Characters:
- Celie
- "Shug" Avery
- Albert Johnson, or "Mr.-"
- Nettie
- Harpo
- Sofia
- Squeak
Summary:
- an epistolary novel
- central character, Celie, is sexually abused by her father who is actually her stepfather
- she is forced to marry a widower with several children who is physically abusive
- when her husband's mistress, singer "Shug" Avery comes on the scene, Celie is initially threatened by this effervescent, liberated version of femininity
- Shrug, like "Mr.-", Celie's husband, has initially very little respect for Celie too and abuses Celie
- However, in time the two women bond, and Celie gradually learns what it means to become an empowered woman in her own right through both sexual and financial emancipation and she finds the strength to leave her tyrannical husband.
1. 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.
2. Us sleep like sisters, me and Shug.
3. 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.”
4. 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?). . . .
5. Shug act more manly than most men . . . he say. You know Shug will fight, he say. Just like Sofia. She bound to live her life and be herself no matter what.
Mr. ______ think all this is stuff men do. But Harpo not like this, I tell him. You not like this. What Shug got is womanly it seem like to me. Specially since she and Sofia the ones got it.
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