Study Questions

1. How is Harpo’s and Sofia’s house different from before?

2. What will Sofia’s sisters look like as pallbearers, according to Harpo? What is Sofia’s reply?

3. Why must Sofia always have things her own way?

4. How much does one of Grady’s cigarettes cost?

5. Why is marijuana like whiskey, according to Celie?

6. How does Celie reply when Sofia tells her that Mr.____ is “trying to git religion”?

7. What does Mr.____ say about Sofia’s mother?

8. What does Celie try to remember about Nettie’s letters?

9. What was Mr.____ most scared of when he slept alone?

10. Is it easy for Sofia to live with Harpo now?

Answers

1. The new house is bigger, away from the juke joint.

2. Harpo thinks that the three sisters will look like “they ought to be home frying chicken.” Sofia replies that since her three brothers will carry the other side of the coffin, they will “look like field hands.”

3. Sofia’s mother had said a long time ago that Sofia thinks her way is as good as anyone else’s.

4. Grady sells his marijuana cigarettes for a dime each.

5. A little drink of whiskey doesn’t bother anyone, but “when you can’t git started without asking the bottle, you in trouble.” Marijuana is the same way to Celie; smoking it once in a while doesn’t bother her.

6. Celie thinks that a “devil” like Mr.____ can try to become religious, but it doesn’t mean that he will succeed. Celie jokes that “trying is bout all he can do.”

7. Mr.____ says that “the woman that brought Sofia in the world brought something.”

8. Celie seems to remember that Nettie had written about a cure for the disease that Henrietta suffers from that is used in Africa.

9. Mr.____ couldn’t bear to hear the sound of his own heart, which was at times as loud as “drums.”

10. Sofia is the first to admit that living with Harpo hasn’t been easy, but nevertheless, she started “to feel again for Harpo.”