Rhetoric and Empathic Unsettlement: Mediating Trauma in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple
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Abstract
This study attempts to analyze the connection between rhetoric and trauma in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple by unpacking how rhetorical devices produce empathic unsettlement. By analyzing Walker's portrayal of Celie, the protagonist of the novel, this research explores how her psychological and physical trauma are revealed without assigning direct blame. Despite enduring extreme trauma inflicted by her stepfather and husband over three decades, Celie’s choice to forgive and entrust justice to God reflects a working-through process that reframes her pain and diminishes its intensity. Drawing on theoretical insights from Kenneth Burke, Dominick LaCapra, Kali Tal, and Ron Eyerman, this research employs key concepts from trauma narrative and rhetoric, including identification, persuasion, the middle voice, and empathic unsettlement. Burke’s ideas on identification and persuasion inform the analysis of how Walker connects readers to Celie’s experiences, while LaCapra’s concept of empathic unsettlement offers a lens to understand the balance between emotional engagement and critical reflection. The study also incorporates Tal’s and Eyerman’s discussions on collective and cultural memory, situating Celie’s personal trauma within broader social and historical contexts. Together, these theoretical perspectives illuminate the rhetorical strategies Walker employs to mediate trauma. This study concludes that it is Walker’s motive to present Celie as such a benevolent character so that she develops compassion for the ones who hurt her and forgives everybody of their wrongdoings. As a result, this forgiveness settles everything and brings peace so that a middle path is paved in trauma narrative.
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References
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