As an epistolary novel, The Color Purple shows the intense power of voice and story telling. Celie is a hero; as the writer of most of the letters in the novel, she is able to recount the events of her life in a confessional tone and grow to learn who she is as a result of the hostile environment around her. As we realize, the power of narration is a liberating force; it is the force that makes leaders out of characters and heroes out of writers. In the same way we can look at Celie as a hero for her writing these letters, we can consider Alice Walker a hero for sharing a good story well told.

The novel begins with a confession that Celie’s stepfather (believed to be her true father at the time) had raped her. This letter was her only way to cope with the rape as he had told her it would “It'd kill your mammy.” Because of this, writing to God is her only way out. From this, her letters become a form of discovery, not only of the reader of Ceile but of Ceile’s self-discovery and growth. The letters and telling her story serve to empower her. Her outlet allows her to realize that “I don't fight . . . but I'm alive.”

Through her personal progression throughout the novel, the reader is aware that she is growing into a stronger and more individual person. She becomes stronger, realizing “The world is changing. It is no longer a world just for boys and men,” Nettie’s advice, is true. She eventually even is able to leave Albert in a passionate and angry rage. She told him off: “You a low down dog is what’s wrong.  It’s time to leave you and enter into the creation.  And your dead body just the welcome mat I need”