Syntax

The Color Purple: Syntax

• “Say I’m evil an always up to no good,”(3).
• “Left me to see after the others. Just say You gonna do what your mammy wouldn’t,”(1).
• “Doze on off to sleep,”(52).
• “She got the nottiest, shortest, kinkiest hair I ever saw, and I loves every strand,”(55).
• “What with being shock, crying and blowing my nose, and trying to puzzle out words us don’t know, it took a long time to read just the first two or three letters,”(144).
• “Shug was sound asleep, but something told me I ought to drive in,”(245).
• “Sometime I meet up with Mr. _____ visiting Henrietta,”(253).

The syntax used the novel, The Color Purple, reflects Celie’s limited education and provides deeper insight into her complicated mind. In the novel, a majority of the sentences talk about someone else first, before the thoughts or feelings of Celie is mentioned. The purpose of this to further show how Celie puts everyone else’s desire before her own. More often then not, the descriptions in the novel were short, to the point and lacked linking verbs or subjects. Male’s names were often not included and left blank in most sentences. While, male pronouns, like he or him, were a rare find in any sentence. It shows the reader Celie’s overall disregard towards males. These short sentences reiterate Celie’s lack of schooling and creates a simplistic honest tone that is present through out the novel. The simplistic honest tone contrasts the deeper complexity of the novel.

The simple syntax revels a certain writing style. While I was reading the novel, I came to realize that short sentences that have two or three words in them often describe something that Celie sees as a fact or something that isn’t particularly intriguing. In contrast to longer, more descriptive sentences that have a subject that is something that Celie admires or something that Celie is more confused with. This syntax tendency creates a more thoughtful style of writing then one would initially assume.