The Color Purple - Character Analysis of Celie :: Alice Walker

In the color purple, we can see how Celie develops an identity for herself throughout the novel. At first we can appreciate how Celie does not longer believe in herself and looses all trust she had on herself. When Nettie gets older, about 12 years old, their father Fonso tries to get to Nettie, but Celie protects her and lets Fonso rape her instead of him raping Nettie. This at the beginning shows that Celie has enough strength to take decisions that will affect other people, however, this strength starts to disappear as the story continues. Celie is at most 14 when Mr.____ marries her. She does no talk about "making love" but instead refers to sex as "he gets on top of me and does his business". That shows how little Celie believes on herself as she thinks that Mr.____ could do sex without her. Then the story changes direction and the discrimination against Celie starts to be present. When Mr.____ beats her she does not try to fight back, but instead she remains passive to what is happening. On the other hand, Celie continues to work as the perfecto maid of the children and keeps the house perfectly clean and tidy. This shows that indirectly she does not like being beaten (obviously) but she does not say anything because of the fear she feels for men, she instead reacts to it in a way which shows the big heart Celie has. When Shug comes to Mr.____Â ´s house Celie starts to feel something that she had never felt. She start to feel emotions for Shug. As the relationship between Celie and Shug develops, Shug shows Celie that life, freedom and having an identity should be the best present for a black woman which is condemned and trapped for ever after on the cruel and racist society of those times. To begin with, Celie obtains freedom as she escapes from Mr.____ with Shug, then, she realises that life can be much better when you do not depend on any one else, and so Celie does no longer depend on any one but on herself.