Color Purple Relationships

In the book The Color Purple, Alice Walker explores Celies’ quest for identity. Walker uses strong female relationships, the disruption of gender roles and Celies’ letters to Nettie and God to show the evolution that Celie undergoes throughout the novel. Strong Female relationships play a huge part in Celies’ growth throughout the book. Walker uses these relationships to show how they give Celie courage to stand up for herself against the men in her life and the people who mistreat her. Celie has never had the courage to step outside of the line which she believed she belonged, that meant she just let her Pa and Albert treat her badly. Nettie, is the first person that is introduced that tries to help Celie stand up for herself. When Nettie comes to live with Celie and Albert after she runs away from Pa she tells Celie that she …show more content…
In this same conversation between the two sisters Celie admits that she doesn’t know how to fight, that all she knows is how to survive. When Shug is sick and comes to stay with Albert and Celie you see a change in Celie. When Albert’s dad comes to visit and is talking bad about Shug, Celie spits in his drink. This is the first time that she expresses such disobedience. The relationships that Shug, Celie, Sophia and Mary Agnes create with one another helps them stand together and rest the oppression and dominance that they face. Shug telling Albert that Celie was going to watch Shug preform at Harpo’s Juke Joint. The relationships also provide these women with reciprocal love from the abuse that they receive from men. The relationship between Shug and Celie exemplifies this happening. It’s in Shug that Celie learns