The Color Purple

Title: The Color Purple
Author: Alice Walker
Published: 1982
Genre: Drama and a lot of other things.
Pages: 295


When I was a kid, like, both sides of 10 years old, we had this cable movie channel, and I'd watch so many movies, including the one that was made based on this book. Some day, I'm going to have to ask my parents if they paid any attention to what we'd watch...

The Color Purple is set in the early decades of the 20th century, in the Southern United States. Young Celie is given away to marry Mr. ______ instead of her younger sister Nettie, mostly to care for Mr. ______'s children, and to work. Nettie, not wanting to live with their father -who'd already fathered two children on Celie, and given both away- runs away first to her sister, and then to find work in the town. Celie doesn't like her new husband or his children, but being uneducated, female and black, doesn't really have a lot of choice in the world. Sounds like a bad arrangement all around, but once Mr. ______'s old lover, the singer Shug Avery comes into the picture, even Celie starts to see some colour in the world.

Told in letters from Celie to God, and between the sisters Celie and Nettie, the years and pages just fly away. The world takes the sisters far away from each other, and even if they can't truly keep in touch, they're never out of each other's thoughts. Life goes on and families grow. People, too. Once again, 'I'm just going to read a few pages' turned into 'Whooops, the book is over. What now?'


   Mr. _____ say, Well Sir, I sure hope you done change your mind. 
   He say, Naw, Can't say I is.
   Mr. _____ say, Well, you know, my poor little ones sure could use a mother. 
   Well, He say, real slow, I can't let you have Nettie. She too young. Don't know nothing but what you tell her. Sides, I want her to git some more schooling. Make a schoolteacher out of her. But I can let you have Celie. She the oldest anyway. She ought to marry first. She ain't fresh tho, but I spect you know that. She spoiled. Twice. But you don't need a fresh woman no how. I got a fresh one in there myself and she sick all the time. He spit, over the railing. The children git on her nerve, she not much of a cook. And she big already.
   Mr. _____ he don't say nothing. I stop crying I'm so surprise. 
   She ugly. He say. But she ain't no stranger to hard work. And she clean. And God done fixed her. You can do everything just like you want and she ain't gonna make you feed it or clothe it.