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Symbols

God

At the start of the novel, Celie views God as completely separate from her world. She writes to God because she has no other way to express her feelings. Celie's writing to God thrusts her into a rich symbolic life which results in her repudiation of the life she has been assigned and a desire for a more expansive daily existence.^[3] Her faith is strong, but it’s dependent on only what other people have revealed to her about God. Later she tells Shug that she sees God as white man. She has this belief because everyone she knows has said God is white and a male. Later, Shug tells her God has no race or gender. This enables Celie to see God in a different way. She realizes that you cannot place qualities on God because he is a part of the unknown. Her faith is now based on her interpretation of God, not one she learned from someone else. Even though Shug helped her with this realization, Celie only used this knowledge to shape her faith. Shug was a huge influence on Celie’s faith, but Celie was the one that had to choose how she would express it.

The Color Purple

The title of the book is a very important symbol. Celie goes through life having a hard time noticing the beautiful aspects and appreciating them. She had a difficult life and was abused as an adolescent. The color purple is continually equated with suffering and pain. Sofia's swollen, beaten face is described as the color of "eggplant". Purple is the color of Celie's private parts: the site of her sexual violation. ^[4] However, later Shug points out to her that you have to enjoy life. When they were in a field of purple flowers, Shug tells Celie to look at the flowers and embrace their beauty. You must look at all the good and acknowledge them because God placed them all on earth. After learning this, Celie has a better respect for life and everything it has to offer.

Letters

The letters that Celie writes to Sofia, and later to her sister Nettie, symbolize a certain voice that only Celie has. She is able to express her true desires only in her letters. These letters allow her to display any emotion and they are very personal to her as well. In the beginning, when she was writing letters only to God, the letters were very private and Celie would not have wanted anyone to see them. They are the only way she can represent her true feelings and let out her anger and despair as she is abused. Later, the letters she gets from Nettie give her hope that she will be reunited with her sister again.

Celie writes to God for the lack of someone else to write to. She writes to her sister because she gets mad at God because of her past and the people who have been hurting because of it. She asks God the question, "Why?" This question cannot be answered. The last letter she writes, is to everyone, including God. This is to show that she has forgiven him, and that the story has gone through a full circle of maturation.

Pants

Celie begins to make pants after she takes her freedom from "Mr." After going away with Shug, she is finally able to reach industrialized society and make pants instead of working in the outdoors all day. Celie is able to have a job and live the life many women longed for in this time period, especially African American women. The pants represent liberation from the common view of women as just homemakers. Celie could make a business selling the pants. Also, in this point in history women were supposed to wear dresses while men "wore the pants"; however, Celie made pants for women too, so they were able to be equal to men in this regard.