Summary and Analysis of Section 1
The novel opens with a line of dialogue spoken by Alfonso, Celie’s father: “You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.” After this spoken line, Celie begins her letters, written to God. Celie has been raped by her father while her mother was visiting the doctor in town, and Alfonso has told her that she can speak of these matters to none except God. After having so many children and now being ill, Celie’s mother won’t sleep with her husband, so Celie is forced to take her mother’s place. When Celie has a child, her mother screams at her asking who the father is. Celie can only answer that it is “God’s.” Then the child goes missing, and Celie tells her mother that God took it, though she knows that Alfonso did. Celie is pregnant again when her mother dies. Her second child, a boy, also is taken and sold by Alfonso. Now Alfonso looks interested in Celie’s younger sister, Nettie, but Celie promises she will protect her. Alfonso gets remarried to a girl as young as Celie. Nettie meets a man in church who comes around every Sunday and who already has three children of his own. Celie is beaten by Alfonso for looking at a man, but she writes that she was not looking at any man—if she were going to look at anyone, she writes, it would be a woman because she is not scared of women. Celie felt sorry for her mother because she died trying to believe Alfonso, who had told her that Celie’s children were not his. Celie encourages Nettie to marry Mr. ______ from church because Alfonso still has his eye on her. Mr. ______ asks Nettie to marry him, but Alfonso will not let him because, he says, he has children already, because his last wife was killed, and because of the scandal surrounding him and his relationship with Shug Avery. Celie is intrigued and asks her stepmother about Shug Avery. Her stepmother produces a photograph of Shug for Celie, who thinks that Shug is the most beautiful woman ever. AnalysisThese opening few diary entries give a very bleak picture of Celie’s life. Under Alfonso, the women work hard. Celie’s mother has several children to look after, and when she falls ill, Celie takes over the hard work. Alfonso is an idle aggressor. His aggression includes the rape of his own daughter. Because of Alfonso, Celie begins to write diary entries in order to express herself, for she has been forced into silence by Alfonso, who has told her that she may only speak to God about his treatment of her. The given reason is that the awful news would kill her mother--but after her mother dies, she continues to write. The real reason is that such atrocious behavior must be kept secret from everyone so that Alfonso can continue it. This format—Celie’s letters to God in her diary—continues as the main narrative feature of the novel. God is not well-defined by Celie at this point, but we surmise that he is probably the traditional Christian God who is spoken about at church. Going to church in itself, however, is not necessarily a mark of personal virtue, for the truly horrid Alfonso goes to church as well. In contrast, Nettie has a possibility of escape with a man who does not seem at all as bad as Alfonso. But we have not yet seen Mr. ______ in the privacy of married life. His wife has died, leaving him with numerous children. And what about that scandal? Celie’s family life is very distressing. Celie’s mother dies as early as Celie’s second diary entry. Celie has children with her own father. Following that, Alfonso marries a girl the same age as Celie. He even becomes interested in pursuing his younger daughter, Nettie, Celie’s sister. This family is not a unit of security but one of fear. It is an understatement to say that the man in the family cannot be trusted. From these early diary entries, we see that Celie is wary of men, even scared of them, not just her father. She is so distressed by the idea of men that she cannot see them in a potentially sexual way—instead she would rather look at a woman. It is not so surprising, then, when the news of the old affair with Shug and then Shug’s picture make Shug Avery seem rather alluring to Celie. Celie’s life is very troubled, and Shug seems to represent for Celie a liberation.
ClassicNote on The Color Purple
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