Nettie in Africa

All Nettie's experiences as a missionary in West Africa take up a large part of the novel. Initially she is excited at the prospect of returning to her roots in order to convert her ethnic brothers and sisters. A series of disappointments and disillusionments follow, as she realises that they are uninterested in slavery, the black experience in America, or really in the religion which the missionaries have brought them. Paradoxically, Corinne, Samuel and Nettie are alien outsiders among their own original people. There is no racial unity between the three of them and the Olinkas despite the colour of their skins and their common heritage.

Olinka society is at first fascinating and alluring but as the time progresses. Only Tashi comes round to her way of thinking and she is ostracised and leaves the tribe to marry Adam travelling back to America with Nettie and Celie's children. The practice of female circumcision and facial scarring is also revolting to Nettie, who regards it as degrading but understands it to be a custom which enables the Olinka to cling on to its tribal identity in a changing world. It is a barbaric custom and Nettie feels helpless to influence the tribe or to help the victims

Shug Avery

She is a blues singer - very successful and wealthy. Unlike other black women, she is well travelled and quite sophisticated. The dominant impression of her is that she has enormous vitality. She is not a pleasant person, having a very acerbic, tough exterior. She can be insensitive and cruel, even to people she loves. Celie's first impression of Shug when she nurses her serious illness is that Shug is "evil". Throughout her life she seems to have chosen her own path, sleeping with whoever she pleases and pleasing herself in her lifestyle. She has a number of illegitimate children from a long standing affair with Celie's husband, Albert and several passionate affairs with other men, some young enough to be her own son. She also has a serious love affair with Celie, although there is no indication that she has ever been lesbian before.

Racism

A sense of racial tension runs throughout the novel alongside the feminist issues dealt with. Celie is the daughter of a successful Negro store owner, lynched by white men for no other reason than his financial success. All the characters in Celie's family and the extended family she comes into contact with through Shug and her husband's children are the poor exploited blacks of the American South. Even the poorest of the whites consider themselves superior to any black, no matter how successful. The story of Sofia is the main episode in the novel which illustrates the hazards of being black in Georgia in the thirties (and later) Sofia is spirited and strong, assertive and independent and yet she is reduced to total helplessness when she dares to answer back to the mayor's wife - a spineless creature who is herself as weak as Sofia is strong. Sofia refuses to be patronised. She makes the mistake of "looking like somebody" - driving in a car, an unusual thing in those days for anyone, let alone a black woman and replying to the mayor's wife's offer of menial work with a "Hell, no" The beating she receives is out of all proportion to the offence she committed but the white ruling class shows no mercy to an "uppity nigger".

In the character of Eleanor Jane, Alice Walker manages to show that it is possible for black and white to mend relationships and begin to understand and accept one another. By the end of the novel Eleanor Jane and Sofia are able to relate like equal women rather than black servant and mistress, but only after Sofia has been brutally honest with the younger woman about the reality of the way she feels about her and her child. Eleanor Jane begins to realise that Sofia is a woman, not a faceless black person like all the rest of her race and even turns on her own parents, demanding to know how a woman like Sofia could work for "trash". The main point to note about the racial prejudice shown by whites to blacks is that it is very often unconscious and all the more insidious because of that.

Men of the novel

"Wherever there's a man, there's trouble!"

It is hardly surprising that most of the male characters in this novel are presented in an unsympathetic light. They are all, even Samuel, inferior in some way to the women they associate with. They show little understanding of women, treating them as slaves, menial workers or sex objects. They seem also to have no solidarity, unlike the females, who band together to support and console one another. The men in this novel seem to be incapable of bonding with one another and show little evidence of communicating on anything other than a very basic, crude level.

Each one of the men has their own issues: Alphonso, the father, is a rapist and uses his daughters in despicable ways, Albert is abusive and Harpo is negligent.

Faith

The church is an important part of the social life of the community in which Celie lives. At the beginning of the novel she is a staunch member of the church, and continues to be so, working as hard there as she does for Mr and his children. Her letters are addressed to God and she says "As long as I can spell G-o-d I got somebody along." She looks to God as a support and a help although in practice she gets very little help from her fellow church goers. Nettie's religious experience is different to Celie's, being more conventional in the missionary setting in Africa, but she, too arrives at a more relaxed and tolerant outlook as the novel ends Her experiences with the Olinka tribe are educational, in that they show her and Samuel that the conventions of organised religions are often restricting, not liberating as they are meant to be - that the message of the Gospel has to be in harmony with the people receiving it. Her acceptance of the ceremony of the roof leaf as "not Jesus Christ, but.in its own humble way is it not God?" is significant, as is her decoration of her hut with native artefacts rather than the stereotypical images of the missionary Jesus and saints. She ends up with a more spiritual and personal relationship with God as a result of her time in Africa, and like her sister comes to realise that the narrowness of conventional belief and practice closes rather than opens the way to a personal contact with the Almighty.

Feminism

Male dominance is the norm in both countries. As Albert says "Men s'pose to wear the pants". It takes various forms, not least of which is sexual aggression. In the very first letter, Celie tells of the abuse she suffers at the hands of the man she believes for a long time is her father. Mary Agnes is raped by the white uncle whom she approaches for help to get Sofia out of prison and Mr also tries to force Nettie to submit to him before she leaves the house after fighting him off. Physical violence is a common occurrence, even in relationships which are quite loving, like that between Harpo and his wife Sofia. He beats her because "the woman s'pose to mind." It is a respectable thing for a man to do to his wife, in his view.

Women are exploited very seriously, especially Celie. Celie is supposed to Albert's affair with Shug Avery. The novel's message is that women must stand up against the unfair treatment they receive at the hands of men and that they must do this by helping one another. The women in the novel, even those who have interests in the same men, nevertheless band together to support and sustain one another throughout the novel. The bond of sisterhood is important, both literally in the persons of Nettie and Celie, Sofia and Odessa and metaphorically in the persons of Mary Agnes and Sofia, Albert's sister and Celie, Tashi and Olivia and of course Shug Avery and Celie, who embody the twin roles of sisters and lovers in their relationship.

The color of purple

A dictionary defines purple as “any of a group of colors with a hue between that of violet and red” and as a “symbol of royalty or high office.” Historically, the color purple has been associated with royalty and power. At the beginning of the book, you could say that Celie has no sense of the color purple. She has such a horrible life, she’s not stopping to smell the roses, she’s just surviving. By surviving, we mean, she’s practically dead emotionally, but is physically alive. At first I thought the color purple was merely another way to refer to people that were of African American descent, but there is much more to Walker’s title. The actual color purple is a powerful color that was rare throughout history. It was the color of royalty. I believe this color can relate to the way that Celie portrays herself. She is treated as the opposite of royalty and needs to find the color of purple within herself.