Alice Walker’s ‘The Color Purple’ is a feminist as well as a post colonial text. The oppression faced by the women characters- based on their gender and race clearly states the toxicity and victimization of that period. Walker highlights the theme of inequality between the sexes by detailing about the physical abuse, psychological trauma and the colonial objectification of the oppressed.
Novelist gives voice to many voiceless by picturing Celie’s life. She is forced to an unhappy marriage life by her father, who treated her as a sex toy. She faces more trouble from her husband and his ‘the other’ approach towards her indicates, the white norm under the system of patriarchy. The position of coloured women in this novel also has significance. They are dominant by race and inferior by gender, but tortures darker skins.
‘The Color Purple’ also portrays how the idea of societal gender construction affects the women characters and how the traps set by colonial and traditional ideologies provokes her to fit into the layer of double oppression. A post colonial feminist reading of the text questions the aspects of gender relation, gender oppression, identity crisis and colonial subordination from the perspective of a woman or the ‘doubly’ colonized. The letters can be considered as a form of response from the side of a marginalized group. Walker tries to transform a submissive homemaker- who lacks identity, to a person who can speak for herself. She creates a character named Shug Avery for helping Celie to find and to love her own self. This creates a feminine voice in her to see what is right and what is wrong.
Colonialism treated women as half human beings and as a result, the ages of suppression has been increased. This text is also a study of the representation of the victimized using post colonial feministic ideas.