Rhetorical Strategies

The Color Purple: Rhetorical Strategies

The Author, Alice Walker, uses many rhetorical strategies through out the novel to provide insight into the complicated mind of the main character, Celie. Note: not all examples are posted, just one example of each type.

 

• Situational Irony? “He look me up and down…I go closer to the steps, but not too close cause I’m a little scared of his horse,”(11)

• In this example of irony, a man is evaluating Celie with a questionable personality who shoes interest in marrying her. While it would make more sense for Celie to be scared of the man, she is actually scared of the horse. The situational irony is used in this situation and many others in the novel to illustrate how naïve Celie is. She fails to recognize and accept the harm that another person can posses till it is too late.

• Apostrophe: “Dear God…”(First line on pages 1-127)

• Walker starts every entry with “Dear God…” for the same reason that she makes allusion’s to God consistently through the novel. It revels Celie’s desire for higher form of guidance.

• Allusion: “…I started to fight him and with God’s help…”(126).

• While Walker’s allusions to God do not reference religion, since the context of her letters are not religious, it does still have a significant role in showing the deep thoughts of Celie. I tend to see her allusion to God as emphasize her loneliness and need for guidance. Since Celie has never had a strong parent figure in her life, I see her allusion to God as a call on a parental figure, not for religious purposes but out of loneliness and the need for guidance.

• Rhetorical Questions: “But what bout me?”(49). “Why my heart hurt me so?”(73).

• The author uses rhetorical questions to reflect Celie’s personal thoughts and to show Celie’s internal conflict. Celie has a continual struggle with who she is as a person. Walker uses the rhetorical questions to empathize this continuous struggle.

 

• Simile: “I wash her body, it feel like I’m praying,”(49).

• Through out the novel, many different similes are used to describe the world as Celie sees it. While similes are used by author’s to further illustrate and describe the setting of the novel, I think, in this novel Walker used the similes to provide further insight into the mind of the main character Celie. These constant comparisons and the multiple objects that are described through their comparison to something else revel how Celie views, not only herself, but also the world around her. Celie is constantly comparing herself to others in attempt to eliminate the confusion and hurt she is feeling. It is almost like Celie is trying to find a “happy medium” if you will, and trying to figure out where she belongs in comparison to others.

• Metonymy: Miss Shug is also referred to as “Queen Honeybee” through out the novel.

• Metonymies are often used in reference to Miss Shug. The multiple names can have many purposes. To me, the multiple names are symbols of the many personalities and layers that the character Miss Shug posses.