Length: 892 words (3.2 pages)
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The Characters of The Color Purple  


In The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, Celie, Nettie, and Mr.______ are developed gradually throughout the novel and their actions all seem to be intertwined and what happens to one of them effects one if not both of the other two.

There is a strong relationship between Celie and Nettie not just because they are siblings but because Nettie is one out of two people Celie loves, and this doesn't exist between Celie and any other of her siblings. There are various things that bring these two even closer, one being the discovery that they both come from a different father which Celie discover from a letter from Nettie which reads "...and I pray with all my heart that you get this letter, if none of the others. Pa is not our Pa." (182) and the one they thought was there flesh and blood father was actually only their step father. This brings them closer for it is so important and they are each others direct relatives for both parents are dead and they do not have any other brothers or sisters.

The second point is that they keep in contact when Nettie is traveling to and from Africa. This is more or less an escape for Celie for she does not really have anyone except for Shug that she loves so the letters are a way for Celie to keep not only with Nettie but also her two children that she has only seen for a for a couple of days in her entire life.

So the main bond between Nettie and Celie is one of love, and they demonstrate this by constantly trying to stay in touch even though they don't know if the other is receiving the letters.

The relationship between Mr. ______ and Nettie changes drastically from love to hate. Nettie first introduces Mr. ______ into the story as the man she is going to marry, Celie says to Nettie one day "I say marry him, Nettie." but when the marriage is disallowed because she is to young plus pa wants to keep her in school, but Mr. ______ is given Celie along with a cow so in the marriage to Celie Mr. ______ realises he'll never get Nettie but he still loves her but Nettie begins to go off him, for his marriage to her sister. Still at the beginning of the book Nettie goes to stay with Mr. _____ and Celie, so it would be fair to say that she did not only come to see her sister, but to also see Mr._____ which she still has feeling for at the bottom of her heart but when she sees the life Celie has to lead with him and the children she says to Celie "Don't let them run over you. You got to let them know who got the upper hand." (18) and it might be because she feels sorry for Celie that she goes off him, and this is confirmed on her departure when Mr. ______ tries to make a move on her, and she rejects him.

The other link between these two is indirect through the letters, which Nettie writes intending them to go to Celie but instead are intercepted by Mr. _____. There are various reasons why Mr. ______ could of taken and hidden these letters, one could have been jealousy for he felt jelous that Celie was receiving letters from Nettie and he wasn't, another more possible idea could be that he was worried that these letters could give Celie new modern ideas about female rights and Mr._____ didn't want this to happen.

So between these two characters an sudden change from love to hate, and this could be down to the fact that Nettie develops ideas that makes her think that woman should be treated more like an equal then like a slave which most are.

The final comparison is between Celie and Mr. ______. These two were married in a sense that neither one wanted to but Celie wasn't allowed a say and Mr. ______ got a cow which seemed fair enough to him. These two both under went large changes which were related to each other. Due to the forceful marriage there was no love between them and as Celie learnt that he was hiding the letters to her from Nettie she felt something she never felt which was rage and anger towards him and this was a new type of feeling, and due to this she upped and left with Shug and divorced Mr. _____. From after this time both of them changed, Celie developed in the sense she moved on out of the roll of a normal woman and became more of a man then a woman which you can see in the way she feels about making and wearing pants. Just like Celie Mr. ______ changed and he became more of a gentelman and when their paths crossed again they both noticed the change in each other, but when Mr. ______ asked her to marry him again she just couldn't forgive him to marry him so they just became friends.

These are the main connections between these three main characters, and the connections tend to be the same either involving love or hate. So over the course of the book the tree either directly or indirectly alter each others life with their change.