He [Pa] never had a kine word to say to me. Just say You gonna do what your mammy wouldn’t. 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.
But I don’t never get used to it. And now I feels sick every time I be the one to cook. (1.4-5)
Pa commits several forms of violence against Celie. Clearly, he’s physically violent to her by raping her. He also causes emotional damage by never showing any respect for her as a human being; he orders her around without ever saying anything kind to her. Finally, he also emotionally separates her from others by forcing her to keep quiet about the way he’s treating her.
Quote 2
He beat me today cause he say I winked at a boy in church. I may have got somethin in my eye but I didn’t wink. I don’t even look at mens. (5.1)
Pa’s violence emerges suddenly and arbitrarily, for actions that most people would consider normal.
I ain’t never struck a living thing, I say. Oh, when I was at home I tap the little ones on the behind to make 'em behave, but not hard enough to hurt.
What you do when you git mad? she ast.
I think. I can’t even remember the last time I felt mad, I say. I used to git mad at my mammy cause she put a lot of work on me. Then I see how sick she is. Couldn’t stay mad at her. Couldn’t be mad at my daddy cause he my daddy. Bible say, Honor father and mother no matter what. Then after while every time I got mad, or start to feel mad, I got sick. Felt like throwing up. Terrible feeling. Then I start to feel nothing at all. (21.39-41)
Celie has been beaten so much, she has become numb to life.
Quote 4
Dear Nettie,
I don’t write to God no more. I write to you.
What happen to God? ast Shug.
Who that? I say.
She look at me serious.
Big a devil as you is, I say, you not worried bout no God, surely.
She say, Wait a minute. Hold on just a minute here. Just because I don’t harass it like some peoples us know don’t mean I ain’t got religion.
What God do for me? I ast.
She say, Celie! Like she shock. He gave you life, good health, and a good woman that love you to death.
Yeah, I say, and he give me a lunched daddy, a crazy mama, a lowdown dog of a step pa and a sister I probably won’t ever see again. Anyhow, I ay, 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.
She say, 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, I can tell you. (73.1-12)
Celie directs her anger about her life not at the people who have harmed her, but at God. In her mind, God has ignored her, and therefore she will ignore him. Also, Celie sees God as a man, and men have never been good to her in her entire life.
Quote 5
Then she [Shug] tell me this old white man is the same God she used to see when she prayed. If you wait to find God in church, Celie, she say, that’s who is bound to show up, cause that’s where he live.
How come? I ast.
Cause that’s the one that’s in the white folks’ white bible.
Shug! I say. God wrote the bible, white folks had nothing to do with it.
How come he look just like them, then? She say. Only bigger? And a heap more hair. How come the bible just like everything else they make, all about them doing one thing and another, and all the colored folks doing is gitting cursed?
I never thought about that.
Nettie say somewhere in the bible it say Jesus’ hair was like lamb’s wool, I say.
Well, say Shug, if he came to any of these churches we talking bout he’d have to have it conked before anybody paid him any attention. The last thing n*****s want to think about they God is that his hair kinky.
That’s the truth, I say.
Ain’t no way to read the bible and not think God white, she say. Then she sigh. When I found out I thought God was white, and a man, I lost interest. You mad cause he don’t seem to listen to your prayers. Humph! Do the mayor listen to anything colored say? (73.28;35-44)
Shug points out that the reason Celia has lost her faith in God is because she has the wrong idea about God—she believes that God is a white man who treats her just like white men do, like she’s trash, like she’s beneath him. Shug, though she believes in God, sees the bible and organized religion as just another way for white society to oppress blacks.
She seem like a right sweet little thing, I say to Sofia.
Who is? She frown.
The little girl, I say. What they call her, Eleanor Jane?
Yeah, say Sofia, with a real puzzle look on her face, I wonder why she was ever born.
Well, I say, us don’t have to wonder that bout darkies. (43.21-25)
Sofia and Celie joke about the differences between white folks and black folks. Sofia, because she’s been a victim of racism and racial violence, is puzzled that a white child can be nice.
The president [of Monrovia] talked a good bit about his efforts trying to develop the country and about his problems with the natives, who don’t want to work to help build the country. It was the first time I’d heard a black man use that word. I knew that to white people all colored people are natives. But he cleared his throat and said he only mean "native" to Liberia. I did not see any of these "natives" in his cabinet. And none of the cabinet members’ wives could pass for natives. (58.3)
For the first time, Nettie observes prejudice against Africans from a black man. Instead of distinctions set up between black and white people, it’s between black former descendants of slaves and the black original inhabitants of Liberia.
Quote 8
Everybody say how good I is to Mr._________ children. I be good to them. But I don’t feel nothing for them. Patting Harpo back not even like patting a dog. It more like patting another piece of wood. Not a living tree, but a table, a chifferobe. Anyhow, they don’t love me neither, no matter how good I is. (17.10)
Celie is dead inside because she doesn’t feel love for a single person now in her life, nor is she loved by any of them. Talk about feeling lonely.
Quote 9
I was in town sitting on the wagon while Mr._________ was in the dry good store. I seen my baby girl. I knowed it was her. She look just like me and my daddy. Like more us than us is ourself. She be tagging long hind a lady and they be dress just alike. They pass the wagon and I speak. The lady speak pleasant. My little girl she look up and sort of frown. She fretting over something. She got my eyes just like they is today. Like everything I seen she seen, and she pondering it.
I think she mine. My heart say she mine. But I don’t know she mine. If she mine, her name Olivia. I embroder Olivia in the seat of all her daidies. I embrody lot of little stars and flowers too. He took the daidies when he took her. She was bout two month old. Now she bout six. (10.1-2).
Celie is drawn to her children, drawn to her blood. Though she is the stepmother to Mr.__’s four children, it’s her own children that she loves unconditionally.
Quote 10
Everybody say how good I is to Mr._________ children. I be good to them. But I don’t feel nothing for them. Patting Harpo back not even like patting a dog. It more like patting another piece of wood. Not a living tree, but a table, a chifferobe. Anyhow, they don’t love me neither, no matter how good I is. (17.10)
Unlike Nettie, who loves Celie, Mr.__’s children are not Celie’s family and she doesn’t treat them like family, even though she’s kind to them. Family is more about love than marriage or sharing the same blood.
Quote 11
My heart broke.
Shug love somebody else. (83.1-2)
As much as Shug loves Celie, she is not capable of fidelity or monogamy.
Some womens can’t be beat, I say. Sofia one of them. Besides, Sofia love you. She probably be happy to do most of what you say if you ast her right. She not mean, she not spiteful. She don’t hold a grudge.
He sit there hanging his head, looking retard.
Harpo, I say, giving him a shake, Sofia love you. You love Sofia.
He look up at me best he can out his fat little eyes. Yes ma’am? He say.
Mr._______ marry me to take care of his children. I marry him cause my daddy made me. I don’t love Mr.________ and he don’t love me.
But you his wife, he say, just like Sofia mine. The wife spose to mind.
Do Shug Avery mind Mr.__________? I ast. She the woman he wanted to marry. (29.15-21)
Celie tries to get Harpo to see that love in a marriage means a lot more than a loveless marriage where the wife obeys her husband blindly.
Hard not to love Shug, I say. She know how to love somebody back. (89.20)
Shug’s mystique is explained. Being loveable is about the ability to love others. Once Mr.__, for example, gets a little nicer and shows care and consideration to the people in his life, they reciprocate.
Quote 14
He come home with a girl from round Gray. She be my age but they married. He be on her all the time. She walk round like she don’t know what hit her. I think she thought she love him. But he got so many of us. All needing something. (4.1)
Pa gets married to a young woman; the love she thought she had for him doesn’t last long in the face of familial needs. This marriage is less about love than about Pa wanting sex and a woman to take care of his children.
Sometime he [Pa] still be looking at Nettie, but I always git in his light. Now I tell her to marry Mr.______. I don’t tell her why.
I say Marry him, Nettie, an try to have one good year out your life. After that, I know she be big. (5.2-3)
Celie sees marriage as a way for Nettie to escape from Pa. However, she also sees marriage as ultimately unfulfilling, because once pregnant, a woman is chained to raising her husband’s children.
You still bothering Sofia? I ast.
She my wife, he say.
That don’t mean you got to keep on bothering her, I say. Sofia love you, she a good wife. Good to the children and good looking. Hardworking. Godfearing and clean. I don’t know what more you want.
Harpo sniffle.
I want her to do what I say, like you do for Pa.
Oh, Lord, I say.
When Pa tell you to do something, you do it, he say. When he say not to, you don’t. You don’t do what he say, he beat you.
Sometime beat me anyhow, I say, whether I do what he say or not.
That’s right, say Harpo. But not Sofia. She do what she want, don’t pay me no mind at all. I try to beat her, she black my eyes. Oh, booo-hoo, he cry. Boo-hoo-hoo. (29.5-13)
To Harpo, a good marriage is one in which the woman is totally submissive. To Celie, a good marriage is one in which there is love and respect.
Quote 17
He beat me today cause he say I winked at a boy in church. I may have got somethin in my eye but I didn’t wink. I don’t even look at mens. That’s the truth. I look at women, tho, cause I’m not scared of them. Maybe cause my mama cuss me you think I kept mad at her. But I ain’t. I felt sorry for mama. Trying to believe his story kilt her. (5.1)
The first evidence that Celie may not be at all interested in males: She is afraid of men. Besides, the men she knows (a.k.a. Pa) are liars. The only man in Celie’s life is her Pa, and he abuses her terribly and lies to her mother. Ultimately, Celie blames Pa for her mother’s death.
Quote 18
He love looking at Shug. I love looking at Shug.
But Shug don’t love looking at but one of us. Him.
But that the way it spose to be. I know that. But if that so, why my heart hurt me so? (33.24-26)
Celie battles with whether or not her feelings for Shug are OK. On one hand, Celie thinks that it’s right and natural for people to be attracted to the opposite sex. On the other hand, Celie can’t deny her feelings for Shug and is jealous of Mr.__.
Quote 19
All the men got they eyes glued to Shug’s bosom. I got my eyes glued there too. I feel my nipples harden under my dress. My little button sort of perk up too. Shug, I say to her in my mind, Girl, you looks like a real good time, the Good Lord knows you do. (36.26)
Though Celie compares herself to males in that she’s attracted to Shug, Walker makes it clear that Celie is in no way masculine. Celie is sexually excited by Shug in ways very specific to females.
Quote 20
He beat me today cause he say I winked at a boy in church. I may have got somethin in my eye but I didn’t wink. I don’t even look at mens. That’s the truth. I look at women, tho, cause I’m not scared of them. Maybe cause my mama cuss me you think I kept mad at her. But I ain’t. I felt sorry for mama. Trying to believe his story kilt her. (5.1)
In Celie’s mind, men have a kind of meanness that women don’t possess. Women, though they may scream and swear, are not harmful in the way men like Pa are. Pa, and later Mr.__, set up a strong distinction in Celie’s mind between women and men.