How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
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.
Quote #2
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.
Quote #3
Mr.________ come finally one day looking all drug out. The woman he had helping him done quit. His mammy done said No more.
He say, Let me see her again.
Pa call me. Celie, he say. Like it wasn’t nothing. Mr.________ want another look at you.
I go stand in the door. The sun shine in my eyes. He’s still up on his horse. He look me up and down.
Pa rattle his newspaper. Move up, he won’t bite, he say.
I go closer to the steps, but not too close cause I’m a little scared of his horse.
Turn round, Pa say.
I turn round. (8.11-18)
Like a cow, Celie is sold into marriage. Mr.__ doesn’t love her, he just wants a woman to take care of his children.
Quote #4
When a woman marry she spose to keep a decent house and a clean family. (12.5)
Carrie, Mr.__’s sister, pronounces a woman’s duty as wife and mother. Celie certainly keeps Mr.__’s house and children clean, but that doesn’t leave her feeling fulfilled and it certainly doesn’t make Mr.__ love her.
Quote #5
Harpo tell me all his love business now. His mind on Sofia Butler day and night.
She pretty, he tell me. Bright.
Smart?
Naw. Bright skin. She smart too though, I think. Sometime us can git her away from her daddy.
I know right then the next thing I hear, she be big.
If she so smart how come she big? I ast.
Harpo shrug. She can’t git out the house no other way, he say. Mr.________ won’t let us marry. Say I’m not good enough to come in his parlor. But if she big I got a right to be with her, good enough or not.
Where yall gon stay?
They got a big place, he say. When us marry I’ll be just like one of the family. (17.12-20)
Harpo uses pregnancy as a means to get what he wants—that is, to marry the girl he wants and become part of her family. But he’s young and has unrealistic expectations for how he’ll be treated.
Quote #6
Well how you spect to make her mind? Wives is like children. You have to let 'em know who got the upper hand. Nothing can do that better than a good sound beating.
He puff on his pipe.
Sofia think too much of herself anyway, he say. She need to be taken down a peg. I like Sofia, but she don’t act like me at all. If she talking when Harpo and Mr._________ come in the room, she keep right on. If they ast her where something at, she say she don’t know. Keep talking.
I think bout this when Harpo ast me what he ought to do to her to make her mind. I don’t mention how happy he is now. How three years pass and he still whistle and sing. I think bout how every time I jump when Mr.________ call me, she look surprise. And like she pity me.
Beat her. I say. (19.5-12)
Even though Harpo is happy with Sofia, his marriage isn’t fitting his expectations. Love isn’t enough to make his marriage satisfying to him. He always saw his father controlling his wives, and now he wants the same.
Quote #7
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 #8
Why do they say I will be a wife of the chief? asks Olivia.
That is as high as they can think, I tell her.
He is fat and shiny with huge perfect teeth. She thinks she has nightmares about him.
You will grow up to be a strong Christian woman, I tell her. Someone who helps her people to advance. You will be a teacher or a nurse. You will travel. You will know many people greater than the chief.
Will Tashi? she wants to know.
Yes, I tell her, Tashi too. (62.13-18)
Marriage is not the end-all, be-all. Nettie assures her niece that a woman has worth outside of the man she marries.
Quote #9
You know, he say, you use to remind me of a bird. Way back when you first come to live with me. You was so skinny, Lord, he say. And the least little thing happen, you looked about to fly away.
You saw that, I say.
I saw it, he said, just too big a fool to let myself care.
Well, I say, us lived through it.
We still man and wife, you know, he say.
Naw, I say, we never was. (84.9-14)
Though Mr.__ and Celie are still legally married, Celie states definitively that they were never spiritually or emotionally married.