_ when both try to rape her, too, at different times. Celie tries to protect her sister, Nettie, and helps her to run away first from Pa and then from Mr. _, who wants her only for her work ethic and regularly beats her. As a teenager she is repeatedly raped by her father (later revealed to be her stepfather), Pa, and gives birth to two children, Olivia and Adam, whom her stepfather gives away and who are raised by a missionary couple. The novel's protagonist, at the beginning of the novel Celie is quiet, passive, and able to express herself only through letters to God.