The Color Purple
Alice Walker (1982)
“A Black woman in the Jim Crow South finds her voice, her God, and herself through letters no one was ever supposed to read.”
Short Summary
Celie, a poor Black girl in rural Georgia, is raped by the man she believes is her father, loses her two children, and is handed off as a wife to an abusive man she calls 'Mister.' Over thirty years, through letters to God and then to her sister Nettie — who has been in Africa as a missionary — Celie transforms from a girl taught to be invisible into a woman who owns her own business, finds love on her own terms, and reclaims every person stolen from her. The letters are the survival, and finally, the triumph.
Detailed Summary
Celie Harris is fourteen years old when she writes her first letter. She writes to God because she has been told there is nobody else — her stepfather Alphonso (whom she believes is her biological father) has raped her twice, she has given birth to two children who have been taken away, and she has ...