The Color Purple Chapter Summary

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Plot Summary Fourteen year old Celie has led a very rough life. Her mother is very sick, and when she goes to visit the doctor Celie is left alone with her father, Fonso. While the mother is gone, Fonso rapes Celie. Celie's mother dies soon after and now Fonso rapes Celie more and more often, saying "You gonna do what your mammy wouldn't" (p. 1). Celie has two children by her father, both of which he takes away right after they are born. Celie assumes that he has taken the children into the woods and killed them, but actually he has sold them. Fonso eventually remarries, and Celie is a constant reminder to him of his sexual abuse. To get rid of her and the guilty feelings he has he gives her away to be married to a man that is only…show more content…
_____ has a chance to see it. She shows it to Celie, who is overjoyed to find that her sister is alive. Shug and Celie then search through Mr. _____'s bedroom and find a whole stack of letters that Nettie has written to Celie. Nettie writes that she has joined a Christian missionary group that has gone to Africa to Christianize the natives. The missionary group is led by a minister and his wife who have two adopted children. Nettie can tell by looking at them that the children are Celie's. Nettie also writes that the man who they thought was their father actually was not. Their real father died at an early age and they moved in with another family. That means that Celie's two children were not born out of incest. Celie is incredibly happy to learn that her sister and her two children are still alive, but she is also fiercely angry with Mr. _____ for keeping this news from her. This anger finally gives her the courage to stand up to Mr. _____. When Mr. _____ attempts to slap Celie she jabs him with a knife. Then she decides to leave Mr. _____ and move with Shug to Memphis. Mr. _____ says that Celie will leave over his dead body, and Celie responds…show more content…
Shug does not feel as strongly about Celie as Celie does for Shug and she leaves her for a nineteen-year-old boy named Germaine. When Shug leaves Celie, so does her happiness. Fonso, the man who claimed to be Celie's father, dies and leaves Celie his house. Celie moves in and continues her pants-making business there. Celie eventually becomes friends with Mr. _____, who has changed a great deal since Celie's departure. He has learned a great deal about life and love since Celie left him, and he states what he has learned near the end of the novel: I start to wonder why us need love. Why us suffer. Why us black. Why us men and women. Where do children really come from. It didn't take long to realize I didn't hardly know nothing...The more I wonder, he say, the more I love. (p. 289) Celie is developing a friendship with Mr. _____, but she can never love a man again and believes that love will never be back in her life. But then her sister Nettie returns from Africa with her two children. The family is reunited, and Celie feels a happiness and love that she has never before experienced. Celie's final letter to God states that, despite her old age, "I think this the youngest us ever felt" (p.

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