Emotion from the Passionless

Walker employs narrative voice through an address to juxtapose emotional responses along with sequences of events in order to characterize Celie and further the ideas of the text. In the 34th letter to God, on pages 74-75, Celie confesses the true side of Albert to Shug who is unaware. This obliviousness mirrors the thematic ideas of the novel which shows or represents the division amongst people during this period in history, and the lack of knowledge of Shug to the true character of Albert represents the white perspective in a sense, because her life has been focused on materialistic objects with little meaning. Moreover, the emotional responses are from the perspective of Celie to God, so the way she depicts how each other character responds characterizes herself in a way, because the emotions that Celie can't recognize in herself; she sees in others. This can be demonstrated through the Strength that Celie wishes she had from Sofia, or the confidence and beauty that Shug possesses. There has never been a point in the novel that actually says that Celie is a beautiful person directly, but there are hints that she may not be as ugly as she explains to God. However, if Shug is willing to sleep with Celie, then she isn't obviously as ugly as everyone points out. Moreover the animalistic side of racism is shown through what happens to Celie out of pure impulse from the other characters, for example, having to sleep with Albert. This is how Walker shows the stereotype of the black man, and what others believe to be true through their knowledge or background. The purpose in setting up these strong stereotypes is to create an image which is horrible enough for the reader to not want to believe they are true, at which point, Walker will dispel these ideas. Walker does this later on in the novel on pages 130-136, when Celie reads the long lost letters from Nettie who tells her that education and first hand experience have made her believe that what she thought to be true, which was that all black men were animals actually is not true, and the life that they lived isn't the only one that they can, and Nettie tells Celie to fight back. In a sense, Celie is living vicariously through the experiences of others, but in order to feel what they feel, Celie believes she cannot be allowed to feel anything good herself, otherwise how she feels through the other characters won't be as strong anymore. Celie may not "git mad," but close to the middle of the novel, Celie starts to think and say what she feels, and her ideas of fighting back and "killing" Albert are a sign that she may begin to fight for the life that was taken from her when she was 14 and her father first raped her.