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1-Page Summary of The Color Purple

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Celie, a young girl who lives with her father and sister, begins writing letters to God. Throughout the novel, she details how her father has been sexually abusing her. She becomes pregnant twice, but each time he gives away the children.

A man named Mr. _ begins courting Nettie, who is Celie’s sister. However, Nettie does not want to marry him because she believes he will mistreat her and force her into sex. Celie encourages the marriage because she fears that Pa will soon turn his sexual attentions toward Nettie if he doesn’t have a wife of his own. But Mr. refuses to let them get married; instead, he insists that Mr. __ marry Celie instead, since she’s older and more mature than Nettie (and thus likely to be better at taking care of children). He also thinks that Celie is ugly but eventually agrees to marry her after being convinced by someone else (who says things like “she can cook” and “she has nice hair”).

Celie marries Mr. __ and moves in with him, but Nettie later escapes Pa and stays with Celie and Mr. for a brief period of time. However, it becomes clear that Mr. __ still has designs on Nettie so she flees to town where she lives with the Reverend Samuel and his wife Corrine, whom Celie once met briefly in a shop. By coincidence, Samuel and Corrine have adopted Olivia (Celie’s daughter) as well as Adam (Mr. _____’s son), who is actually Celie’s child from her previous relationship with Albert/Pa. Since Celie believes that she recognizes Olivia when she sees her in town with Corrine one day, Nettia promises to write letters to keep Celiel informed about their whereabouts; however these letters never arrive at their destination due to unforeseen circumstances.

Celie takes care of Mr. _____’s children, who are generally unpleasant except for Harpo, the oldest one. He marries Sofia, a strong and hardworking woman. However, he cannot get her to obey him or beat her as both Celie and his father recommend him to do at first. Eventually though, Celie realizes that this advice was wrong because it hurt everyone involved including herself and she apologizes to Sofia for giving such bad advice in the past and they become friends from then on out.

Shug Avery, a woman Mr. __ had an affair with in the past, comes to town and stays at his house. She and Mr. _ start having sex again, but Celie knows about it because she sees them kissing through a window. Shug has been on Celie’s mind since she was young because of her picture on a playbill when Celie was younger. They become friends and then lovers after that point in time when they meet each other for the first time in years during this story as well as confidantes who share their secrets with one another such as how Mr. __ sexually abused Celie while growing up or how he beats her now that she is older which leads Shug to tell him to stop doing those things or else he will have to deal with her (Shug) instead of just dealing with one person (Celie).

Shug and Celie discover that Mr. ______ has been hiding the letters Nettie sent to Celie for years. They read them and realize that Nettie wanted to become a missionary in Africa, so she moved with Samuel and Corrine, their children Olivia and Adam, as well as other family members to Harlem, New York City; England; various cities in Africa; before finally settling down in an Olinka village. There she works for Samuel and Corrine, helps educate Olivia and Adam while also befriending Tashi who’s mother doesn’t want her daughter educated like a white person would be.

Corrine thinks Samuel has had an affair with Nettie. She also believes that Adam and Olivia, who look like Nettie, are actually her children. Samuel says they’re Celie’s kids, but Corrine doesn’t believe him because of the way he acts around them. He really loves those kids and treats them as if they were his own flesh and blood.