African American author Alice Walker received the Pulitzer Price in 1983 for her novel The Color Purple, who tells the story of black women deep in the rural American south. She has been a pioneer since the 70s, when together with other prominent female writers such as Toni Morrison she created a voice for the African American woman, and became a prominent leader for black women’s rights. In The Color Purple, as in several other novels and articles she discusses the hardships of black women suffering from double oppression. In this essay, I will examine changing gender roles and the concept of androgyny in Walker’s The Color Purple. With the novel, Walker makes a stand and comments on the structure of African American society, with abusive men and submissive women. She also displays her personal beliefs, claiming the rights of black women in society as a whole. She challenges the stereotypical gender roles, and shows the consequences when people are courageous enough to go against common beliefs. The scenario found in The Color Purple is nothing unusual. Women all over the world are finding it difficult to make their voices heard in a patriarchal society. The novel suggests strategies of how to change the power structures. The Color Purple depicts a wide range of characters. Throughout the novel, some of them go through different kinds of metamorphosis, both positive and negative. These transformations mainly concern personality and gender roles and are due mostly to influences from powerful persons in their surroundings.