Ugliness and Beauty in The Color Purple by Walker When I finished The Color Purple, I cried. I was deeply touched by the story and all the issues it addressed. A related theme that he reiterates throughout the novel is that of ugliness and beauty. Celie represents ugliness and Shug Avery illustrates beauty. The most obvious way in which the struggle between ugliness and beauty presents itself in the novel is through Albert, Celie's forced husband and Shug's longtime lover. The characters of Celie and Shug are compared and contrasted throughout the novel, and the reason why Albert, for the majority of the novel, treats them so differently is because of their appearance. Albert not only hates, but beats Celie because she is ugly and not Shug. "He hit me [Celie] when you're not here, I say. Who does it, says she [Shug], Albert? Mr. _____, I say... What did he hit you for? She ast. For being me and not you" ( 79). Albert loves Shug because she is beautiful. Furthermore, Alice Walker "sees Albert's love for Shug, despite his color and his father's protests, as a sign of mental health and, more specifically, a sign of self-love" (Winchell 98). However, this "self-love" that Albert supposedly possesses is only extended to Shug, not Celie. This is because Shug is the epitome of society's patriarchal definition of a feminine woman. She has perfect, flawless skin, hair that is never out of place, a voluptuous and sensual body (not fat), and fashionable model-like clothes and accessories. Upon first meeting Shug Celie describes: "and dresses to kill. She wore a red wool dress and a chest full of black beads. A shiny black hat with what look like chinchilla feathers curving downward... to center of paper..." ....Louis Gates, Jr. and KA Appiah New York: Amistad Press, Inc., 1993.Johnson, Yvonne A. "Green Lap, Brown Embrace, Blue Body: The Ecospirituality of Alice Walker ." April Cross Currents 2000 (1999): 18 p.smith2.htm.Walker, Alice. The Color Purple: Pocket Books, 1982.Walker, Alice "A South Without Myths." Sojourners Magazine Online (December 1994 - January 1995): 2 p. Internet. November 30, 1999. Available: http://www.sojourners.com/soj9412/941213.html.Waxman, Barbara Frey "Dancing Out of Form, Dancing Within: Gender and Metaphor in Marshall, Shange, and Walker." Melus 19.3 (Fall 1994): 1-16. Winchell, Donna Haisty. Alice Walker. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992.