The Color Purple
This Book starts out with Celie as a fourteen year old girl. It is set in the south and is about an African American family and all of its hardships.
The following exerpt is at a point in the story where Celie realizes that her sister does love her and gives her a reason to live and fight to go on. It is definitely a turning point in the story.
Dear God,
What with beind in shock, crying and blowing my nose, and trying to puzzle out the words us don't know, it took a long time to read just the first two or three letters. By the time us got up to where she good and settled in Africa, Mister and Grady come home.
Can you handle it? ast Shug.
How I'm gon keep from killing him, I say.
Don't kill, she say. Nettie be coming home before long. Don't make her have ro look at you like us look at Sofia.
But it so hard, I say, while Shug empty her suitcase and put the letters inside.
Hard to be Christ too, say Shug. But he manage. Remember that. Thou Shalt Not Kill, He said. And he probably wanted to add on to that, starting with me. He knowed the fools he was dealing with.
But Mister not Christ. I'm not Christ, I say.
You somebody to Nettie, she say. And she be pissed if you change on her while she on her way home.
Us hear Grady and Mister in the kitchen. Dishes rattling, safe door open and shut.
Naw, I think I feel better if i kill him, I say. I feels sickish. Numb, now.
Naw you won't. Nobody feel better for killing nothing. They feel something is all.
That better than nothing
Celie, she say, Nettie not the only one you got to worry bout.
Say what, I ast.
Me, Celie, think about me a little bit. Miss Celie, if you kill Albert, Grady be all I got left. I can't even stand the thought of that.
I laugh, thinking about Grady's big toofs.
Make Albert let me sleep with you from now on, while you here, I say.
And somehow or other, she do.
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