A Metalinguistic Approach to The Color Purple

Abstract

The Color Purple, written by Alice Walker, is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. It earns its fame in the critic circle for the terrifying plot, the controversial treatment of the lesbian affairs between the heroines, and the exposure of the crimes done to the black females. The current paper attempts to analyze the novel from metalinguistic/translinguistic perspective. The novel is analyzed on the level of discourse, which includes unidirectional double-voiced discourse, vari-directional double-voiced discourse, and active type of reflected discourse of another, which is called “microdialogue†in Bakhtin’s terms. Through the analysis of the discourse in the novel, it can be concluded that the novel is dialogic in nature. In this sense, dialogue becomes a means for human life and human existence.