Color Purple and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Danielle Mullard
Compare how Winterson and Walter present their main characters. How are these characters used to shape the narrative and structure of the novels Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and The Color Purple?
Jeanette Winterson and Alice Walker show realism and the development and shape of their character throughout the novels. Through their main characters, they achieve this with their use of narrative and structure. Jeanette from Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and Celie from The Color Purple are two very different, young women who have struggled through their lives. Jeanette is a young, white girl from England who is heavily influenced by her strong-willed mother, whereas Celie is a young, black woman from America who has been abused for most of her life by men. Winterson uses a 1st person narrative while Walker uses letters as her structure in her novel. Both of these narrative structures show a different interpretation of the physical and mental abuse their characters suffer throughout their novels.
Walker shows through the emotional language used that Celie has been subject to abuse from a very young age. Firstly, her father, Alphonso, sexually abused her and called her “ugly”. This is why her character is seen as very silent “he don’t never look at me straight” and almost invisible to other characters. Through Celie’s letters to God, the reader can see how horrific her life has been “he grab hold of me and cram me up tween his legs” and he or she can see what she has been forced to endure. The reader would feel uncomfortable and very sympathetic towards Celie because of all she has had to suffer and tolerate throughout her life. By using letters, Walker can write the events of Celie’s life in whatever order she chooses. Walker seems to have chosen to use a chronological order with memories of Celie’s life in between which makes Celie seem more ‘real’ in my opinion because in real life, you do not write in order of events in a diary or; in this
Compare how Winterson and Walter present their main characters. How are these characters used to shape the narrative and structure of the novels Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and The Color Purple?
Jeanette Winterson and Alice Walker show realism and the development and shape of their character throughout the novels. Through their main characters, they achieve this with their use of narrative and structure. Jeanette from Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and Celie from The Color Purple are two very different, young women who have struggled through their lives. Jeanette is a young, white girl from England who is heavily influenced by her strong-willed mother, whereas Celie is a young, black woman from America who has been abused for most of her life by men. Winterson uses a 1st person narrative while Walker uses letters as her structure in her novel. Both of these narrative structures show a different interpretation of the physical and mental abuse their characters suffer throughout their novels.
Walker shows through the emotional language used that Celie has been subject to abuse from a very young age. Firstly, her father, Alphonso, sexually abused her and called her “ugly”. This is why her character is seen as very silent “he don’t never look at me straight” and almost invisible to other characters. Through Celie’s letters to God, the reader can see how horrific her life has been “he grab hold of me and cram me up tween his legs” and he or she can see what she has been forced to endure. The reader would feel uncomfortable and very sympathetic towards Celie because of all she has had to suffer and tolerate throughout her life. By using letters, Walker can write the events of Celie’s life in whatever order she chooses. Walker seems to have chosen to use a chronological order with memories of Celie’s life in between which makes Celie seem more ‘real’ in my opinion because in real life, you do not write in order of events in a diary or; in this
Bibliography: Webliography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oranges_Are_Not_the_Only_Fruit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_Purple http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oranges/ http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/purple/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistolary_novel