Interpretation of Dialogism in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

Abstract

On the basis of Bakhtin’s dialogic theory, this paper discusses the phenomenon of double-voicedness in Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, in terms of its language (dialect and standard English), narration (two narrators and the relationship between narrators, characters and the reader) and reporting speech representation. After careful analysis of the discourse in the novel, the author thus draws the conclusion that the novel is dialogic and that different voices interact, contend and influence on one another, resulting in a multi-voiced effect in the novel. By means of using a linguistic theory to interpret a novel, the author tries to offer a new perspective to the understanding and interpretation of literary works.