Celie's letters give the opinion that she is writing in the moment and a relative sense of spontaneity is conveyed. However, an obvious disadvantage of this is the fact that Celie's letters can often sound fake and contrived, a problem also faced by Richardson in the writing of Pamela. Realistically, it would be almost impossible for Celie to remember events and conversations in such precise detail as is described in her letters. However, this is a factor that Walker has to ignore in order for the story to be conveyed in a way that is both interesting and detailed enough to hold the reader's attention. This sense of dramatic immediacy may not be achieved to such an extent if a third person narrative was used and, in my opinion, would lack the detail of Celie's personal letters and memoirs that enable Walker to achieve such successful characterisation of Celie.
The Color Purple closely follows the growth of Celie on her journey of self-discovery. As Celie matures, so does her writing and her use of language progresses. Celie's character is effectively portrayed by the style of writing used in her letters. Her dialect helps to make the character real in the reader's imagination; her blunt vocabulary conveys exactly the emotions Walker hopes to. A vernacular style of writing is used and Walker illustrates Celie's colloquial speech using words such as "git" (get), "naw" (no) and "kilt" (killed). The progression of thought illustrated in Celie's letters shows another advantage of the epistolary novel as Celie's character matures and progresses similarly to that of any other human being. In the first letter of the novel describing Celie's rape, her naivety is instantly apparent as she takes all blame on herself. Short emphatic sentences and elementary vocabulary show that she is poorly educated as well as young. Celie's ultimate step to maturity is shown when she finally speaks out to Mr ____ and her ability to express emotion clearly is apparent: "You a low down dog is what's wrong.