Literary Techniques & Rhetorical Situations Term Paper

Because Celie idolizes Shug Avery she wants to make her a special quilt, out of affection.

At the start of this endeavor Celie writes, more fluently now to God:

Me and Sofia work on the quilt. Got it frame up on the porch. Shug Avery donate her old yellow dress for scrap, and I work in a piece every chance I get. it's a nice pattern called Sister's Choice. If the quilt turn out perfect, maybe I give it to her, if it not perfect, maybe I keep [emphasis added].

Walker, the Color Purple, p. 62)

The pattern name "Sister's Choice" points rhetorically toward sisterly closeness Celie feels toward Shug and Sofia based on bonding that has occurred during their conversations together. Earlier Celie has been submissive, meek, obedient, and not at all her own person. Now though, Celie's increased fluency of both verbal and written communication corresponds to and accompanies her bonding with Shug Avery and Sofia.

Metaphorically also, Celie has before now always felt 'ripped apart' from her deepest attachments: her sister; her mother; and as a result of that her own yearned-for sense of self that comes to a child only from close identification with and assurances from others who can be deeply trusted. In contrast, quilting and later sewing are ways of bringing separated things together and binding them to one another in order to form a new, more complete whole - not just pieces of fabric but people.Women telling each other stories while working together is a later rhetorical situation that now underscores strength, solidarity, and mutual trust among females.

Alice Walker depicts these important female bonds as being established through language - i.e., the exchanging of confidences and ideas, the giving and receiving of advice and comfort; other positive, ego-affirming verbal exchanges. Here then, the use of language for deepening friendships, mutual understandings, and self-understanding in particular nourishes Celie and helps her finally know and articulate not just how she has felt and feels now, but who she is and wants to be.

At the beginning Celie is capable of little independent action and her lack of literary or even rhetorical fluency within her letters to God underscores her helplessness. As her sense of self grows Celie reveals herself through much more confident language, followed even by assertive, self-affirming action as the novel ends. For example, based on conversations with Shug Celie plans to open a pants sewing business and profiting from it. As her self-confidence steadily increases, then, so does Celie's fluency with words, thereby creating ever newer and better rhetorical (and real life) situations for Alice Walker's once helpless, inarticulate protagonist within the Color Purple.

Works Cited

Walker, Alice. The Color….....