Sofia responds that her close bond with her five strong sisters has helped her. Throughout the novel, the theme of women bonding to fight oppression emerges and re-emerges.
Sofia is a strong and independent woman who refuses to be oppressed. When Harpo tries to beat his wife he ends up hurt himself. Later, the mayor's wife notices how clean Sofia's children are and asks Sofia to be her maid. Sofia responds with, "Hell, no." The mayor slaps Sofia, and Sofia knocks him down. Because Sofia refuses to submit to oppression of any kind, she is punished. She is sentenced to twelve years in jail and the sentence is commuted to twelve years of labor as the mayor's maid. Sofia committed no actual crime, in fact, she was fighting crime. However, her punishment makes it clear that if one fights against and resists the institutionalized violence of social oppression, there can sometimes be great cost. Sofia is forced to be the maid she refused to be.
Another crime of Mr. ____'s is to hide the letters from Celie's sister, Nettie, so that Celie belives Nettie is dead. In truth, Nettie is living in Africa, and encountering imperial, cultural and racial oppression on a grand scale. When Celie finally reads Nettie's letters, she discovers that Mr. ____ tried to rape Nettie, and she fought back. He cursed her and hid her letters from Celie.In Africa, Nettie has been doing missionary work. There, she sees violence on a braoder scale. Road builders working for an English rubber company come through the middle of the village with orders to shoot any Africa who opposes them. They destroy homes and crops and force the Africans to pay rent on their own land.
How can one...
When Celie befriends and is befriended by Shug Avery, a beautiful, powerful woman, she learns over time how to love, enjoy her sexuality, fend for and support herself, give voice to her sense of injustice, and have faith in a different kind of God. She eventually breaks free from her invisible silence and actually talks back to Mr. ____, exploding at him in anger for his years of abuse. He responds with insults, yet at the same time, her words shock him and reach hi, and he begins to undergo inner change. He begins to reassess his life and change his attitudes toward women and Celie. When the novel began, Celie was remembering her father ordering her to stay quiet about his sexual abuse. She was writing to a God she regarded as white, male, and indifferent to her. When the novel ends, she is writing of a much different God, one that Shug had encouraged her to believe in. "I been so busy think out [that old white man] I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from)..." Black women, who experienced the worst of society's crimes, can be set free by speaking up and expressing themselves, and by gaining strength from their bonds with other black women. They can know a different kind of God, not one made in a white man's image. That God wants them to stop and admire the color purple in a field. The color purple, not coincidentally, is the color of royalty. The color purple rises out of the ashes of the violence of the black, female experience.
