The little girl on the other hand is a completely contrasting character to that of her brother, the little girl ‘dote on Sofia’, the little girl sticks up for Sofia, and when the little boy calls his mum, Miss Millie immediately asks if it was Sofia, but the little girl speaks up and defends Sofia, saying that the little boy did it himself trying to kick Sofia.
“The little girl…stick up for Sofia, but Sofia never notice”
This emphasises Sofia’s malcontent about her whole situation, she is not treated well by her employers, or their young son, but the daughter is nice and kind to her, nevertheless Sofia is blind to this. To have two contrasting characters in this letter is interesting, the brother and sister two completely different people possessing two completely different mannerisms and priorities, comparable to the battle between good and evil.
The whole household that Sofia has been forced to work in, is belligerent towards her, all except for the daughter. The household, It would appears holds a grudge against Sofia because of what she did to the Mayor, but Miss Millie has an obscure way of venting these feelings. Miss Millie appears neither afraid nor affable to Sofia, but nevertheless, Miss Millie treats Sofia as a distant friend. When Miss Millie comes out to see to her son when he injures himself, she does not go near the boy because Sofia is there, but beckons him to her. This shows that although Miss Millie may not like Sofia for her colour and because of what Sofia did to her husband, Miss Millie remains afraid of Sofia, afraid that she may do to her what she did to her husband, or maybe afraid of what she doesn’t know, after all, she does not come across as being a particularly academic character. Not much is heard of the mayor, particularly any contact between Sofia and himself, in fact, the only time the mayor is ever mentioned in the novel, except for when he is knocked down by Sofia, is when he buys Miss Millie a car, and retaining the chauvinistic mannerisms of the day, he does not teach her to drive it, retaining his position as the most important and influential person in the household. The absence of the Mayor suggests that he has strong feelings against having Sofia in the household, although he is the mayor and he is most probably tied up in work, it the reader does question why the Mayor is not even mentioned.
Miss Millie has the average amount of children compared to Sofia, who has “…all these children”, to the reader, who lives in a developed world, with a national average of 1.5 children, will generally look upon Miss Millie as a more conventional mother, the thought process behind these thoughts being that Miss Millie is much better established than Sofia, but in the nature and well-being of the novel, Sofia remains the better mother.
When Miss Millie first met Sofia on that fateful day, she was very presumptuous and confident, treating Sofia, as she believed she should, with the discrimination she grew up with in the days of slavery. But when Sofia is released from prison, Miss Millie begins to develop as an insecure and distant character. Almost by accident, and fuelled by the loneliness of Miss Millie, a strange bond is formed between Sofia and Miss Millie. From the point that Miss Millie ask Sofia to teach her how to drive, almost a friendship is created, but still retaining the ‘hierarchical’ state that Miss Millie has over Sofia. In letter 44 it says, “She ain’t got no friends”. This could be the fuel for Miss Millie to try and create a friend in Sofia to have a ‘friend’, even if her friend is a member of the black community. At the end of letter 44, Sofia says,
“White folks is a miracle of affliction”
This could formulate different responses from different readers, the use of an oxymoron in this passage to convey her expressive feeling that white people are never happy. White people are a miracle of suffering and misery, this phrase could also signify that all through their existence white people have been miserable and have encountered difficulties, but in the context that Sofia uses this, she is getting back at Miss Millie for calling her ungrateful.
Within these two letters, there are objects, which Alice Walker picks on to describe in detail, one of these is
“…that big post they got down at the bottom of the stair”
Amidst the conversation between Sofia and Miss Millie, Walker puts in this little descriptive piece, to analyse the language used, it would appear to be describing the cleanliness and unnecessary correctness about the house. Because Miss Millie has no friends and does not go out and socialise, her only other mind saving activity would be to care for the children and her house. Magnified by her feelings towards Sofia, Miss Millie would have Sofia do every job of cleaning and caring of great importance, and would not settle for anything less than perfect.
At the beginning of letter 44, Celie says, “Sofia would make a dog laugh”, the way Celie said this would not have been in a malevolent way, but the word dog raises questions on how maybe Celie views Sofia and her situation. Within the reader, the word dog signifies a pet, something to kick around and to treat bad, the dictionary defines the term dog as ‘Base’ and ‘Inferior’, anchoring the readers view of the way Sofia is being treated by her employers, as a dog, and treated as an inferior, and as a base.
