Review Article: Deity, Distortion and Destruction: A Model of God in Alice Walker's The Color Purple

The model of God in Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning novel is best understood in terms of the distorted and destructive nature of the deity. This article reviews how the womanist perspective is manifested in Celie's views, experiences and transformation. It explores how the destructive deity is accommodated and understood and how Celie's "destructive deity" is transformed by Shug. Is it the "color" of the deity that determines its destructive nature? How much does the womanist theoretical viewpoint acquired by Celie account for her change in understanding the Creator God? Does the "new" deity become more accommodating and reconciliatory by being contextualized by Black feminism? This essay explores these ideas and concludes that by a deeper consciousness gained by Celie and a renewal of a theological framework towards Afrocentric theology, self-realization and the true nature of existence may be actualized.