Rhetorical Strategies

· Imagery: “First he put his thing up gainst my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my pussy” (1).
· Rhetorical Question: “What about the scandal his wife cause when somebody kill her? And what about all this stuff he hear bout Shug Avery? What bout that?” (6). “What good it do?” (21). “What make him pull through?” (224).
· Hyperbole: “She bout ten thousand times more prettier then me” (6). “She got one hundred pretty dresses” (109). “…you could have knock me over with a feather” (245).
· Simile: “Her hair like somethin tail” (6). “She can work like a man” (8). “…a wood stove look like a truck” (12). “Shug Avery black as my shoe” (20). “He black as the inside of a chimney” (27). “I sleeps like a baby now” (42). “…steeping out of the car, dress like a moving star…” (283)/
· Repetition: “You got to fight. You got to fight” (17). “Come on in... Come on in” (45). “I got love, I got work, I got money…” (215). “I’ll tell them what to do with their bloody road and their bloody rubber plantations and their bloody sunburned but still bloody boring English planters and engineers” (231). “Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear Everything. Dear God” (285).
· Personification: “She so mad tears be flying…” (21). “I think my heart gon fly out my mouth…” (45). “…having exhausted his own knowledge” (164). “And words long buried in my heart crept to my lips” (238).
· Anaphora: “Not to dance. Not to drink. Not to play card” (25). “He stagger in… He tired. He sad. He weak. He cry” (26). “Love her singing. Love her perfume. Love her dresses. Love to wear…” (219). “I love his big nose. I love his brows. I love his feet” (238). “Why us suffer. Why us black. Why us men and women” (282).
· Onomatopoeia: “…Chop, chop…” (64). “…thump, thump, thump…” (67). “…tap-tap-tapping…” (178).
· Metaphor: “They are so black, they shine” (141).
· Metonymy: “Then the old devil put his arms around me and just stood there on the porch with me real quiet” (271).
· Cliché: “…as far as the eye can see” (142). “Over my dead body…” (199).
· Allusion: “Adam and Eve prove it” (274).
· Analogy: “I missed you more than I missed my own mama” (283).

Throughout this novel, rhetorical strategies are used consistently to make Alice Walker’s writing stronger. Similes are the most reoccurring strategy that is used in this novel. There purpose is to create an image in the readers mind. Similes allow the two different topics to be clearly separate, despite the similarity being made. Within the first page, a scene is depicted of Celie, at fourteen years old, being raped by her father. Walker uses imagery in describing this horrendous event to produce a feeling of mental and physical abuse. Anaphora and repetition are used repeatedly in the novel to create a powerful effect, while reinforcing a specific idea. These many diverse techniques are exercised to communicate thoughts, and form a deeper connection between the reader and the story.