Comment on the notion of mothering in The Color Purple.

 Alice Walker’s the colour Purple weaves an intricate mosaic of girls joined by their love for every other, the lads who abuse them, and therefore the children they look after. In the first few letters, Celie tells God that she has been raped by her father which she is pregnant for the second time together with his child. Celie’s mother is sort of ill and after cursing Celie, dies, leaving Celie alone to face her father. Celie then turns her attention to protecting her sister, Nettie, from her father’s sexual advances. Celie soon marries Mr.(later called Albert) after her father strikes a bargain with the older widower, and Celie finds herself during a loveless marriage, caring for her husband’s four children and being regularly raped and beaten. 

Celie becomes fixated on Shug Avery, a glamorous blues singer who is her husband’s mistress. Several years later, Celie eagerly accepts the responsibility of nursing Shug back to health, thus beginning a lifetime of friendship and love between the 2 women. The oldest of Celie’s stepchildren, Harpo, marries an independent young women, Sofia, and shortly after, Celie encourages Harpo to beat her into submission, even as all men have beaten Celie. Sofia later confronts Celie about this betrayal, but that confrontation results in a deep and enduring sisterhood, and Sofia remains an independent, strong woman throughout the novel the 2 women create a “Sister’s Choice” quilt together-the symbolism of quilts permeates much of the novel. even as scraps of fabric close to make a replacement, strong, useful product, so, too, can black women close to forge an identical strong and useful bond.

Sofia later punches the town’s white mayor, an act that lands her in prison and snatches the independence she so values.  By this point, she and Harpo have break up and brought other lovers, therefore the women in Sofia’s life combat the responsibility of releasing her from jail. An alliance forms between Celie, Shug, Sofia’s sisters, and Squeak, Harpo’s mistress. When trying to assist Sofia, Squeak is raped by her uncle, the prison warden, but in telling her friends about the rape, she becomes stronger, insisting that she is going to not be called by her nickname and starting to compose her own blues music.

Sofia is in a position to go away prison, but she finds herself caged nonetheless, working as a maid during a white household. Meanwhile, Nettie has become a missionary in Africa and has written countless letters to Celie, all of which Albert has hidden. Nettie, in spite of her upbringing, may be a self-confident, strong, faith-filled woman. When Celie discovers Nettie’s letters, she not only catches abreast of her sister’s life, she also discovers that her own two children are alive and living with a missionary couple with whom Nettie works.  Nettie’s letters about their shared African heritage are a tonic to Celie, who becomes stronger and more self-assured a day. That confidence soon turns to fury-over her rapes, her beatings, and therefore the love and affection the lads in her life have kept from her.

Nettie’s letters also demonstrate parallels between Celie’s world and therefore the African world, including the bond which will develop among the multiple wives of African men, the deep friendship and love that exists between two women, the deep love of a person for a lady, and therefore the unrelenting structure of sex roles. With her new-found strength, Celie confronts her father, whom she has just learned is her stepfather and not a blood relation, and this brings great relief to Celie, who now know that her children aren’t her brother and sister.  She also confronts Albert, leaves him, and moves to Memphis to measure with Shug, a move that stuns and pains Albert.

In Memphis, Celie, who started wearing pants when she gained her strength and self-confidence, opens a business as a pants maker. Later, after Shug has taken on a male lover, Celie visits Albert, and that they develop a replacement bond that eventually grows into love and respect. Nettie, still living in Africa, marries the now-widowed man who had adopted her sister’s children, thus becoming a mother to her niece and nephew. Later, when Celie’s father dies, she and Nettie inherit his home, creating financial freedom for the 2 women. 

At the novel’s end, the 2 sisters are reunited, while Albert and Harpo have learned to require on new roles within the household and in their relationships. Note that the novel’s title is alluded to in Letter 12, when Celie associates the colour purple with royalty and longs for a purple dress. But the title undoubtedly comes from a passage near the top of the novel, during which Shug says that she believes that it “pisses God off if you walk by the colour purple during a field somewhere and do not notice it.”

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