Studied by 0 peopleIntimacies with strangers
is all I could seem to fill my empty heart with.
I am so
lonely, Celie.
Where’s the
little woman?
My name
Mary Agnes.
Stanley doesn’t give me a regular allowance,
he likes to pay bills himself.
Women work.
I’m a man.
I am the king
around here, so don’t you forget it!
He beat me like he beat the children.
Cept he don’t hardly never beat them.
Don’t you ever
talk that way to me!
Wives is like children.
You have to let them know who got the upper hand.
He advances and disappears.
There is the sound of a blow."
A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men.
But I never thought I’d have to fight in my own house.
We’ve had this date
with each other from the beginning!
You gonna do
what your mammy wouldn’t.
He picks up her
inert figure and carries her to the bed.
He beat me for
dressing trampy but he do it to me anyway.
Since when
do you give me orders?
I tell her one thing, she do another.
Never do what I say. Always talkback.
This ole n***** is out
in back of his house sittin' down th'owing corn
Do the mayor
listen to anything colored say?
I once went
out with a doll.
Mr.__ wants
another look at you.
He’s
common.
There is something
luxurious in her complete surrender to crying
What load of bricks fell on you? I ast.
No bricks, he say. Just experience.
Stanley gives a
loud whack of his hand on her thigh.
Harpo ast his daddy why he beat me.
Mr.__ say, cause she my wife.
The touch of
your hands insults them!
God ain't a
he or a she, but a It.
If I didn’t know that you
was my sister’s wife I’d get ideas about you!
This is my house
and I'll talk as much as I want to!
You know Shug
will fight, he say. Just like Sofia.
Make a little -
temporary magic just in order to pay for - one night’s shelter!
I tell him I can
fix myself up for him.
Poker
should not be played in a house with women.
The world is changing, I said.
It is no longer a world just for boys and men.
Thank you for
being so kind. I need kindness now.
Us sleep
like sisters, me and Shug.
I couldn’t believe
her story and go on living with Stanley.
Us sit there
and lay there in each others arms.
I don’t fight,
I stay where I’m told, but I’m alive
I don't even know my
multiplication tables! No, I have the misfortune of being an English instructor.
We do not approve
of this different way for our children.
I have always depended
on the kindness of strangers.
I never
ast you for nothing.
“er appearance
is incongruous to the setting.
But they are clever people
about most things, and understand new things very quickly.
New Orleans isn’t
like other cities.
A house big enough for
us and our children, for your husband and Shug.
The gaudy
seed-bearer
Folks
don’t like nobody being too proud, or too free.
[Bellowing]
Hey, there! Stella, Baby!
He look at Sofia.
She look at him and laugh in his face.
A background
obviously quite different from her husbands.
When I dream,
I dream of Shug Avery. She be dress to kill, whirling an laughing
They catch
each other in a spasmodic embrace.
I say it
cause you do what I can't
New Orleans is a
cosmopolitan city where there is a relatively warm and easy intermingling of races.
I loves Harpo, she say...
But I'll kill him before I let him beat me
A great
big place with white columns.
I thought
I had turned into a man
There is something about
her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.
You sure
is ugly, she say, like she ain't believed it
I've got to be
good and keep my hands of children
I work on her like
she a doll or like she Olivia - or like she mama
Her delicate beauty
must avoid a strong light.
I want her
to do what I say, like you do for Pa
I don't
want realism, I want magic
[Harpo] don't want a
wife, he want a dog
How you love it!
Having them colour lights going!
I won't leave, she say,
until I know Albert won't even think about beating you
There's so
much confusion in the world...
I stumble
bout the house crazy for Mr. ___ blood.
The searchlight which had
been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this—kitchen—candle...
A girl is nothing
to herself; only to her husband can she become something
There now,
the shot! It always stops after that.
Shug say,
Us each other's peoples now, and kiss me.
The shadows
are of a grotesque and menacing form.
I think it pisses God off
if you walk by the colour purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.
Deliberate cruelty is
not forgivable. It is the one thing of which I have never been guilty.
Well, us talk and talk about
God, but I'm still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head
All human
experience shows on her face.
I'm pore, I'm black,
I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here.
Mixture of noise,
the Varsouviana with distortion, and the jungle.
So, the next day,
our boy came to us with scars identical to Tashi's on his cheeks.
What have
I done to my sister!
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