'The Color Purple' characterisation

Characters

Celie – The novel's protagonist, at the beginning of the novel Celie is quiet, passive, and able to express herself only through letters to God. As a teenager she is repeatedly raped by her father (later revealed to be her stepfather), Pa, and gives birth to two children, Olivia and Adam, whom her stepfather gives away and who are raised by a missionary couple. Celie is then married off to Mr. _____, who wants her only for her work ethic and regularly beats her. Celie tries to protect her sister, Nettie, and helps her to run away first from Pa and then from Mr. ____ when both try to rape her, too, at different times. Celie's attempts to get free of the men in her life, to discover her sexuality and to learn to love (both primarily through the female singer Shug Avery), to gain both her social and emotional independence, to find spiritual satisfaction and connection to God, and to find Nettie form the drama of the book, which is constructed as a series of letters between Celie and God, and between Celie and Nettie.

 

Nettie – Celie's more attractive younger sister. Forced to leave first her own home when Pa turns his sexual attention to her and then Mr. _____'s house after he makes sexual advances toward her, Nettie ends up helping out in the household of Reverend Samuel and his wife Corrine. The three of them, and the couple's adopted children Adam and Olivia (who are Celie's biological children), travel to Africa to serve as missionaries to the Olinka people. There, Nettie becomes educated and gains a new spiritual understanding of the world that mirrors Celie's own, and later marries Samuel after Corrine dies of disease. Nettie is later reunited with her sister, and she, as step-mother to Adam and Olivia, introduces the children to their biological mother at the novel's end.

 

Mr. _____ (Albert) – An abusive husband who emotionally and physically abuses Celie in order to control her. He carries on a relationship with the singer Shug throughout much of their marriage. He has multiple children by multiple women, but his overriding love is for Shug. After both Shug and Celie leave him, Mr. _____ realises how much he depended on them and how cruelly he acted toward Celie in particular. He "finds religion" and apologises to Celie, and they close out the novel as friends; Mr. gives Celie a purple frog to symbolise their new friendship.

 

Shug Avery – A singer who is considered a "nasty woman" by those in the community, because she has relationships with numerous men, Shug becomes friends (and, later, lovers) with Celie, teaching Celie about sexuality, love, and spirituality in the process. She also carries on a long-standing relationship with Mr. _____, who is married to Celie for much of that time. After leaving Celie, with whom she was living in Memphis, for "one last fling" with a young man named Germaine, Shug returns to Celie and lives in her home in Georgia.

 

Pa (Alphonso) – Celie's sexually-abusive father, Pa is later revealed to be Celie's stepfather, meaning that Celie can inherit her biological father's house and dry-goods business after Pa's death, and that the children she bore as a result of Pa's sexual abuse were not the product of incest.

 

Sofia – A strong-minded and physically strong woman, and first wife of Harpo. She does not brook any discrimination from white people or physical or other efforts to control her by men, Sofia is sent to prison for fighting the (white) mayor and his wife. She later serves as maid in the mayor's house for almost twelve years, helping to raise his children. Sofia then returns to Celie's home, where her own children with Harpo no longer recognise her.

 

Harpo – Mr. _____'s oldest son, who is raised by Celie. Harpo is an essentially good man, but he drives Sofia, his first wife, away by trying to get her to "mind" (or obey) him. Harpo later marries a woman named Squeak, or Mary Agnes, and opens a jukejoint (bar) on his property in Georgia.

 

Squeak – Harpo's second wife, Squeak begins the novel as a physically weak and unimposing woman, who comes into her own over the course of the novel. She later leaves Harpo to run off with Grady, Shug's husband, in order to have a singing career. Squeak then returns to Celie's home just before the novel's end.

 

Buster Broadnax – Sofia's husband after Harpo, Buster is a prizefighter who has Sofia's best interests at heart. He helps to raise their children when Sofia is in prison and when she is working as maid to the mayor's family.

 

Grady – Husband to Shug, Grady is never trusted by Celie or by Mr. _____. It is later revealed that he runs off to Panama with Squeak, in order to work on a marijuana farm.

 

The Mayor and Miss Millie – The white mayor of the small town near Celie's and Mr.'s property. The Mayor, along with his wife Millie, are genteel and racist, and are the master and mistress of the home in which Sofia works for nearly a dozen years.

 

Eleanor Jane, Stanley Earl, and Reynolds – Eleanor Jane, the mayor's daughter, becomes close to Sofia, the woman who raised her. Sofia is civil to Eleanor's husband Stanley Earl, but Sofia refuses to gush and dote upon Reynolds, their son, explaining to Eleanor that she (Sofia) has already been made to care for a white family that is not hers, at the expense of caring for her own family.

Samuel – A reverend, married to Corrine. Kind and good, Samuel adopts two children, Olivia and Adam, who are given to him by Pa (and who turn out to be Celie's children). He and his wife also take in Nettie after she flees from Mr. _____'s house, not realising that she is the children's aunt. He travels with his wife, two children, and Nettie, to Africa, where he serves as a missionary to the Olinka. After his wife's death, Samuel marries Nettie, and the entire family travels back to Georgia to reunite with Celie.

 

Corrine – Samuel's wife, Corrine doubts, until just before her death, that Samuel is telling the truth about the children—Corrine believes that Samuel and Nettie had an affair, and that Olivia and Adam are therefore Samuel and Nettie's biological children. Corrine finally believes Nettie, however, before she succumbs to her illness and dies among the Olinka.

 

Adam – Nettie's stepson and Celie's son, Adam grows up in Africa, raised by Nettie, Samuel, and Corrine. After the Olinka woman he loves, Tashi, undergoes the ritual facial scarring of her tribe, and then is ashamed of having done so, he undergoes the same scarring. He marries Tashi before moving back to the United States with his family.

 

Olivia – Adam's sister, Olivia is recognised by Celie early in the novel as being her biological daughter when she spots her with Corrine in a store, but Olivia is raised by Samuel, Corrine, and Nettie, and is not reunited with Celie until the very end of the book.

 

Tashi – An Olinka girl educated in the Western manner, Tashi elects to undergo the ritual female circumcision and face scarring of the Olinka, then feels ashamed of having done so. She ends the novel by marrying Adam and moving to the United States with him, Nettie, and Samuel.

 

Henrietta and Suzie Q. – Squeak and Harpo's children, Henrietta and Suzie Q. are raised largely by Sofia. Suzie Q. is a gifted singer, and Henrietta suffers from sickle-cell anemia, and is nursed by Sofia and the rest of the family.

 

Bub and Mr.'s other children – Bub and Mr.'s other children are considered "rotten" by Celie. They are "bad seeds," and they disappear midway through the novel; Bub is always in trouble with the law, and the others merely run away.

 

Catherine – Tashi's mother, Catherine does not approve of the Western-style education that Tashi receives from Samuel and Corrine, and eventually goes to live with Tashi among the mbeles, or Africans resisting British rule, in the jungle.

 

Miss Beasley – Nettie and Celie's teacher, Miss Beasley pleads with Pa early in the novel to let Celie attend school; but, finding out that Celie is pregnant, Miss Beasley breaks off her protests.

 

Kate and Carrie – Mr. _____'s sisters, Kate and Carrie help Celie to shop for clothing, since Mr. _____ provides her with almost none at all.

 

Jack and Odessa – Odessa is Sofia's sister, who helps to raise Sofia's family when Sofia is working as a maid to the mayor. Jack is Odessa's husband.

Daisy – Pa's final wife, Daisy is very young at the time of their marriage—not more than fifteen.

 

Germaine – Shug has a final fling with Germaine, a young man who settles in Arizona, on a Native American reservation, where he hopes to teach those who live there.

 

Doris – An Englishwoman who travelled to Africa to serve as a missionary. Doris meets Samuel and Nettie on a boat back to England, and shows to them her African grandchildren, much to the scandal of others on the boat.

 

Celie and Nettie's mother – After the death of her husband who is lynched by a gang of white men, Celie and Nettie's mother falls into a deep depression. She eventually marries Pa, and never tells the girls that Pa is not their actual father. As she lies depressed in bed, Pa rapes Celie. She dies early in the story.