the color purple

what is the significance of teeth in nettie's letters?

- olinka have healthy teeth vs british teeth which are rotted from sugar (taken from colonised countries)

- pushback / reclamation of colonial race science as the olinka have the superior teeth

- strong teeth = strong pride in their culture

'i am something'

what nettie says when she is told she is nothing because she is not a wife yet, highlights difference between celie and nettie

colonialism and imperialism in missionary work

- 'another said he never dreamed missionaries could be black'

- 'even the picture of christ looks peculiar here'

- 'he told us they were acting this way because the missionaries before us were all white'

differences in nettie and celie's vocabulary

- celie uses more aave while nettie uses more standard english

- nettie discusses more abstract ideas like mental health and colonialism ('although the widows body recovered, her mind was never the same')

- celie speaks more simply and directly especially in the first half of the letters ('my daddy lynch. my mama crazy.')

- celie's language and thoughts become more complex and emotional, like when she starts writing to nettie instead of god, and when she starts to view god as an abstract concept rather than a person

- represents differences in race and class, celie uses aave as she is a poor, southern black woman, while nettie had access to world travel, free black people in harlem, and was able to go to school

flower imagery

- blue floral print on shug and celie's pants

- 'easter lillie's and jonquils and daffodils'

- fonso's wife daisy and shug's real name is lilly

- spring, rebirth, blooming, forgiveness, and viewing god as an intangible concept after celie discovers fonso is not her biological father

- they only find weeds at celie's biological parents graves

pa, daisy and continued influence over women

- 'he can tell she know. but what do he care?' = fonso knows shug knows he abused celie, but he doesn't care because he knows that neither of them will bring it up in front of daisy

- daisy is 15 and views fonso as a 'sweetie pie'

- fonso is no different and thinks ellen may got 'too old' for him

sisterhood and lack thereof

LACK - corinne refusing to believe celie is the mother until the last second before corinne dies ('unbelief is a terrible thing')

PRO - the quilt corinne made of olivia's old dresses eventually helped her remember celie, creating quilts is an ancient tradition in west africa and a physical manifestation of sisterhood and collaboration

PRO - 'only the sky above us do we hold in common', nettie and celie are always 'dear sisters' even when they've been apart for years

PRO - olivia and tashi 'tend to each other' when olivia gets her first period

christianity and forgiveness

- corinne telling samuel 'i believe' on her deathbed to repent for resenting nettie, so according to her beliefs maybe she will now go to heaven

new view of god

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