Essential questions for this novel:

How effective is Walker's use of the epistolary form?

How can this novel be viewed as a feminist text? 

Compare how Celie is treated throughout this novel by adults, children, blacks, whites. 

Discuss Celie's overall growth throughout the novel.  What factors were necessary for this growth to occur? 

Links for this novel: 

Visit this site for excellent questions about The Color Purple, created by Professor Catherine Lavendar at The College of Staten Island at the City University of New York. 

Visit this site for a biography of Alice Walker and a little bit of background as to what a Womanist is. 

Another biography of Alice Walker with wonderful links to other Walker websites is available here. 

Please read this letter that Alice Walker wrote to President Clinton.  Notice Walker's use of rhetoric to persuade the President.