What are the narrative strategies that Walker uses in The Color Purple?

Using a first-person confessional and epistolary (letter)
format from a naive narrator who speaks in black English dialect, Alice Walker reveals
her "womanist" themes using Christian and domestic imagery in The Color
Purple.  In addition, Walker's structure and characterization are similar to
both a slave narrative (e.g., Incident of a Slave Girl by Harriet
Jacobs) and a fairy tale ("Cinderella") in order to move Celie from a rape/incest victim
to a strong-willed matriarch and business woman by the
end.

Walker narrates the beginning chapters in a black
English dialect, addressing them to God as part of a confessional.  Because she is in a
male-dominated culture with no mother or protector, she exhibits a forced hopelessness
and a mysoginistic attitude toward women.  In fact, she has been abused so much by her
step-father, Mr.__, and Harpo that she tells Harpo to beat
Sophia.

Later, after three sister/fairy godmothers (Nettie,
Shug, and Sophia) teach Celie to use her language and femininity, Celie begins to rebel
against the patriarchy and leave her segregated marriage.  Instead of addressing her
letters to "God," the new, "womanist" Celie addresses them to her sister Nettie in
Africa.  Later, she finds domestic work in sewing which she uses to establish her Pants
Store.  She is even reunited with her sister and African children and bequeathed a
plantation from her dead step-father, a kind of miracle
ending.

So, it is Walker's use of "slave narrative"
language, "womanist," domestic, and African anti-colonial themes, Christian imagery, and
capitalist "fairy tale" structure that allow Celie to free herself from the male world.
 Even though the novel starts out as a tragedy, Walker moves it toward
comedy.