Harpo and Sophia are, perhaps, the couple most truly in love in Alice Walker's The Color Purple. They are also the two characters who most exhibit swapping gender roles in a traditional relationship. Harpo and Sophia were happily married until Harpo, after years of watching his father abuse Celie in every possible way, began questioning why Sophia didn't "mind" him the way Celie did Albert. Celie, motivated by a jealousy that she grew to...
Harpo and Sophia are, perhaps, the couple most truly in love in Alice Walker's The Color Purple. They are also the two characters who most exhibit swapping gender roles in a traditional relationship. Harpo and Sophia were happily married until Harpo, after years of watching his father abuse Celie in every possible way, began questioning why Sophia didn't "mind" him the way Celie did Albert. Celie, motivated by a jealousy that she grew to regret bitterly and later repent of, advised Harpo to beat Sophia into submission. Sophia, however, had made a pledge to herself years before that she would not accept such abuse, and she fights back. By Letter 32, Sophia has been gone from the home she shared with Harpo and the children for six months. Harpo is openly distraught during this time and begins to assert his manhood and his independence by seeing other women. Finally, he and a friend convert the home he once shared with Sophia into a juke joint, and when Celie asks him what Sophia will think about this when she comes back, Harpo tells her that he knows now that she won't be returning.
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