Nettie’s fourth letter to Celie was about her trip to Africa. She told Celie “I remember one time you said your life made you feel so ashamed you couldn’t even talk about it to God, you had to write it, bad as you thought your writing was. Well, now I know what you meant” (Walker 130). Nettie sad this because ever since she found out that Albert was not giving Celie the letters, she started to tear them apart right after she wrote them. In this letter she also gives Celie a reason for her being in Africa.
The fifth letter that Nettie wrote to Celie was about how Corrine and Samuel treated and took good care of Nettie. Corrine bought her a bunch of clothes. She said “She also bought me a woman’s boater with a checkered band” (Walker 134). This
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quote means that even though Corrine is not Nettie’s biological mother, she still treats Nettie as if she were her own. In this letter Nettie lets Celie know how they do not treat her like a slave or maid. Instead, they teach and help her learn about what it is that she needs to do. This relates back to how Albert does not try to teach Celie. He demands that she does everything without even showing any compassion. After Celie reads half of Nettie’s letters Shug says “Pack your stuff. You coming back to Tennessee with me” (Walker 177). Shug wants Celie to come back with her because she has seen the way that Albert has treated Celie over the years and she does not like it. That is why she suggest that Celie needs to come along with her. Celie starts writing her sister back after most of the letters that she had read. All of the letters that she writes to her sister is how she ends up leaving Albert, and how she thanks her sister for believing that she will soon leave him. The sisterly bond that Nettie and Celie share is the meaning of love. Nettie and Celie’s traits, the effect of their separation, and the letters that Nettie wrote to Celie while she was away all share why they are so close. While Nettie was away Sofia and Shug helped Celie build her confidence up along the way. This resulted in Celie believing in herself more than she thought she could. Although, Albert kicks Nettie out they still find a way to rekindle their relationship by writing each other back. After Celie reads Nettie’s letters, Nettie returns and the Celie says “Thank you for bringing my sister Nettie and our children home” (Walker 285). In this quote Celie is thanking God for bringing her sister back to her after all these years.
It is amazing how they were separated for the longest, and brought back together after everything they had been through. They were close, and it was not right at all for Albert to separate them. Nettie was all that Celie had left because everybody else in her life treated her so wrong.
No one else loved Celie the way that Nettie loved her. It good that they had that time away from each other, because Celie needed to learn how to make it in life without her sister being by her side all the time. She got so used to it that she couldn’t bear it at all when her sister left. The bond that they have is one that will never go away. Nettie brought Celie children back to her because she did not get the chance to see any of them, except for Olivia.
It was a heartbreaking moment when the two sisters rejoined back together. They had not hugged ever since Nettie left that day, so it was good that they had that special time to cry and anything else that they wanted to get off of their chests that day. If Shug would not have said anything about Celie moving with her, Celie would have not ever gotten the chance to see her sister and her children.
The theme of The Color Purple is “Separation could change your life, but it’s what you take from that makes you yourself”. Love is a feeling of affection, which is what Celie and Nettie
shared.
Willa Cather writes the story of The Joy of Nelly Deane, describing Nelly’s joy as “unquenchable,” especially, Nelly’s joy attracted all the Baptist ladies who admired the prettiest girl in Riverbend, Nebraska (Cather, p. 225). Nelly fluttered from one social event to another, parties, picnics and dances, and sings like a “prima-donna” in the Baptist Church choir, where she met Peggy, the narrator of the story.
In The Color Purple the realities of an abusive upbringing are deeply explained to the reader. Celie, the main character, is taught the importance of being strong and standing up for herself through Shug Avery. She portrays strength and independence that women have. In The Color Purple, Shug Avery teaches characters to hold the vigor and autonomy that is hidden somewhere inside of them.
This simple daily task must have been very difficult for Nettie. For all she knew, she could have been sending the letters to the wrong person by accident. Also, she could almost guarantee that Mister was keeping the letters from Celia, to keep her from being distracted. If Nettie was as constants as she seems that is a very strong quality of hers. Anyone with that consistency should be rewarded and greatly loved. That is a very large reason why Nettie is my very favorite character in The Color
First, by demonstrating the importance of the color purple, Celie opened her eyes towards God and then became more self-aware of all the small elements that God set to make her feel joyful, like the color purple. Then, many years pass in the book and Celie truly understand what Shug meant by the color purple in the field. She understands that “[her] ability to find a sense of self-worth, is symbolized by her attainment of color purple.” [Kerr, 177]. Celie’s life did not start on the right foot. She lived and saw a lot of things that killed her deep inside. The color purple in the story was not only an original name for a book that Walker wrote. It means something important in the story. This wonderful color, associate with royalty and prestige, follows the total progress of the young black girl who was, in some words, dead inside, that end up being a lady that now lives of freedom, love and happiness. In other words, the small surprises that, according to Shug, God puts in our life, made Celie stronger and increases her
She feels scared during this time, however, she still thinks Ed loves her because he died for love. On the contrary, Mel points out that there is no relationship between love and killing himself and nobody knows why he kills himself. The story of Ed ends and the conversation moves on to Laura and Nick’s story. They think they know what love is. Terri tells them to stop the sappy newlywed love, since the honeymoon is going to be over soon.
... Celie’s life she would have never overcome her oppression and hardships. With the wonderful women who all displayed different qualities, Celie would never have been able to become a self reliable woman. Celie started as a shy, passive woman and turned into a woman who can rely on herself and who is not oppressed by the power of men.
This love helped both Shug and Celie to be better people and also aided in reforming other characters such as Mister and Harpo. After realizing the love between Shug and Celie and learning that they were both leaving
In The Color Purple by Alice Walker, numerous symbols influence and drive the plot of the novel. One of the most important symbols that Walker incorporates into the plot is the letters written by Celie to either God or Nettie, signifying the power of voice. The epistolary format of the novel itself enables readers to understand Celie, whose letters are initially addressed to God. After being raped by her stepfather at the age of fourteen, he tells her to “never tell anybody but God” (Walker 1); thus, Celie’s original letters are presented more as confessions and prayers. This first letter itself “initiates the story of Celie's unrelenting victimization” (Bloom, and Williams 77-88), and the audience notices that the way in which Celie narrates the events occurring in her life over the course of the next several letters lacks sentiment and opinion....
The second most important relationship that develops in Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple”, is the relationship between Celie and Shug. Even before Celie meets Shug, she is envious of her; she starts with just word of mouth, then a picture, until finally they meet. Shug represents everything that is frowned upon in the patriarchal society. She is fatherless, sexually promiscuous, and a very talented singer. She is a strong, independent, and free woman, and because of this she is outcast from society.
In this story, Mrs. Hopewell constantly criticizes the way her daughter looks and acts. Even to her, Joy is not beautiful. For example, O'Connor states that, "Mrs. Hopewell said that people who looked on the bright side of things would be beautiful even if they were not" (133). Mrs. Hopewell says this in reference to her daughter's poor attitude. She believes that even though her daughter is not pretty, Joy can compensate for her ugliness in the ways that she interacts with others. However, even Joy's mannerisms prove unsatisfactory to her mother. Mrs. Hopewell thinks that her daughter is rude. Consequently, she feels obligated to offset Joy's poor behavior by being extra hospitable and courteous to visitors. Also, Mrs. Hopewell refuses to take any pride in her daughter, even though Joy has become an extremely accomplished woman by going to college and earning a degree in psychology. As a result, the relationship between Joy and her mother beco...
The faith Celie has in God is naive and related to that of a child. However, it undergoes transitions as the film progresses. The letters she receives from her younger sister Nettie gives Celie a new perspective of God other than what she knew and was accustomed to from the start. Besides, Shug does not agree with the perceptions of the church towards God as she regards them as false and narrow-minded (Richards, 2016). Her perspectives are unconventional, but they serve as a wake-up call to her
In the book, The Color Purple, Alice Walker used several symbols and personifications to describe Celie's insecure and painful life. From the view of a reader, the title of the book, "The Color Purple" represents the pain and the bruises that had been given to Celie through her pitiful life. Dear God, Nettie, dears stars and trees show Celie's insecure personality, also Alice Walker personalized the stars and trees to be involved with Celie's communication. By reading through the book, readers would understand the discriminations of men and women's social statuses at that time when the story was taking place, and Celie is just one of those young ladies who has a fateful life.
The purple color itself symbolizes love in the story. When Celie is shopping for the first time in her life for new clothes, she wants to get something purple. However, she cannot find any purple garment while seeing a lot of people wearing purple. This is a symbol of her search for love: she sees so many people who are loved and happy, yet no matter how long and hard she looks, it seems impossible to find love and happiness for herself .
Celie is not the only character to undergo a change in her religious outlook and complete the journey “from the religious to the spiritual”. Nettie also is brought up as a devout believer in the Christian church however throughout her time in Africa and with the help of the Olinka people she discovers a new more “internal” form of religion similar to Celie’s new found spirituality. The journey from the religious back to the spiritual is reflected in the distance between the white missionaries in Britain and America and the African tribes. The missionaries represent the formal ‘white’ church and the Olinka fulfilling the idea of pantheist spirituality. This is a journey Nettie makes physically and spiritually. Shug and Mr.’s views on religion also change during the novel, and as Walker intends, all make this ‘journey’ with “courage and the help of others”.
The Color Purple follows Celie's transformation from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. What is remarkable is the fact that this transformation does not merely compose the plot of the novel, it also dominates the layout of the pages. The book's chapters are not written in a typical fashion as each chapter is a letter written from Celie to God, Celie to her sister Nettie, or Nellie to Celie. Alice Walker utilized this method of storytelling to give the reader a very personal glimpse into Celie's mind and soul. The writer gets a feel for Celie through her writing style- she uses specific phrasing to express herself and, over time, her mechanical writing skills improve greatly. We see Celie's thought process as she makes decisions and then writes about them. This powerful narration is the main driving force behind the words.