Rule 1: Life is Suffering

In Celie’s letters to God, she shows some pretty interesting traits. For example, when she writes:
“Harpo no better at fighting his daddy back than me... Harpo nearly as big as his daddy. He strong in body but weak in will. He scared” (pg. 27, The Color Purple)
If nothing else, it show that Celie herself is terrified of her husband, just as her husband’s children are. She scared to the point that she wishes that Harpo, her son-in-law, or Harpo’s wife Sofia would stand up to Mr._____. So that she can escape him and his beatings. She wishes this until Shug Avery shows up. Shug, who has a certain power over Mr._____, shows up at the house, sick out of her mind. As Celie nurses her back to health, they become very good friends. And as Shug learned of the life Celie lead, she got angrier and angrier and told Mr._____ that is he beat Celie again he’d have Shug Avery to answer to. And, Mr._____, being the coward he is, backed off.

Well, Celie seems to see God as someone to confide in, a confidant, someone to tell absolutely everything to, down to the nitty gritty details. This is shown on page 49 when she says:
“Dear God, They have made three babies together but he squeamish about giving her a bath”. She also shows this almost every other page when she says “Dear God”. But that first quote especially shows that she sees God as someone that can be trusted, because she says what she’s thinking, even though she can’t say it to anyone else. However, on page 192, Celie says:
“I don’t write to God no more.... What happen... ast Shug.... What God do for me? I ast”
When I read this, I was amazed. It seemed that our beloved main character had lost her faith in one of the few things she still had faith in. But upon reading further, I began to realize that she hadn’t lost faith in her God, she had simply begun to widen her perspective of him, realizing that he wasn’t a white man in the sky, realizing that he was everything and everyone.