SOURCE: Hall, James C. “Towards a Map of Mis(sed) Reading: The Presence of Absence in The Color Purple.” African American Review 26, no. 1 (spring 1992): 89-97.

In the following essay, Hall examines Walker's portrayal of female repression in society and religion in The Color Purple, commenting that Celie's emotional growth depends largely on her gradual rejection of the caucasian, male God figurehead.

[Some] receive the news of the death of God and the questionableness of authority with great enthusiasm. Like servants released from bondage to a harsh master or children unbound from the rule of a domineering father, such individuals feel free to become themselves.

(Taylor 45)¹

The Color Purple, Alice Walker's novel of black feminist awakening, is also a model for the reconstruction of a black feminist literary tradition. If the existence of such a tradition had previously been marked by the “white page” and historical silence, Walker subverts...