The protagonist of the novel, Celie is a Black, Southern woman who comes of age in the Jim Crow South (likely Georgia, a frequent setting in Walker’s novels). Celie’s character arc takes her from a girl who is forced to survive and hide her abuse to a woman who asserts her worth and controls her own life. Her transformation takes place because of her changing relationship with God and the people in her life, especially Shug Avery.

As a girl, Celie silently bears sexual violence, two pregnancies, the loss of her children, and community disapproval when her stepfather rapes her and shames her into remaining silent. Celie has little knowledge of her body, so she experiences her pregnancies as bewildering events that end with the disappearance of each child. Her life is much the same when she is forced to marry Albert and take care of his children. He also physically and sexually abuses her. As a child and a young, married woman, Celie stuffs her anger down to avoid more violence from the male authorities in her life, and she continues to be alienated from her own body and desires. Her only form of self-expression is her diary, where she writes down her fears and the events of her life during these years.