Category: The Color Purple

After reading Keiths Byermans’s essay about “The Colour Purple” I was left perplexed and questioning what his argument towards the novel even was. It seemed that Byerman had simply spewed his thoughts onto paper and disregarded any grammatical and spelling rules. His connection between paragraphs and points was a maze to navigate leaving me lost and confused as to what he was trying to say or prove. Eventually, he repeated his words in different contexts enough that I was able to understand the gist of his argument.

Byermans biggest flaw in my opinion was the lack of general organization in his essay, it was a cluster of plot summaries and random points that did not have concrete evidence to support his ideas. Overall I believe Byermans organization and spelling errors made his essay’s points much less respectable costing him the loss of readers’ interest.

Walker’s Blues by Keith Byerman is a take on the Color Purple that I mostly disagree with. Keith’s main argument about fantasy characters in the real world is backed up by evidence which is either hard to follow, or hard to see the link between Byerman’s argument and the book itself. A good example of this is when he is insinuating that Shug Avery “exists as something other than the reality in which Celie lives.” The evidence provided for this statement struggles to support his argument: an excerpt of Celie describing Shug’s aura and her physical features. Aside from his main arguments, it can be difficult to respect Byerman’s arguments due to the somewhat frequent occurrences of false information from the book and typos (like Sofia’s name being spelled as “Sofie”). Adding onto the difficulty of the read is the excessive use of plot summary which seems to dilute the actual content of Byerman’s argument make it harder to follow. I did agree with some of his arguments to an extent, such as how the characters are united in the end, all changed and in a space free of hostility – but will not go further into this to stay brief.

Keith Byerman’s analysis was extremely dissatisfying to read. The way Byerman organized his essay was confusing. Instead of focusing more on analyzing the book, Byerman decided to summarize it for the reader, and not an accurate retelling at all. However, some points did intrigue me, but others make me wonder if he read the book. It felt like Byerman took away all the emotion and feelings, and wrote a null and desensitizing response to the book. Byerman compares the “awakening” of Celie to Cinderella, taking away all of the feelings Celie went through before this so-called awakening.

Often after reading essays on the previous books read in class, they will offer their own insight and opinions which raise questions. After reading Byerman’s essay, Walker’s Blues, I noticed his analysis of the book didn’t hold much value or significance to me due to the fact that many things he stated were not correct and inaccurate. The most obvious one being the misspelling of the name “Sofia” in which he spells “Sofie”. It made me question whether or not his essay was valid. The way Byerman structured and organized his essay was also confusing to read and made it more difficult to follow for the reader. Another thing I noticed was that his essay was more of a plot summary, summarizing what happened rather than an analysis of the book. I don’t believe that Byerman truly understood the meaning of the book The Color Purple. 

 

In Keith Bayerman’s essay, I noticed that there are a lot of points and ideas that the author wants to cover. The author talks about the term “womanist”, the assimilation with other authors, each character, healing and change, love and many more. I think that the author has good points. However, the organization and the very detailed explanation of the essay turns it more into a type of summary rather than an analysis.

The author wants to cover as much points and ideas as possible that he goes back and forth in the story. Which I think that for people who hasn’t read the story could be confusing. And for people that had read the book, a little confusing too. The author also assumes events in the story so that it supports his points better. For an analysis, it does not make a good analysis if events in the story are assumed.

With a very detailed explanation for each point, it creates more a summary than a analysis. It explains too much of the story. As a result, he jumps to each point with no transition between each point. And explains more the content of the story rather than analytical points of how it is written.

Keith Byerman has a poor essay structure on The Colour Purple and suggests a main idea of the book with which I disagree. The essay mainly recalled bits from the book instead of an in-depth analysis of his central concept. Moreover, his points are messy, it feels like Byerman does not finish one specific point in one paragraph; instead, he discusses multiple concepts in one section, which often confuses and misleads the idea he is pointing out. Furthermore, I do not entirely agree with his central idea of The Colour Purple being a “womanist” fairy tale. At the end of the essay, he points out that “all the characters are reunited in a feminized space with female traits.” Even though male characters like Mr.__ and Harpo no longer beat women and participate in activities like cooking, cleaning and sewing, it does not mean that those activities are “female traits.” It seems that Byerman has a toxic masculinity view on men because when male characters participate in non-traditional masculine activities, Byerman views it as a “feminized space.” In conclusion, Byerman’s essay gives out some interesting points which I do not entirely agree with and a poor structure that confuses me.

Keith Byerman’s essay, entitled Walker’s Blues, attempts an analysis of Alice Walker’s famous novel The Color Purple by likening the work to a classical fairytale in its structure, themes, and narrative elements. This thesis is the basis of most of Byerman’s arguments, but it’s something I quickly took issue with, as the comparison ultimately presents “fairytale” as synonymous with “optimistic,” describing the world of the story as “A faerie world where coincidences and transformations are possible” (59), implying reality is above such frivolous imaginings. The essay then goes on to synopsize the vast majority of the novel in a long-winded manner that serves nearly no purpose in informing or evidencing the conclusion it ultimately presents, that the novel is an inherent contradiction between its folk imagery and fairytale values. However, I would be lying if I said that Byerman didn’t strike gold a few times throughout the essay. For example, his understanding of the character Shug Avery. Instead of a mystical being come to whisk the protagonist away to a better life, she is grounded in the story by her relationships to the people around her. This is a genuinely astute interpretation, and one that I’d much rather read an essay discussing.

In contrast to Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple”, Byerman’s essay, “Walker’s Blues” was an underwhelming and disappointing read. Byerman’s attempt to retell the novel was not only a simple recollection of the plot, but was also inaccurate. With the essay lacking any dept in Byerman’s analysis, his arguments were less than convincing. Moreover, I strongly disagreed with Byerman’s effort to minimize the horrific experiences lived by African American women to fairy tales. Byerman’s understatement continues with him writing that Celie and her companions, like the princesses in fairy tales, “live happily ever after”. Personally, Byerman’s reference to fairy tales feels as though he did not fully grasp the idea of the novel and thus, the reason as to why his essay lacks any compelling arguments.

After reading Byerman’s essay on The Color Purple, I was left confused about what his points were, and was doubtful of his knowledge of the book. Firstly, his essay took the form of a summary with little analysis and connection to his arguments. This made the points he was trying to cover seem unclear and left me confused. He also summarized the story in a different order then what was chronologically true adding to the confusion of his essay. Throughout his essay I also got a feeling of doubtfulness in his knowledge about the book. One of the main factors contributing to this feeling is when he referred to one of the characters as “Sophie,” instead of “Sophia.” This showed me that he wasn’t knowledgeable about the characters which made his arguments seem unreliable.

Reading the essay of Keith Byerman’s summary of The Color Purple was very boring and monotonous. Byerman regurgitated major events which took place in The Color Purple sometimes shortening key parts which left the reader perplexed. Byerman’s argument is weak and unclear, the evidence he used to back up his opinion did not carry a common thread throughout. The grammar used in the essay is sub-par, similar to a high school student. Byerman consistently changed fundamental characters’ names, leading me to believe he did not do a close reading of the novel or rather read a plot summary. His opinion was convoluted, changing throughout the course of his essay, making it difficult to define.

After having read “The Color Purple” and Keith Byerman’s take on what Alice Walker meant within in her novel, I noticed a few questionable details. Although Byerman did point out some interesting assumptions his whole response felt more like a summary of the book rather than a personal commentary. None of his analysis really went into any depth and all quotes were sort of generalized to match his thoughts. Most times, I personally did not agree to what he was saying especially when comparing the Afro-American and African setting to European fairytales. I thought that part was definitely an understatement of what horrible conditions society’s minority had to go through at the time and did not align with what I feel like Walker was trying to portray to the reader at all. 

Reading Keith Byerman’s essay on Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple, I was confused with the overall structure that was used, and I found that a lot of information and themes were presented in an unorganized way. Having said that, I thought some of the issues raised were fascinating, and I loved reading about his interpretation of the book, particularly his claim that it was a “womanist” fairytale. However, except for the few intriguing ideas presented concerning Celie’s awakening, similar to sleeping beauty, it was primarily written as a summary with no supporting details or proof. Additionally, the summary was confusing because it was not presented in the order of Alice Walker’s story, and the claims were not validated. As a result, I did not find it persuasive.

Keith Byerman’s essay on Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple wasn’t very good, it was mainly just a summary of the book in the wrong order. He used the summary to weakly support some points that were not very well thought out. He also misspelled Sofia’s name to Sophie multiple times, which made me wonder if he had even read the book before writing his essay.

After reading through Byerman’s essay on The Color Purple, it could be seen that he some critical mistakes when trying to assert his points. Firstly, Byerman only summarized what happened in the story with little to no analysis and connection to his arguments, making his essay redundant as well as lacking of focus. Not only that, he summarized the story in the correct order that Alice Walker told in the story, which was not exactly a bad idea, but then it did not support the way how he structured his arguments. Finally, “Sophia” was referred as “Sophie” in the essay, which clearly points out that the author did not read the book closely.

Byerman’s essay on The Colour Purple had many mistakes. This led me to question how well he actually knew the text. He was constantly misspelling names such as “Sofia” as “Sofie”. This sometimes caused confusion for me as the reader. His writing was often pointless as he just described the plot, without talking about how it affects the reader. This essay might be helpful for someone who has not read The Color Purple but not for someone who has.