Abstract:This study aims to investigate the characteristics of epistolary writing in The Color Purple. Firstly, it focuses on the application and the functions of the first-person perspective. Through the first-person perspective, the voice of females is stressed and readers share Celie’s emotions such as sorrow, happiness, and desperation. Then, it makes an analysis on the address term in the novel. The transfer of the terms that they use to address each other shows the changes in the personality of every character. Also, this thesis studies the vernacular English of black people. Celie’s language indicates her growth. Finally, the traits of monologues and dialogues conveyed in The Color Purple are analyzed. In the letters, monologues and dialogues are combined together. The paper concludes that Alice Walker applies epistolary writing in The Color Purple to stress the voice of black women under racial and sexual oppression and endows the form with her own writing features. Such a combined way makes The Color Purple more significant.

Key words: The Color Purple; epistolary writing; epistolary features

CONTENTS

摘要

Abstract

1. Introduction1

1.1 The Introduction to Alice Walker and The Color Purple 

1.2 The Development of Epistolary Genre

2.The Epistolary Writing Characteristics in The Color Purple2

  2.1 The First-person Perspective 

2.2 The Address Terms 

2.3 The Vernacular English of Black People

  2.4 Monologues and Dialogues

3.Conclusion.8

Bibliography.11

Acknowledgements12