The Color Purple
- Alice Walker
Introduction:
Alice Walker wrote The Color Purple during a period of important literary production
among the African-American community. It was an Epistolary novel in the 20th-century of an
Afro-American novel. Alice Walker was active in the American Civil Rights Movement, a
momentous effort, beginning around 1960, by blacks and others that sought to remake the
nature of black and white interaction across the United States, and most specifically in the
South.
Celie as a Protagonist:
Celie, a young girl who lives with her abusive father, her sick mother, and her younger
sister Nettie, begins writing letters to God. In her first letters, she details how her father has
been sexually abusing her. Celie becomes pregnant twice, and each time her father gives away
the children. A man named Mr. _____ begins courting Nettie. Celie encourages Nettie's
marriage to Mr. _____ because Celie fears her father (Pa) will soon turn his sexual attentions
toward Nettie. But Mr. _____ does not permit Nettie to marry Mr. _____, instead insisting that
Mr. _____ marry Celie, since she is older and a hard-worker. Mr. _____ believes Celie to be
ugly, but eventually is convinced to marry her, because he has several children by his previous
wife (who was murdered), and Mr. _____ needs someone to take care of them.
Celie becomes mother:
Celie marries Mr. _____ and moves in with him. Nettie later escapes Pa and lives with
Celie and Mr. _____ for a brief period. But Mr. _____ still has designs on Nettie, and Nettie
flees to town, staying with the Reverend Samuel and his wife Corrine, whom Celie once met,
briefly. By coincidence, Samuel and Corrine have adopted Olivia and Adam, Celie’s two
children. Celie believed she recognized Olivia, when she saw her with Corrine in a shop. Nettie
promises Celie she will write to her from her new home, but these letters never arrive. Celie
takes care of Mr. _____’s children, whom she considers ‘rotten’ save for Harpo, the oldest,
who marries a strong, hardworking woman named Sofia.
Harpo as a Submissive husband:
Harpo becomes upset that he cannot get Sofia to obey him; both Mr. _____ and Celie
(at first) recommend that Harpo beat Sofia. But when Celie sees how Harpo’s attempts at
beating have hurt both Harpo and Sofia, Celie apologizes to Sofia, and the two become friends.
Shug Avery, a lover from Mr. _____’s past, comes to town, sick, and stays with Mr. _____.
They strike up their affair once more, with Celie’s knowledge. Celie has been fixated on Shug
since seeing a picture of her, on a playbill, when Celie was a girl. Celie and Shug become
friends and confidantes, and, later, lovers. Shug begins to sing at a bar Harpo has built behind
his shack, after Sofia leaves him (she is tired of being beaten and ordered around by Harpo).
Celie tells Shug about her father’s sexual abuse, and about Mr. _____’s beatings. Shug
promises to protect Celie. Shug and Celie discover that Mr. _____ has been hiding, for years,
the letters Nettie has been sending to Celie.
Nettie’s letters:
reads the letters and discovers that Nettie, upon moving in with Samuel and Corrine,
and their two children Olivia and Adam, began studying to be a missionary in Africa. Nettie
then travelled with the family to Harlem, in New York City, on to England, and to various
cities in Africa, observing the culture and traditions of the people there, before settling in a
village of the Olinka people. Nettie works for Samuel and Corrine, aids in the education of
Olivia and Adam, and comes to know a girl named Tashi, whose mother, Catherine, does not
approve of Tashi being educated in the Western manner. Celie begins writing letters to Nettie
rather than to God. Corrine, it is revealed, believes that Samuel has had an affair with Nettie
back in Georgia, and that Adam and Olivia are actually Nettie’s children. This is why, Corrine
thinks, Olivia and Adam so resemble Nettie. Nettie swears to Corrine that the two children are
her sister Celie’s, and Samuel corroborates her story, adding that Celie and Nettie’s ‘Pa’ is
really their stepfather, and that their biological father was lynched, after his dry-goods store
became too successful in the eyes of his white neighbours in Georgia.
Turning points of the characters:
Back in Georgia, Celie, spurred on by Shug, confronts Mr. _____ for withholding
Nettie’s letters for so many years. Celie, Shug, Shug’s husband Grady (whom she has married
in the interim), and Squeak, Harpo’s second wife, move to Memphis, where Shug continues
her singing career (Shug already has a house there). Celie begins making pants, a business she
will continue for the remainder of the novel, and Squeak and Grady fall in love and move away.
Sofia, who was arrested years back for attacking the mayor and his wife after they acted
disrespectfully to her, has been serving as the mayor’s family maid for twelve years. She is
finally released to Celie’s home toward the end of the novel. Her children, raised by Harpo and
Squeak, no longer recognize her. Meanwhile, the Olinka village is destroyed by British rubber
companies, who plough over the Olinkas crops and hunting land, and charge the Olinka rent
and a water tax. Dispirited by their inability to save the village, Samuel, Nettie, and the children
return to England after Corrine dies of illness.
Conclusion:
In England, Samuel and Nettie realize that they are in love, and marry; they tell Olivia
and Adam that their biological mother is Celie, and vow to reunite the families in Georgia.
After one last trip to Africa, in which Tashi and Adam are married, Tashi, Adam, Olivia, Nettie,
and Samuel arrive at Celie's house in Georgia—the house she inherited from her biological
father after her stepfather's death—and find Celie’s family in good order. Shug, who had run
away for a time with a young man name Germaine for a last fling, has come back to live with
Celie and be reconciled with Mr. _____; Mr. _____ himself has found religion and apologized
to Celie for mistreating her (he has even carved Celie a purple frog, as a form of apology) and
Squeak, Sofia, Harpo, and the remainder of the family realize that, although a great deal has
happened over the past thirty years, they, as a family, feel younger and more energetic than
ever before.
