The Color Purple Contents
Plot structure
For a chronology of the events in The Color Purple with approximate dates, see The Color Purple: Synopses and commentaries > Textual help > A chronology of The Color Purple.
Conventional story-telling
The plot of The Color Purple is constructed quite conventionally, moving from a dramatic opening through a series of rising actions dealing with conflict and endeavour towards a conclusion which is a traditional ‘happy ending’.
Melodramatic elements
Some critics have suggested that the novel’s plot resembles that of a classic Victorian melodrama and there are certainly elements that suggest this might be so:
- The story begins with the breakup of a family and ends with a family reunion
- A young virgin is seduced and ‘ruined’ by a wicked stepfather who takes her illegitimate children away from her and withholds her family inheritance
- Mother and children are separated and ‘lost’ to one another for many years, then reunited in happier circumstances than could ever have been imagined
- Loving sisters are forced to part and are ‘lost’ to one another for years, then eventually restored to one another in spite of treachery and deceit on the part of a villainous man
- Virtue is rewarded when sisters triumph over hardship and injustice, before being rewarded with an unexpected inheritance
- Brute force is pitted against love and friendship; love and friendship triumph.
Use of coincidence and stereotype
In addition, much of the action of the novel depends on coincidence and stereotypical characterisation:
- Nettie is conveniently befriended by the adoptive parents of Celie’s children
- Samuel happens to have been a good friend of Fonso (Pa), which is improbable given their respective characters and lifestyles, but means that Samuel knows the secret of the sisters’ parentage
- Fonso is a stereotypically evil stepfather, a fraud and a cheat
- Albert is dramatically changed into a reformed character at the end of the novel
- Corinne dies repentant after all her false suspicions. Her timely passing allows Nettie to marry Samuel
- The sisters inherit their rightful property just in time to give Celie a place to develop her Folkspants Unlimited company
- When the missionary family returns to America shortly afterwards, they have a ready-made home waiting for them
- The telegram with false news of Nettie’s death at sea is a useful means of ensuring that her homecoming is even more of a happy surprise for her sister Celie.
In the structure of a play, the rising action introduces the obstacles or events that create tension as the story unfolds and develops.
1. Belonging to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). 2. Resembling attitudes or behaviour considered characteristic of the time of Victoria and seen as over-strict, prudish, old-fashioned.
A dramatic piece which uses heightened situations and reactions (and originally, musical accompaniment) to appeal to the emotions.
A fixed, often conventional and unoriginal pattern of thought or expression or way of doing things. Characters lacking in originality who behave predictably or according to type.
Someone sent on or engaged in a religious mission.
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