Celie, the protagonist and narrator of The Color Purple, is a poor, uneducated, fourteen-year-old black girl living in rural Georgia. Celie starts writing letters to God because her father, Alphonso, beats and rapes her. Alphonso has already impregnated Celie once. Celie gave birth to a girl, whom her father stole and presumably killed in the …
Summary The Color Purple opens with Celie’s memory of her father’s command that she stay quiet about his abuse of her. The rest of the novel is composed of letters, and we begin with the first of many private letters Celie writes to God. In her first letter, Celie asks for guidance because she does …
Summary Nettie runs away from Alphonso and finds refuge with Celie and Mr. ______. It quickly becomes clear that Mr. ______ still has an eye for Nettie. Whenever Mr. ______ pays Nettie a compliment, she passes it on to Celie. However, Nettie refuses Mr. ______’s advances, and she is soon forced to leave. Never hearing …
Summary Shug Avery is sick, likely due to a sexually transmitted disease, and no one in the town will take her in. Both her mother and father say that Shug’s promiscuity has gotten her what she deserves. Mr. ______ leaves home unannounced and returns with the feeble Shug in his wagon. Though weak, feverish, and malnourished, …
Summary Harpo say, I love you, Squeak. He kneel down and try to put his arms round her waist. She stand up. My name Mary Agnes, she say. (See Important Quotations Explained) Celie is upset that Shug is soon leaving the house. Longing for Shug to stay, Celie tells Shug that Mr. ______ beats her …
Summary Us sleep like sisters, me and Shug. (See Important Quotations Explained) Sofia complains that the mayor’s family is backward. To illustrate its backwardness, she tells a story: Miss Millie pestered her husband into buying her a car, but he refused to teach her to drive. Miss Millie finally asked Sofia to teach her to …
Summary Well, us talk and talk about God, but I’m still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?). Not …
Summary Shug act more manly than most men. . . . Sofia and Shug not like men, he say, but they not like women either. (See Important Quotations Explained) Celie learns that Shug wants the freedom to have a fling with Germaine, a young man who is a third her age. Though Celie is less dependent than she …
Summary It must have been a pathetic exchange. Our chief never learned English beyond an occasional odd phrase he picked up from Joseph, who pronounces “English” “Yanglush.” (See Important Quotations Explained) Celie’s spirits rise now that she knows Nettie is alive. Celie decides that she will leave Mr. ______ as soon as Nettie returns to …
id=”Celie”> Celie – The protagonist and narrator of The Color Purple. Celie is a poor, uneducated black woman with a sad personal history. She survives a stepfather who rapes her and steals her babies and also survives an abusive husband. As an adult, Celie befriends and finds intimacy with a blues singer, Shug Avery, who gradually …