The Color Purple

Alice Walker

#2

          I have reached about the halfway point in The Color Purple and am at a giant shift in the format of the book. Up until this point, Celie addresses all the starts of the chapters "Dear God." On page 117 she refers to a letter from Nettie, her sister who ran away earlier in the story, and lays it out for the reader. We soon find out that in the five years that have passed Nettie wasn't completely gone or dead, but actually writing and sending letters to Celie that were intercepted by Albert, Celie's husband. The change comes on page 126, where she not only continues to read letters Shug helped her steal back from Albert, but starts the section with Nettie's "Dear Celie." This continues and she eventually even starts to send letter back addressed, "Dear Nettie." This brings up a really interesting topic to discuss; why were her initial 'letters' addressed to God and what is her relationship with him?

          Starting at the beginning, the preface discusses Celie's relationship with God of essentially addressing her life story to Him. It claims that this book is not about Celie's desperation to hear back from the Ultimate Creator and gain reassurance about her awful situation. Instead, it suggests to the reader that these repetitive allusions to God are there to highlight Celie's initial spiritual captivity that she might break through and accept her importance and meaning in the Divine world and the grounded one. Maybe the breakthrough that the preface refers to is the moment that just passed-- when she realizes her dearest sister and friend had been writing to her this whole time and that their only separation came from Albert's bitterness and hostility. She spends a good portion of text describing her anger at her husband and how she starts small revolts against him. She even mentions that she feels like Sofia, a change we would have never imagined Celie to even attempt. The fact that she significantly changed in character and changed the format of her writing at the same time doesn't seem like a coincidence. 

          It's possible this is the beginning of Celie taking more control of her life, and leaving her constant contact with God out of the remaining portion of the book -- something, for the record, I don't really know is true at this point -- is another representation of that. While standing up for herself more against her husband, she might also realize that more people are there for her and love her than God. One of Nettie's early letters to Celie even talks about these 'shadow letters' to Him and refers Celie being so ashamed of her life that she couldn't even "talk about it to God" and "had to write it." I am hopeful, with my possibly inappropriate emotional attachment to Celie, that this is a breaking off point for her to gain some strength in her life. I am excited to continue reading and see if the literal letters continue, or if she defaults back to "Dear God" and how that also looks in her character development.