Unfortunately, with her mother gone, Celie has no protection from her father's sexual attacks. And since we, the readers, realize this, Fonso's pleas to his wife of "don't leave me, don't go" seem fraudulent. How could a man "cherish" his wife and sexually abuse their daughter — and then slay his own child? Perhaps he wants to conceal his incestuous relationship with his daughter. Perhaps he wants to decrease the number of mouths he has to feed. At present, his motivations are unclear. But at this point, we are not deeply concerned with Fonso's motivations. We are far more concerned with Celie's plight: living with a father who rapes her, expecting another baby, and living with the almost certainty that her father killed their first child.
These first two letters to God are some of the most powerful letters in American literature, and certainly no other major American novel has begun with such unexpected narrative dynamite.
