Discuss the title of the novel The Color Purple

 

In this novel African quilting patterns are mentioned linking up Black Americans, with a tradition in which they have roots. In fact one of the first things that Nettie writes to Celie about is about the “brilliant blue robes with designs like fancy quilt patterns” that the Senegalese wear. In another letter she states “the Olinka men make beautiful quilts which are full of animals and birds and people.” Gloria Naylor, Tone Morrison and Alice Walker through the African links of the quilts tall< about a different aesthetics which situate their works in a different context form a white, bourgeois, European form

In terms of the form of The Color Purple too, there is a quilting of different genres such as biography, music, poetry, letters and diary entires. Celie’s life in the American South is quilted with Nettie’s life in Africa. Celie too, who begins with feeling that she is nothing quilts her experiences into something and develops an empowered notion of her self. Her quilt pattern “Sister’s Choice” is metaphoric of her journey through life. Her new bond with her community lies not with men as much as with women as is indicated from the name of her quilt. Similarly, Walker quilts a Black literary history and fills its gaps of silences and stereotypes of Black people with words and empowering notions of Black women.