Like Many other Concepts, the

4th of July Means Something Different to African Americans

Alice Walker in her The Color Purple uses a very especial narrative strategy to study

some concepts in the history of an uprooted nation in the light of the separated members of a

family. Therefore she refers to a key point in the separated sisters’ letters to support her

narrative strategy; “I remember one time you said your life made you feel so ashamed you

couldn’t even talk about it to God ,you had to write it, bad as you thought your writing

was”( Walker,117).Although Walker points to some statements as social and life problems

of a marginalized group, she tries to feature the root and main cause of those problems.

She makes her readers to look at some incidents with different spectacles. During

reading this novel at first I thought that she perhaps is talking about Celie’s shame or her

believing in God, for having an opening by using “Dear God” as the title for Cillies letters.

But following her writing I noticed that the title of letters not only is changed into “Dearest

Nettie”, after finding her sister’s letters, but also Walker refutes them and shows a different

meaning of them ; “I don’t write to God no more...what God do for me?...he gave me a

lynched daddy, a crazy mama, a lowdown dog of a step pa and a sister I probably wont ever

seen again....God...trifling, forgitful and lowdown”(Walker,173). I feel that she uses “God” to

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show the depth of Cillies loneliness and dependency; “I get tired of talking to myself I talk to

you”(walker,236).
 Moreover in the rest of the story it seemed that Walker points to homosexuality issue as a

center theme ,but still continuing I found out that she refutes this view and reveals other

meaning of that issue too; “ I can live content without Shug...I be so calm. If she come I be

happy. If she don’t I be content”(Walker,257). In my opinion her aim is pointing to some

other problems than homosexuality or any religious belief.

However Walker is in quest of a greater aim to show what sexuality, marriage freedom,

happiness and independency means to non-whites. she refers to the existence of such

incidents and relations in this novel, and there are many good quotes which study the deeper

causes and roots of such problems, in the light of a separated family of a poor, unhappy,

lonely, homeless, hopeless, and in depended colored woman who represents an uprooted none

white nation . A good example is Cillie’s complain of her life by saying; “Let him hear me, I

say. If God ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a different place...he

don’t think. Just sit up there glorying in being deef” (Walker, 174-5)

In addition, I think that the narrative strategy of this novel has changed it into an

indirect form of lecturing and injecting historical information through those separated sister’s

language in their letters to each other. Walker awares the readers of what had happened in the

south and Africa along with, how a nation was uprooted from their rich culture and nation and

had unwillingly become slaves, poor and dependents. Walker comments on how these sisters

family properties was banned from their Access and they had to face many economical

problems which caused their social and family problems and was their unhappiness reason;

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“your stepdaddy been dead over a week, she say… your real daddy owned the land and the

house and the store. He left it to your mama. When your mama died, it passed on to you and

your sister Nettie”(220).

Consequently Walker Ironically mentions the root of all those problems that are seen

in the surface as their reunion which is celebrating in 4th of July in this novel; “while people

busy celebrating they independence from England July 4th, say Harpo, so most black folks

don’t have to work. Us can spend the day celebrating each other” (Walker, 261). In

conclusion I think that the mentioned evidences among those letters support Walkers indirect

and ironically mentioned statement of what 4th July means to black; “ why us always have

family reunion on July 4th, say Henrietta, mouth poke out, full of complaint. It so

hot”( Walker,260).
 Works Cited:

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple . United States of America: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,

1983.