Squeak (Mary Agnes)

Harpo’s lover after Sofia leaves him. As a person of mixed Black and white ancestry, Squeak
highlights the complex nature of racial identification. Although abused like many of the women
in the novel, Squeak eventually undergoes a transformation much like Celie’s. She demands to
be called by her real name, Mary Agnes, and she pursues a singing career.

Alphonso
The man whom Celie and Nettie call Pa. He rapes Nettie when she is fourteen years old because
his wife, who is ill, will not sleep with him. He instigates Celie’s letter-writing by telling Celie
that she must be silent aboutthe rape . He is a controlling, selfish, and weak man without a
conscience. He pushes the marriage between Celie and Mr. ______ by refusing to allow Nettie to
marry him. He marries again after Celie’s mother dies, and he lives with his new wife in the
family home. Toward the end of the novel, Nettie finds out that Pa is not actually their father.
Their real father was killed by a white businessman who felt threatened by their father’s
entrepeneurial success. Alfonso married their mother after their father died and raised the
children as his own, living in their property for years afterward. Finally confronted by Celie at
the end of the novel, all he says to her is, “now you know.” He dies at the end of the novel.