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How Does Walker Present Celie's Relationship In The Color Purple

1024 Words5 Pages

Sabrina Nayar
Professor Brown
ENG 222
Celie and Shug
The most important relationship in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is between Celie and Shug Avery. Experiencing multiple accounts of sexual violence and incestuous abuse, Celie struggles to assert her voice and construct an inner sense of self-worth. This is especially evident in Celie’s relationship with her husband, Mr._____; as he habitually beats her into submission, Celie is emotionally numb and remains passive and obedient. When Nettie insists that Celie learn how to fight back, Celie says “I don’t know how to fight. All I know how do to is stay alive” (Walker, 18). This state of emotional numbness and submissiveness is a fundamental part of Celie’s character, infringing her will to break out of her obedient role. Under the belief that Nettie is dead, Celie is even more cynical “I think about Nettie, dead. …show more content…

Celie has discovered the letters from Nettie that Mr._____ has been hiding; significantly angry and dismayed, Celie has lost faith in God and feels defeated. During their conversation about God, Shug tells Celie “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it” (Walker, 177). Shug explains that God loves for its work to be admired, whether that is the creation of sexual pleasure or something as simple as the color purple. This is an important moment for Celie because she undergoes a revelation that helps her see the beautiful, positive things in life that the trauma in her life has prohibited her from appreciating. “Next to any little scrub of a bush in my yard, Mr.____’s evil sort of shrink” (Walker, 177). Through this enlightening conversation, Shug serves as the catalyst of Celie’s transformation, causing her to finally harness the power of her assertive, narrative

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There were these letters that Nettie had wrote to Celie while she was in Africa. Celie did not find these letters until she went into Albert’s trunk. She figured that he keeps everything that is important to him in his trunk. Shug helped Celie that night while Albert and his friend were out of town. Celie said “Us find a lot of Shug’s underclothes, some nasty picture postcards, and way down under his tobacco, Nettie’s letters.

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Shug speaks up for her, but Mr.____ becomes upset about letting Celie go, and mutters “My wife can’t do this. My wife can’t do that. No wife of mines… He go on and on.” (Walker 73).

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In college she say” (Walker 289). Shug has left him for his own benefit and resigned back to what she knows is home and who she really cares about. Her and Celie live their lives together for the rest of their years In the color Purple, Readers see a Young, black, highly confident women start off as being selfish and self centered. Over the span of the novel, Shug blume's into a figure of many shapes including being a mother

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