Celie Passage Analysis

In ultimately finding herself at the end of the novel, Celie had to overcome the internal prejudices against herself. With the use of Shug Avery in the novel, Walker displays the hardships Celie must face with her new found sexuality. Because this relationship uses different and new feelings it “evokes so profound an erotic awakening that Celie believes she was "still a virgin" prior to it” (Hankinson). When Celie begins to have feelings for Shug, they start out innocent and then become more serious. She describes a night that they spent together when she says, “Me and Shug sound asleep. Her back to me, my arms round her waist” (Walker 116). Celie begins to allow her feelings with Shug to become reality and shows that she does not have the shy personality that everyone thinks she does. Celie breaks out of her inner prejudices again when she confides in her sister, Nettie. Celie begins to yell at the dinner table one night when she could no longer take

Celie practically struggled for happiness her whole existence. Her father sold her to a man who had no intent of loving or caring for her. Celies’ husband whom she refers to as Mr. physically and verbally abused her. Mr. felt that the only way to keep a woman in check was to beat her and he did just that throughout the movie. Like any woman would though the abuse Celie lost herself and respect for herself. Living with Mr. was a life full of darkness and hatred. Life with her husband was no better life than life with her stepfather. It took years for Celie to become brave enough to fight back for what she accept as true and gain understanding of how to convey amusement and have little outlook on life. After years of abuse, Celie no longer was afraid of Mr. She no longer cared for her husband or the

Celie's transformation from Mr. ____'s slave into an independent women is successful thanks to two strong women that become role models for Celie in her everyday life; Shug Avery and Sofia. Sofia is a role model in a more unconscious way for Celie then Shug is. Sofia's whole appearance and behaviour is proud, she lets no one sit on her and Celie is, at first, jealous of Sofia's self-confidence and tries to destroy it by giving her husband Harpo the advice to beat her to make her obedient; "I think about this when Harpo ast me what he ought to do to make her mind. [---] I think bout how every time I jump when Mr. _____ call me, she [Sofia] look surprise. And like she pity me. Beat her. I say"2. When this does not work, Celie realises that Sofia is someone to become more alike, not someone to destroy.

Other women she meets tell her to stand up and fight for herself, but Celie thinks it is better to survive and not risk disastrous consequences. That being said, her and Janie both experience the confinement and servitude like conditions their husbands put them through. Physical abuse is not something Mr. ______ , Celie’s husband, shy’s away from. To him, Celie is not valuable and he beats her simply because she is not Shug Avery. Of the abuse she reports on this, “Harpo ast his daddy why he beat me. Mr. ______ say, cause she my wife. Plus, she stubborn. All women good for-- he don’t finish” (Walker 22). Alice Walker left that phrase empty because she knew the reader would only need those few words to take away from it the point. It is clear that Albert thinks Celie’s life is worthless and because of this, the sins he commits against her do not matter. It is understandable that for most of the novel Celie thinks it is not wise to stand up for herself as she has witnessed a fraction of the repercussions it may cause. In this moment she grasps some courage and shouts, “I curse you, I say. What that mean? He say. I say, Until you do right by me, everything you touch will crumble. He laugh. Who you think you is? He say. You can’t curse nobody. Look at you. You black, you pore, you ugly, you a woman. Goddam, he say, you nothing at all”(206). At this moment Mr._____ is threatened by Celie, she shows strength and it surprises him. His only defense is to insult her and yet he does so with some characteristics he too possesses. Until this moment Mr._____ (Albert), looks through Celie and treats her as an object that he can abuse and manipulated as his disposal. Janie and Celie’s husbands both view them in a similar manner. Although their personalities and internal mindsets differ, both of these women inch towards refuge towards the end of each

There are numerous scenes of violence throughout the first half of the novel, Celie is sexually abused by her father and Mr. ____. In one of her letters to God, Celie writes about her children. She writes that they were conceived through incest by her stepfather and killed thereafter. Nettie who is Celie’s sister comforts Celie and takes care of her by not judging her and offering her understanding. Because Celie is not allowed to go to school but has to work at home, Nettie teaches her what she is learning at school. In return, Celie agrees to take care of her.

In the beginning, the girl's mother was very sick. Their step-father took charge of the household and he began abusing Celie. Celie, being the oldest, accepted the abuse as a duty and attempted to stand her ground. She wanted to remain strong in order to insure the safety of her

Celie is able to accept her past and establish a clear vision of herself and fulfillment through the acts of love. She meets other women who tell her that she should stand up for herself and fight, but Celie feels that it’s better to survive than to fight and risk not surviving. However, there are certain triggers that lead Celie to stand up. Like a true fighter, Celie proves herself to be willing to stand up for the people she loves. Even as a downtrodden victim of her Pa, Celie sacrifices herself and offers herself to her father so that he keeps his hands off of Nettie. As mentioned in this quote, where Pa is sexually abiding Celie, “First he put his thing up gainst my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my pussy. When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying You better shut up and git used to it. ” (Walker, 4). Celie has the potential by putting her efforts into other people, but not realizing she is able to stand up for herself the same ways he does for Nettie. Relating it back to the novel, “Beloved”, Sethe does the same representation when she is trying to save Beloved even though the idea is bizarre of her killing her own child, but she only does it so that she would not have to suffer the way Sethe did. Celie is introduced with Shug Avery a blues singer, who she was first found “rude”, but as the story moves along, Shug Avery becomes the reason Celie learns to love herself. Because Celie is finally opening herself up by loving someone, Celie becomes more lovable. Through Shug’s love, Celie begins to realize her own self-worth, from the minute when Shug Avery wrote a song for Celie, as said in this quote: “This song I'm bout to sing us call Miss. Celie's song.”(Walker, 73).By the end of the novel, Celie loves more

Hankinson goes so far as to argue that Celie’s letters to God were a direct result of the command “You better not never tell nobody but God," spoken presumably by Pa as a threat to Celie in the novel’s opening sentence (Hankinson 324). Celie’s early letters to God were written out of fear and confusion about what was going on in her life, and because she had no one else to go to for support. However, Celie’s relationship with the biblical God was not one that brought her much support. As a result of the constant and unrelenting oppression from the men in her life, Celie began to associate God with the men who were oppressing her. Hankinson writes: “In the same way that Celie wonders whether her father killed her vanished child, she also begins to associate God the Father with the murderer of her children” (Hankinson 321).

In the book, this is a serious turning point in Celie’s life because this discovery is enough to motivate her to get out of Mr’s control. She gains a lot more self-confidence as shown when she now “know[s] Nettie alive [she] begin to strut a little bit” (The Color Purple p.148) which leads her to uncover more truths. Celie also unravels the lies of her so called father, who told Celie that he killed her children that she had by him, when in actuality the children were adopted and are in Africa with Nettie. She also finds out that he is not her real father, which in turn gives her more openness to love and accept her children.

One of the characters that respects Celie is Shug. Shug’s respect adds to Celie’s strength because Shug is Mister’s girlfriend even though he and Celie are married. Celie’s strength is the fact that she does not care that they are together and still makes friends with Shug and to still have the ability to have Shug respect her. The other character that respected Celie is Sofia as Celie helped her when she needed it most. This shows Celie’s strength because Sofia was once mad at Celie for telling her husband to beat her and for Celie to be able to make up for it and get respect from Sofia shows that Celie is a trapped individual with spurts of life and getting out of her confinement.

Sometimes life brings experiences of abandonment through difficult times. Celie shows an expression of abandonment from God with her intimate friend Shug Avery, who challenges Celie where she thinks God is. “What God do for me?...He gave me a lynched daddy, crazy mama, a lowdown dog of a step pa and a sister I probably won’t see again...The God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgetful and lowdown...Miss Celie, You better hush. God might hear you. Let’im hear me, I say. If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a different place” Celie said in anger (192). It is times like this that society tells the world to push life’s disasters under the rug. When instead it requires the attention of others to become endured. To be human is to go through the struggles of life and face them. Without them, life can become meaningless. Celie experiences this through oppression and her loss of faith in God. Throughout

One skill a reader can gain from reading this novel is understanding how the themes connect with each other through the use of comparisons. Rather than make each topic a separate issue, the book links them together to show that not everything is a black and white issue, but rather one that is full of grey areas. Similar to untangling 5 pieces of string, trying to solve one of Celie’s problems cannot work without figuring out how it affects her other ones. Although I understood that the novel’s themes are hard to analyze and find a solution to, creating a simile to connect the main idea helped me comprehend the hardships that Celie had to overcome to become

When Sophie first comes into Celie’s life she is a wild child who even had the gall to offend the mayor’s wife and get sentenced to become a maid. When Harpo, her husband, asks Celie what he needs to do she responds with the only thing she knows. He must beat it out of her. After doing this Celie and Sophie’s connection becomes stronger in their shared realization and similarity. Celie’s relationship with Nettie, becomes stronger as the book progresses.

One of the biggest challenges Celie faces throughout this novel is learning how to deal with long-held societal beliefs. As she was growing up, she accepted the harsh treatment she received from men because she lacked anything to compare her own situation to. Karla Kovalova comes to the realization that “Celie is initially portrayed as a victim whose womanhood as well as subjectivity has been denied to her” (2). During this time period, women were viewed to be of lesser importance than men and few women questioned this hierarchy for fear of repercussion, accepting the fact that they were viewed to have been put on earth solely to cater to man’s every wish. Children learned this by observing the interactions of the adults around them, and Celie’s stepchildren are no exception. Harpo clearly demonstrates what he has learned from his father’s behavior when his aunt confronts him about not helping Celie carry the water:

She has to deal with the loss of her kids, but one day she gets to see one of them. She always called her little girl Olivia, but when she met the woman who had her child, she said, “We calls her Pauline.” (pg.16). That made Celie sad, but then the woman says, “But I calls her Olivia.” She just said that she looked like an Olivia and this made Celie happy.