“The Color Purple” is an epistolary novel by Alice Walker is about a young woman named Celie who suffers through rape, abuse, racism, and the act of being stripped away from her loved ones. One of these people is her sister, Nettie. They are torn from each other at the beginning of the book by Celie's forced husband; on their separate paths they develop differently and have independent opinions about certain key things involved in the story, like religion, gender inequality, and education. Though they do have a lot of similarities, I believe that over the course of the book they gain more and more diversity from each other.
At the beginning of the book, when the sisters are both young, the girls believe in God at nearly the same level. They both go to church (until Celie is forced to stay home, since she's such an embarrassing distraction because of her pregnancy), but Celie didn't even focus on religion as some might back then. In the beginning it says, “You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy.” (1) She's been told not to tell anyone about what happened to her except for God, which is why she addresses God at the beginning of every letter, which are very much like diary entries. She doesn't really feel religious, she just doesn't have a choice. Religion doesn't actually come into play until later. We find out that Nettie was living with a reverend and his family. She goes with this very religious family to Africa, where they set up a church in order to educate the people. Nettie describes Africans as “People who need Christ and good medical advice.” (131) This shows her love of God, of heaven, and of the Christian religion in general. She wants to bring what she believes to be peace to these people. At the same time, Celie gives up God in place of Nettie: “Dear Nettie, I don't write to God no more. I write to you.” (192) Then, later on the page of the book, she describes how angry she is at God because of the horrible things that have happened in her life that he could have stopped. She doesn't really believe in him anymore. So we've got two different points of view: Nettie feels that God is all spirituality, all that there is to life, but Celie feels that God is a fraud, a terrible father that she refuses to believe in. However, not all is lost- even though Celie and Nettie feel differently about religion for the majority of the book, near the end they both adopt the idea that God is everything. This shows that even though Celie is much more pessimistic about religion, she accepts that God does exist, and comes to the conclusion at the same time that Nettie does. They still feel differently- Nettie believes in God fully, as well as her new belief, but Celie doesn't really believe in him in the conventional way at all. This proves that, when it comes to religion, no matter what happens, Celie and Nettie will have ideas unlike the other.
Celie and Nettie also feel differently about gender equality/inequality. Though it never actually specifically says anywhere in the book that they feel one way or the other, it comes across quite clearly through their choices and actions. For one thing, Celie isn't even attracted to men. She's a lesbian, and during the course of the story she falls madly in love with Shug Avery: “Shug, I say to her in my mind. Girl, you looks like a real good time, the Good Lord knows you do.” (81) She describes that calling someone a good time is something that men do when speaking to women, thus her thoughts are like that of a man's while she's near Shug. Nettie, on the other hand, is straight. She falls in love with the reverend she's been traveling with, the one that, evidently, adopted Celie's children. “We love each other dearly, Samuel told them, with his arms around me. We intend to marry.” (238) Celie might favor women because she's attracted to them and is a woman herself, whereas Nettie feels equality for all because she's attracted to men and is a woman. Also, Celie feels general anger towards men, a hatred for the gender, because of the rape and abuse she'd gone through at the wills of men. Her father raped her twice, and Mr. beat her constantly until Shug was around (making Shug her savior, and giving her another reason to respect women more). Nettie wasn't ever beaten, and she wasn't ever raped, although there were a few close calls in the beginning. She does not hate men because she hasn't had the same bad experiences as her sister. This just creates yet another wedge to separate the two sisters.
As much as they're parted on other subjects, education isn't exactly a topic of opinion or beliefs. It's simply just another thing that draws them apart. Celie was taken out of school the first time she got pregnant, and so Nettie had a longer, fuller education. “The first time I got big Pa took me out of school. [...] You too dumb to keep going to school, Pa say. Nettie the clever one in this bunch.” (9) Normally, whether a person is dumb or smart wouldn't matter when it comes to personal relationships. However, when they write letters later on, Nettie has better grammar and spelling. And while she's using her excellent grammar and spelling, she's talking about how she's teaching people in Africa, helping the children to read and write. Not only do Celie's letters have worse grammar and, in some places, spelling, but because she isn't as educated as Nettie, she doesn't know as many things about the world and she, herself, could never teach children in Africa. It makes Nettie seem more intelligent in her thought process, and almost gives her a higher status. People tend to look up to smart people, and they look down on people whom they consider 'stupid'. Because of this, Celie and Nettie are separated even more- this time in the eyes of society.
Celie and Nettie have a lot in common- they're sisters, they both had a terrible childhood, they both had very interesting and productive lives. As you can see, though, they have more distinctions than similarities. That's what really draws them closer at the end, when they finally see each other again- they're a negative and a positive and they can't helped but move towards each other like magnets. Celie and Nettie are contrasted strongly throughout the entire book of “The Color Purple”.
