Tuesday, Feb 8, 2022 • 8min
'The Color Purple' is about the bonding of women
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As part of Black History Month, we are running interviews from our archives. The Color Purple is about the survival of Black women in a male-dominated world. Author Alice Walker said that she just wrote what happens in the real world. At its core, this is a story of women loving and helping other women. Walker told NPR's Faith Fancher that "one of the reasons I wanted to have strong, beautiful, wonderful women loving each other is because I think that people can deal with that. [...] I think that the people who are uptight and bigoted and afraid in their own lives will have difficulty."
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Alice Walker
Faith Fancher
Andrew Limbong
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Andrew Limbong
00:01
Hi, it's
NPR's
book of the day, I'm Andrew Limbong. It's Black History Month
, so we're looking back at our archive of interviews and dusting off some gems. Today's is with Alice Walker
, the author of The Color Purple
.Share
00:15
The book is a seminal text in American literature, and as such it's tough and brutal, but honest and empathetic.
Walker
talked to NPR
back in 1982 after the book was published and she said for the women in the book, men are not central. That this isn't a book about women enduring the brutal domination of despicable men, although they do do that, but it's instead about them bonding with each other.Share
00:39
The idea was radical enough when she wrote the book that it was worth asking her if that framing alienates non-women readers. I should say, since the book came out,
Walker
has been accused of supporting anti-semitic conspiracy theories. It's sad and disappointing and I gotta be real with you, we debated about bringing this one to you. But I think it's important to be brutal and honest about our literature, our history, much like The Color Purple
itself is.Share
Break
Faith Fancher
01:47
Reviewers say of author
Alice Walker
that she is exceptionally brave. She takes on subjects hat would scare off most writers. Her latest novel, The Color Purple
, explores the survival of black women in a harsh world of rape, incest and domination in the deep South. But Walker
says that The Color Purple
is more, it's a story about heroic lives and love as well. I asked her how the main characters in the book, Celie, Nettie and Shug developed.Share
Alice Walker
02:15
I was living in
Brooklyn
and I kept thinking that I wanted to write a story based on some things that, you know, had been interesting to me, somethings that had happened in Georgia
, some things that were happening to me. And I wanted very much to get in touch with sort of the spirits of these people, and I knew they existed, but they wouldn't come in New York
, they just really didn't like New York
, and so I had to move.Share
02:43
So I moved out here, and they liked
San Francisco
a little better, except they didn't like earthquakes. So I had to take them up to a little town called Boonville in Northern California
, and it looks so much like Georgia
that they loved it. And so they started coming and we started having a wonderful time.Share
Faith Fancher
03:02
Did they talk to you?
Share
Alice Walker
03:05
Oh, yes. Well, you know, characters do, they talk to me, they talk to each other, they grow bit by bit. But I was mainly doing a lot of swimming and a lot of just hiking in the woods, and a lot of lying about in meadows, and dreaming, and gardening and. you know... and they developed.
Share
Faith Fancher
03:28
The entire book is written in letters. Celie, the main character, starts to write to God the day that a man she thinks is her father rapes her. She finds out later it's her stepfather, but through most of the books she thinks the man is her father, and she starts writing to God. And the whole book is a series of letters. Either Celie or her sister Nettie, after Nettie runs away, writing to her. Why did you pick that particular structure?
Share
Alice Walker
03:58
Well, it had a lot to do with understanding the character of Celie and understanding that someone in Celie's position - her position is very similar, for instance, to slave women who if something like this happened to them would have to write or pray to God. They would have no one else to rely on, no one else to tell. And Celie is very much in this tradition.
Share
Faith Fancher
04:22
The women in your book are people that you cry over, you identify with, you want to love, you want to care about. The men in your book are for the most part despicable. Were you writing for a particular audience with this, or you don't care if men read this at all? Is this a woman's book you're writing?
Share
Alice Walker
04:45
Well, I think that the book really accurately reflects what is happening in the world today and what has always happened in the world today. In fact, women are dominated by men. I think that many men will read it and rejoice. I think that that there there are men who really are not, you know, blind to what is being done to children and who will see in the character of Albert someone who becomes transformed.
Share
05:12
I think only very, you know, rather easily threatened people will be turned off by the men in this book. I think that Samuel, for instance, is a wonderful man. I don't see that he's despicable, I don't see that Adam is Despicable. The one who is really despicable is the man who raped Celie. And Albert is despicable until he changes. But this is life. People do become and are despicable, and they are capable of change.
Share
Faith Fancher
05:42
But what I meant was the women, none of the women in your book, even though they do go through changes, are evil like a lot of the men are. I mean, the women seem to be more um characters that you understand why it is they are the way that they are. The men I didn't understand why they were the way they were.
Share
06:06
They just seemed to be background noise more so for the women to interact with each other and with them rather than any one of them standing out and you can say "oh, here's a character and I can understand why he's going through the changes he's going through".
Share
Alice Walker
06:22
Well, you know, I think in any book you choose your main characters. And the main characters in this novel are Celie, Shug and Nettie. And it is about the bonding of women, and these are women for whom men are not central. I say of myself and I say of them that men are not the center of my universe, I am the center of my universe. So I think if you look at it from that perspective, you can understand the structure of the book and the characters of the people.
Share
Faith Fancher
06:52
So the book is about some strong women and the bonding they go through, but it's not necessarily written only for a woman audience.
Share
Alice Walker
07:01
Oh definitely not. You know, anymore than Tolstoj would write just for Russians.
Share
Faith Fancher
07:07
Are you worried at all that the strong themes in your book - rape, domination, even lesbianism - will be a big turn off for a large audience?
Share
Alice Walker
07:21
Not at all. You know, I think that one of the reasons I wanted to have strong beautiful, wonderful women loving each other is because I think that people can deal with that. I have no fear whatsoever. I think that the people who are uptight and bigoted and afraid in their own lives will have difficulty.
Share
07:42
But black people for instance, you know, the majority of them, I really don't think are small-minded and bigoted. I think that they can easily understand anybody loving anybody, and this book is an excellent opportunity for them to try it if they don't already.
Share
Faith Fancher
07:58
You say at the end of the book: "I thank everybody in this book for coming, A. W. author and medium". Did you feel like this was a spiritual experience?
Share
Alice Walker
08:08
Oh, definitely. Yes. And I felt very chosen by the people in the book and I truly thank them for coming. I enjoyed them so much. The whole time I was writing, I felt as if I was in the most delightful company imaginable.
Share
Faith Fancher
08:26
Alice Walker
, the author of The Color Purple
.Share
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Andrew Limbong
Faith Fancher
Alice Walker