Free Color Purple Essays: Shug and Celie :: Color Purple Essays

Shug and Celie in The Color Purple  Ã‚   The relationship between Shug and Celie cuts very deep. Both of them help each other become what they really need to be. Both Celie and Shug were very oppressed people. Celie was oppressed by her lack of caring, and by her lack of self esteem. Shug is caught in other people's image of her. She is not free to become what she really wants to be, which is a loving member of a loving family, which she never really had. This is shown by the quote on page 125-6. "(Mama) never love to do nothing had to do with touching nobody, she say. I try to kiss her, she turn her mouth away. Say, Cut that out, Lillie." Celie freed Shug from the role that everybody wanted her to fit into, and Shug freed Celie from the psychological bonds that were keeping her from making of her life what she wanted it to be, by being a mixture of friend, idol, lover, and teacher. Both Celie and Shug became what they were told they would. Celie was always told that she was ugly, that she was useless, that she was worthless. Alphonso and Mr.----- never lost an opportunity to tell her so. And so Celie became and believed she was ugly, useless, and worthless. Even Shug, when she first met her, exclaimed "You sure is ugly" (pg.48). Shug was told, first by her mother and then in the "respectable people's" opinion, that she was a whore, that she was wicked, and so she became a Temptress of sorts. "Even the preacher got his mouth on Shug Avery, now she down. He take her condition for his text. He don't call no name, but he don't have to. Everybody know who he mean. He talk about a strumpet in short skirts, smoking cigarettes, drinking gin. Singing for money and taking other women mens. Talk about slut, hussy, heifer, and streetcleaner." (Pg 46). She was the woman that all the men wanted and all the women hated, because there was so much she dared to do and so little anyone could do to stop her. However, neither of them necessarily wanted to take part in those roles, and both of them felt confined in them. Shug has a certain "Venus Image" in the novel. She fits the role of the seductive woman, the temptress, the devil.