Camillas Hemsida
Camilla Svensson
ENA 202Five Reasons for Celie’s Development in The Color Purple
In the book The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker, the main character Celie develops from an abused, shy and browbeaten teenage girl into a strong, mature and self-confident in consequence of five major facts. These are: the fact that Celie sees other successful women, the fact that Celie receives love and appreciation, Celie’s changed view of God, Celie’s maturation and plain luck.
As Celie is brought up, her father sexually molests her over and over again, making her pregnant twice. And as a girl of fourteen, she has to marry an older man named Albert. Albert also bullies Celie as well as beats her. Celie does not know how to fight back. “All I know how to do is stay alive”, she says (18). But some things start changing around Celie. Being married to Albert, she meets other women that show her different ways of fighting back.
Sofia, who is married to Albert’s son Harpo, is a big and strong woman. Whenever Harpo tries to beat Sofia up in order to make her obey him, Sofia always fights back, even harder. Celie looks up to Sofia, and the knowledge that a female can physically strike back is strengthening for Celie.
Another woman that shows Celie that women can and are allowed to be successful is the singing queen Shug Avery. Shug is a well-known singer that almost every man admires. She, therefore, has the power to control them. Once again Celie is being taught that a woman can succeed and rule over her own life.
The third woman that has an important role in Celie’s life is her own sister, Nettie, who is living away from Celie most part of her life, but who anyway stays in contact with Celie through a number of letters. Nettie was always said to be the most clever, good and beautiful of the two sisters when they were young, and she sure seems to be the luckiest one. Nettie works as a missionary together with a family of four in Africa. The children of the family are actually the very ones that Celie had with her stepfather. There are ups and downs in Nettie’s life too, but as a whole, she is leading a funnier, wealthier, and more varied life than Celie. Nettie is more educated and she sees a lot of the world through her travels. Celie loves her sister and Nettie’s happiness is Celie’s. Through Nettie, Celie gets another example of a woman that has succeeded.Having had an ill mother that died when Celie was quite young and having been abused by both her father and her husband, the only true love that Celie got in her life before she met Shug was the one coming from Nettie. Nettie always tried to convince Celie that she was pretty and worth something, but Celie did not really take the credit for those words until Shug said them, and what is even more important, until Shug made Celie feel that those words came straight from the heart. On one occasion, Shug dedicates a song to Celie in front of an audience and Celie writes in her diary “First time somebody made something and name it after me” (77). The love that develops between Shug and Celie is a very strong one. Shug is, except for Nettie, the only person in the world that Celie loves and her love for Shug is so true, so pure, and so passionate. It is very important for a person to love someone, and to feel loved. And when Celie recieves love back from the one and only Shug, her whole world is seen in a different light.
At the end of the book, Celie’s husband Albert has changed and even he starts showing love and appreciation for Celie. “Took me long enough to notice you such good company”, Albert once said, and Celie wrote in her diary “He ain’t Shug, but he begin to be somebody I can talk to” (283).Shug gives Celie her views of what God is and of how she thinks God wants the people to live their lives. First of all, Shug says God is not a man, but an it. People worry too much about pleasing God, instead of enjoying what is around them. When a person is happy and satisfied, God is, Shug says. “I believe God is everything”, Shug continues. “Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you’ve found it” (203). Celie adopts this view of God, as shown on page 227 when she says, “I smoke when I want to talk to God. I smoke when I want to make love. Lately I feel like me and God make love just fine anyhow”. Celie’s renewed view of God is an important step towards her stronger belief in herself and her greater appreciation of life.
The fourth reason for Celie’s development throughout the book is due to her maturation, both as she gets older and develops a different way of thinking and reasoning, and as her skills develops. Celie does become wiser. Shug has travelled a lot and met many people, so her tellings and Nettie’s letters teach Celie many things about the world around her and about other people. Celie’s language in her diary also gets better as the years go by, which is probably due to the fact that Nettie has an excellent language in her letters. A better knowledge leads to better self-confidence, which Celie is not soon to experience.
Two incidents of plain luck are the fifth and last main reason for Celie’s development. Firstly, Celie happens to find out that the father that she grew up with was not her real father. Her biological father was a better and much more successful man. Knowing that her family bonds were quite good after all strenghens Celie by making her feel better inside. Secondly, the inheritance of a house and money after the father makes it possible for Celie to become richer and fulfill some of her dreams.
All the reasons mentioned above lead to Celie’s development into a strong, mature and self-confident woman who manages to leave her abusing husband, run an industry and a store, and become independent in many other ways. Celie’s own saying illustrates this new independence perfectly: “If she [Shug] come, I be happy. If she don’t, I be content. And then I figure this the lesson I was suppose to learn” (290).
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