First Period
In The Color Purple, the story is told through letters. The only sentences outside the letters are the first two: "You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy." Silenced forever, the main character, fourteen-year-old Celie, writes letters to God. Her father has raped her, and she has two children, a girl and a boy, whom "Pa" took away from her. Celie's mother has died and Pa is looking too much at her little sister, Nettie.
Mr. wants to marry Nettie but Pa rejects him because of the Mr.'s scandals with Shug Avery, a blues singer....
Source: Novels for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
(The entire page is 1717 words.)
Want to read the whole thing?
Subscribe now to read the rest of this article. Plus, get access to:
- 30,000+ literature study guides
- Critical essays on more than 30,000 works of literature from Salem on Literature (exclusive to eNotes)
- An unparalleled literary criticism section. 40,000 full-length or excerpted essays.
- Content from leading academic publishers, all easily citable with our "Cite this page" button.
- 100% satisfaction guarantee READ MORE
