Finally, after years of hearing about, thinking about, and dreaming about the fantastic Shug Avery, Celie is at last going to meet Shug. Walker has classically constructed an "entrance scene" for Shug — that is, novelists and playwrights often like to create intense interest and curiosity about a major character before the reader (or viewer) "sees" that character. We, the readers or the audience, hear about this character from several viewpoints; we see a painting or a picture of the character, and thus we are psychologically "baited," anxiously awaiting this person who obviously plays a major role in other people's lives but who has not, as yet, been on stage.
In this case, we are fascinated by this Queen Honeybee, this high-stepping, blues moaning, good looking, sensuous jazz singer who is, to Mr. ________ and to Celie, everything that Celie is not. We have grown fond of Celie and have identified with her mistreatment and her loneliness; now we are at last going to meet a person who has hypnotically fascinated both Celie and Mr. _______. How, we wonder, can this magnetic woman hold such emotional power over two people so diametrically dissimilar as Celie and Mr. ________?
First off, in analyzing Shug Avery, we should note that Shug may be the Queen Honeybee in the jazz club where she sings, but obviously she reigns only while she sings. In this scene, she is ill, but no one offers to take care of her. On her own turf, she may be a queen of sorts, but her turf is a land of booze-and-blues, sort of an unreal after-hours Never-Never-Land, where the queen isn't supposed to get sick like real folks do. Shug's audience only loves her when she sings, and her lovers only enjoy her while they are in bed with her. In the bright light of day, the Queen Honeybee's outspoken individualism, as well as her "bad," cigarette-smoking, gin-drinking reputation, repels people, and her sickness only intensifies that feeling of repulsion. People gossip about Shug ("slut, hussy, heifer") and turn their backs on her and her "nasty woman disease." This sordid image of Shug is a shocking antithesis of what Celie and Mr. ________ have given us to believe was the "real," the glamorous Shug Avery.
