Themes in The Color Purple

 The Power of Strong Female Relationships  

Throughout The Color Purple, female relationships are a means for women to summon the courage to tell stories. In turn, these stories allow women to resist oppression and dominance. Relationships among women form a refuge, providing reciprocal love in a world filled with male violence. Female ties take many forms: some are motherly or sisterly, some are in the form of mentor and pupil, some are sexual, and some are friendships. Sofia claims that her ability to fight comes from her strong relationships with her sisters, and they sing about being each other’s rock and tree “to hold on to in your time of need.” Nettie’s relationship with Celie anchors her through living in the unfamiliar culture of Africa. Most important, Celie’s ties to Shug bring about Celie’s gradual redemption and her attainment of a sense of self.   

God and Religion

  As the narrative perspective shifts and develops, so too does Celie's view of God. As teenagers, we see Celie and Nettie together in church, and praying in the store saying “whatever come to us is in God’s hands….I will say my prayer that God love me so deep he will promise our souls to keep forever, together.” After Mister sends Nettie away from his house violently, Celie begins to question God’s plan and whether God even cares about her (“what kind of God are you?”). She keeps sending messages to God, more out of habit than a sense of prayer. Celie sings about her new friend Sofia and “talk[s] to my Old Maker” when times are hard because though “this life’ll soon be over.  Heaven lasts always.” Nettie thanks God when they reach the coast of Africa, and tells Celie that she has faith that God will bring the sisters back together. She entreats Celie to have faith too, but when Celie can’t reach Nettie at the refugee camp with letters, she tells Shug that she’s finished with prayer and not being listened to on earth or by God in Heaven. She thinks that “God just another man, far as I’m concerned… triflin’... lowdown…” but Shug is in earnest that God is not a man at all; Shug sees God in nature all around her. Shug’s talk with Celie helps give her the courage to leave Mister. Seeing God all around gives Celie the ability to find power within herself and that whatever people may think about God, whether the Bible says it or not, Celie learns to find her own meaning in God. Celie’s faith is fully reaffirmed when Nettie, Adam, and Olivia return to Georgia at the end of the play - and when she learns how many of the people in her life worked together to bring them back. Celie sees that “God is inside [her] and everyone else” and they express God’s work through actions of love.  

Religion builds a sense of community in the play, though it may be followed to various degrees by different characters. Biblical references are present throughout, when the girls attend church services but also when the ladies comment on the action.   

Self-Discovery and Self Actualization  

Ultimately, this story is one of self-discovery for Celie, and for other characters. Celie begins the novel as a passive, quiet young girl, perplexed by her own pregnancy, by her rape at the hands of Pa, and her ill-treatment by Mister. Slowly, after meeting Shug and seeing her sister run away, Celie develops practical skills: she is a hard worker in the fields, she learns how to manage a house and raise children, and she meets other inspiring women, including Sofia, who has always had to fight the men in her life. Further, she discovers her own sexuality and capacity to love through her developing romance with Shug - and the subsequent heartbreak is the catalyst she needs to realize that she has inside of her all that she needs “to live a bountiful life.” Celie can finally love who she really is and is grateful for that, understanding “I’m beautiful, and I’m here.”  

Other characters have arcs of self-discovery. Nettie received more years of schooling than Celie, and has seen the world, working as a missionary in Africa. But Nettie also realizes that she can balance her independence, and her desire to work, with a life that also includes two stepchildren—Celie's children, Olivia and Adam. Mister and Harpo make some realizations about themselves and their treatment of women, and work to make amends for that. Shug learns that though she is not capable of performing a certain role in Celie’s life, she can still work to express her love. Indeed, it is the arrival of this extended family on Celie's land at the end of the novel that signals the last stage in the journey of self-discovery of many characters.  

Race and Racism 

Both rural Georgia and a remote African village are suffused with problems of race and racism. Celie believes herself to be ugly in part because of her very dark skin. Sofia, after fighting back against the genteel racism of the mayor and his wife, ends up serving as maid to that family. In general, very few career paths are open to the African Americans in the script: for the men, farming is the main occupation, although Harpo manages to open a bar. For women, it seems only possible to serve as a mother, work for a wealthier family as a servant, or to perform for a living, to sing as Squeak and Shug Avery do. Nettie describes meeting the Olinka “like Black seeing Black for the first time…. looking real fine” and Celie realizes that “what we’re taught to be don’t resemble the kings and queens who for thousands of years ruled magnificent cities washed away by tears” as she comes to terms with the fact that not only did slavery decimate African cities, but that the way slaves were treated led to her whole race thinking of themseleves through the lens of their captors rather than as human beings. As soldiers drive the Olinka from their homes, Nettie feels connected to “my people” and swears that they will find a place to live where their spirits will rise. At the end of the play when Nettie, Adam, and Olivia have returned from Africa, their entire family, including their chosen family, is able to come together for a picnic—something that would be considered completely normal for the white families of that time period, whose lives had not been ripped apart by the legacy of slavery and poverty.   

Men, Women and Gender Roles 

In the beginning of the play, Celie is expected to serve her abusive father, and, later, her husband Mister and Nettie, not wanting to do either, runs away. Celie, meanwhile, has two children, whom Nettie then raises in Africa, coincidentally—Celie only leaves behind the drudgery of housework when Shug comes to live with her and Mister and begins to teach Celie about her body and about other ways of living, outside the control of men. Celie and Squeak, Harpo's second wife, end up living with Shug in Memphis, and Celie is able to start her pantsmaking company.  Nettie encounters similar feelings among the Olinka, who don’t want girls to read and who tell Nettie she “best be knowin’ your station.”  

The men in the novel, however, experience a different trajectory. It is expected that Black men of this time, especially in the South, work in the fields, and that women obey them absolutely. But after Shug, and then Celie, leave him behind, Mister realizes just how much he took for granted and how much he, and his son Harpo, have relied on the work of women throughout their lives.   

The end of the novel acknowledges both the continuity of family, populated by empowered female characters and repentant male ones, and the fact that "families," and the roles within them, are fluid, often overlapping, and part of a long arc toward equality and greater understanding, even if that arc is dotted with tragedy, abuse, and neglect.