Jaimee Martin

Analyze your narrator. Who are they? What do you know about them? How would you describe them?  How are they characterized in the story? Did your opinion of them change? Include at least one quote in your answer. The quotes should be used to support your answers to the questions and should be fully introduced and discussed.

                In the beginning of the book, I believed Celie to be a very religious young woman with not many other goal in life besides pleasing her Pa. Every day, Celie wrote to God. Her journal entries always started with “Dear God,” and then continued to tell him about her day. She’d always write to him, even if her day was awful, God knew about it. She was also not very educated, but she knew God didn’t care. Nettie her sister continued through school, while Celie had her children. But eventually Celie started writing to Nettie, she lost her faith in the middle of the book, “Dear Nettie, I don’t write to God no more. I write to you” (Walker 192). I believe this changed her as a character. She had no faith in God, but had faith in Nettie. Celie was also very home oriented. She cared for her family even if her family didn’t care for her. At a very young age, she was married off to Mr._____ and was told to take care of his children as if they were her own. So that’s what she did, although she was still concerned with her actual children, to whom she gave birth to, “I was in town sitting on the wagon while Mr. _____ was in the dry good store. I seen my baby girl. I knowed it was her” (Walker 13). Although she never saw her children, she knew which ones were hers and still cared to know if they were having a good life. Celie was also very quiet, she didn’t speak up much but when she did, she got beaten by Mr._____. She was also very in love with Shug Avery, a woman. Celie is god and home oriented, shy, not educated, very caring towards everyone, and in love with a woman.

                I know that Celie is a strong woman. I know she is shy, but also has a mouth on her when needed. It took Shug Avery to get her out of her shell, to break out of her cocoon and turn into a beautiful butterfly. When Shug came around Celie became who she was destined to be. She became smarted, more outspoken, more outgoing, brave, and defiantly more understanding and loving. When Celie moved to Tennessee with Shug, Celie became Celie. She opened up, she found a passion and pursued it as well as never losing her faith in Nettie. She learned how to accept everyone and everything for what they had done in the past. She never gave up on Shug when she wanted to go have her fling with the 19-year-old boy, she developed a relationship with Mr._____ when she returned home, and again never lost faith in Nettie. Nettie was her world, I believe she is another reason Celie opened up, because she wanted to have something to show off when Nettie came home.

                My opinion of Celie did change as we progressed throughout the book. I thought she was just a plain canvas. She didn’t have goals, she was quiet. She let her husband and Pa abuse and rape her. She never once fought back. Celie was the definition of cowardly, but as we progressed through the book that changed and it was abrupt too. When Shug Avery came to town and started living with Celie and Mr._____, Celie almost instantaneously had a different outlook on life. She started talking back, not listening to Mr._____, resisting him as well, and she fell in love. She gained her self-respect that was long missing in her life. Shug Avery opened up Celie, and changed my perspective of the whole book. Love made Celie the happy, goal aspiring, brave woman she was in the end of the book; as well as, her faith in Nettie.