In the book The Color Purple by Alice Walker, the lives of two sisters, Nettie and Celie, are followed through a series of letters written. Although these two are sisters, they both end up living separate lives, experiencing many different things. However, these events that they experience help shape their views on different topics of the world. Two of the main topics that each sister changes their views on is religion/spirituality and gender inequality.
For religion and spirituality, it seems like in the beginning of this book that Celie and Nettie have similar views on this topic. However, as they are separated and begin to live different lives from one another, it seems like this topic means more to one sister than it does the other. It seems like Celie goes through her life using God just as a figure to help herself.
“You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy.” (pg. 1)
The very first opening line in this book is a quote that Celie was told by her dad. While she was living at home with him he would rape her and she would end up having his children. He told her that she better not tell anyone but God about what happens and I think this is what begins her series of letters written to God. Celie gets married off at a very early age to a man who is much older than her. Unfortunately she faces many challenges throughout this marriage and is forbidden by her husband to keep in contact with the one person whom she is most close to- her sister Nettie. The writing of her letters addressed to God begin before this, but I think the reason why she continues writing to Him is because she probably feels like she has no one else to confide in besides Him. Since she is no longer allowed to contact her sister and her husband isn't very loving or caring at all to her, she feels like the only person she can tell everything to is God. However, later on in the book we discover that Celie begins to loose faith in God and realizes that she doesn’t really know who he is. Shug Avery explains to her that God doesn't have to be a he or a she or any race, He can just be referred to as an “It”.
However, the difference with Nettie is that she seems to use God and her spiritual and religious views to help other people. While Celie is living her life raising children and being a wife, Nettie gets an opportunity to travel all the way to Africa. While she is on her trip she serves as a missionary and helps the people there learn about faith and religion. She also seems to actually have a strong belief in God and higher powers and unlike Celie, she doesn't seem to ever really doubt weather there really is a God or not.
Another aspect that Celie and Nettie experience in their lives is gender inequality. Although these sisters grow up and live very different lives this is an aspect in which they experience similar experiences on. For Celie, it seems as though pretty much all her life she has struggled with being mistreated from men. Before she got married and was still living with her father, Celie was constantly put down by him and was told that she was ugly. He also completely disrespected her and her body my raping her while she lived with him. Once, she was forced by her father to marry Mr. ___. Celie is disrespected by him very similarly. She works very hard for him and takes care of his kids, but he still finds reasons to beat her.
“Harpo ast his daddy why he beat me. Mr. ____ say, Cause she my wife. Plus, she stubborn. All women good for—he don't finish... Remind me of Pa.” (pg. 22)
This quote shows how Mr.____ doesn't really seem to have an actual reason as to why he beats Celie. Besides saying that she is “stubborn” which she really isn't considering she does pretty much anything he asks her to do, he doesn't really seem to have an actual reason to explain why he beats Celie. When his son asks him this question his main reply is just “because she my wife.” This here shows that Mr.___ feels that because he is the man and because Celie is the women, he is automatically entitled to the right to do whatever he wants to do to her. Celie mentions how this reminds her of her father which shows how she has been dealing with this gender inequality for a very long time.
Since Celie and Nettie are sisters and share the same “father” , Nettie may have had some of these experiences in her home, but definitely not as much as Celie. Nettie was viewed as the prettier, smarter sister out of the two and therefor wasn't degraded as much as her father. However, as she grows older and when she travels as a missionary in Africa, she views a culture where women are pretty much viewed as nothing in society. It is somewhat similar in back in America during this time, but not as much considering that during this time most of the discrimination is racial. So, although these sisters face differences in views on religion and spiritual beliefs, they still share somewhat similar experiences with discrimination against being a female in their society although they experience it in two very different parts of the world.
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