The Color Purple

Describe Celie and the mature woman she becomes at the end of the novel?

Outline Celie’s development through the novel.

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The novel consists of Celie’s diary entries, which begin when she is fourteen years old and end when she is forty-four. As readers of Celie’s entries, we are closest to her throughout and see the world predominantly through her eyes. She starts to write after she is raped by her father, who tells her that the only person she is allowed to tell is God. She begins by addressing her entries to God. Years later, when she receives her first letter from sister Nettie, the entries are made up of her letters to Nettie and the letters she receives from Nettie. By the end of the novel, thirty years after her first entry, Celie has modified her address from "Dear God" to "Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear Everything. Dear God." She has learned to accept the world and her place in it and has learned about her own faith and religious beliefs--uniquely hers, they are not the images of God she was taught to accept. Initally a very timid, vulnerable young girl, she is not only raped by her father but also, later, beaten by her husband. But Celie gains confidence and succeeds through the opportunities she takes advantage of, and she learns to love and be loved.

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