The Color Purple Friendship Essay

Words: 1443
Pages: 6

As we have previously discussed throughout this course, friendship is a complicated function of the human experience. The necessary components for friends to stay together, and mutually benefit from the friendship varies from each person. In the popular novel, The Color Purple by Alice Walker depicts various forms of possible friendship, especially between sisters Celie and Nettie. Celie and Nettie’s friendship is complicated as there is a physical and temporal distance separating the two, not to mention a rough family history. As a result, although Celie and Nettie are sisters by blood, their friendship moves beyond the bounds of a cordial family friendship as the friends flourish their friendship through engaging in the resistance of their trials. The perception of support, therefore, must be present to further the friendship between the two sisters as it is not sufficient to create the friendship, yet the sisters use it to sustain their friendship through the mutually beneficial response of letter writing. As the two sisters are separated by distance and years of not physically seeing each other, the perception of support is present, although true enacted support is not feasible, nevertheless, the two sisters have a true friendship. …show more content…
At one point Nettie confessed, “Anyway, when I don’t write to you I feel as bad as I do when I don’t pray, locked up in myself and choking on my own heart. I am so lonely, Celie” (Walker, 130). As a result, although Nettie feels alone in the world, the perception of support knowing that Celie is still out there somewhere gives her hope and purpose. Friendship is not always about how emotionally intimate two or more people are with each other, but rather how comforted someone is in knowing that their friend is a true friend in the first