Psychoanalytical Criticism in Translating Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

A translator who steps into the process of translation should decide on the literary and philosophical aspects of recreation. To reflect the philosophical and literary aspects of a fictional work, the translator should bring literary criticism to define, analyze, and interpret a literary piece in a systematic way. In practice, there are different approaches within the field of literary studies. Generally, psychology can be applied in three ways; firstly, to discuss the creative process of language; secondly, to study the live of the author of the literary piece; and thirdly, it can be used to study the fictional characters of a work of prose. This method explains how and why the characters in a literary work behave as they do and the critics apply the theory as a criterion to elucidate, interpret, and evaluate a literary work. Psychoanalytic criticism employs Freud’s theories to interpret texts. This paper attempts to show how knowledge of psychoanalysis helps in the rendition of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple to examine some of the significant issues that the translator should consider in the process of translating the novel. The Color Purple is in a form of an epistolary novel written by Celie to God and by Nettie to Celie. Through these letters the life of the main character, Celie, a black girl who experiences various traumas of sexism, racism, and oppression are revealed. In order to translate this literary piece psychoanalytic criticism becomes a means of interpretation, assisting the translator to convey the exact and appropriate literal transferals of the original text. Therefore, such an approach helps the translator to identify and translate the symbols, images, similes, and metaphors implied in the character’s speech.