and not to Nettie, and since her last letter to God, she has found that God is in everything, the stars, the trees, the sky, and the peoples. Though she claims to be writing her letter to a wide variety of things, she is really only writing it to God who is in everything.