Race, Gender And Nature

Alice Walker is a renowned contemporary African-American novelist, poet, essayist and activist. Concerning her influence, she can compare with Toni Morrison, another famous African-American novelist who won the Nobel Prize. The Color Purple, her most famous and successful novel, positioned her with celebrity in American literary field, won her the Pulitzer Prize and made her the first black woman writer to get the prize in American literary history. The Color Purple, which was later adapted into a Hollywood movie and then a Broadway musical and widely read in over twenty languages, endows Walker a household fame all over America. Walker's coinage of a new term―Womanist‖,which distinguishes the black or the colored feminist from the white feminist,contributes to the theoretical construction of the black, the colored and the third world Feminism. However, she is now still controversial for her realistic and objective revelation of sexism within her black community, which led to the disapproval of some black male writers.Alice Walker has always been a focus of attention in the literary critical fields both inland and abroad, and a considerable amount of studies have been made about Alice Walker and her works. But till today, no scholar either abroad or at home has made any studies on Ecowomanism in Alice Walker's novels from the theoretical perspective of Afrocentric Ecowomanism yet. Afrocentric Ecowomanism is a literary critical theory which makes a holistic study on race, gender and sex in literary texts. It strongly criticizes racism, sexism and naturism (i.e., the unjustified domination of nature)1, explores their logical connections and common causes,and particularly reveals the juxtaposition of these three kinds of oppression upon black women. This literary criticism often targets at western colonialism and imperialist capitalism. As a black woman writer,Alice Walker has been paying a constant attention to the issues of race, gender and nature too, so they have already been the three indispensable and inextricable motifs of her literary works. Based on some comparatively profound researches, the writer of the thesis discovers that Alice Walker's literary thoughts and proposals reflected in her works are right in accordance with that of Afrocentric Ecowomanism.As far as this is concerned, within the critical horizon of Ecocriticism, with the application of literary critical theories of Afrocentric Ecowomanism and some basic critical views and notions of Black Feminism and Spirit Ecology, this dissertation makes a holistic study on Alice Walker's Ecowomanism on race, gender and nature reflected in her three most important and representative novels—Maridian (1976), The Color Purple (1982) and The Temple of My Familiar (1989). Based on a systematic and thorough analysis, this dissertation holds that Alice Walker strongly criticizes racism, sexism and naturism in her novels, profoundly reveals their logical connections and the common cause—supremacist's ideology, and proposes the following countermeasures: for cherishing life and peace, she proposes the non-violent anti-racist struggle; for pursuing survival whole and the equality of men and women, she advocates the elimination of sexism with redemptive love;for loving health, freedom and harmony, she upholds the establishment of a green ecosystem as a refuge from ecological crises for the poetic dwelling of human beings and nonhuman nature by taking reference from the pre-historical period in which humans coexisted with nonhuman nature in harmony. The dissertation which focuses on Ecowomanism in Alice Walker's fiction consists of three chapters plus Introduction and Conclusion.Introduction mainly clarifies the origin, the basic views, the connections of and differences between Afrocentric Ecowomanism and Ecofeminism. Afrocentric Ecowomanism is a branch of Ecofeminism. Taking gender and nature as two major critical subjects, Ecofeminism mainly criticizes sexism and racism, aims at revealing their logical connections and criticizing their common cause—patriarchal ideology. Afrocentric Ecowoamnism covers not only the subjects of gender and nature, but also the subject of race.―While Afrocentric Ecowomanism also articulates the links between male supremacy and environmental degradation, it lays far more stress on other distinctive features, such as race and class that leave an impression markedly different from Ecofeminists'theories.‖2 Therefore Ecowomanism is a holistic literary criticism about racism, sexism and naturism and their logical connections and common causes. As far as this is concerned, it is appropriate to choose Afrocentric Ecowomanism as the theoretical perspective to study on Ecowomanism in Alice Walker's fiction. This part also includes literary review about the studies on Alice Walker's ecological thoughts both inland and abroad.Chapter One takes Meridian, one of Alice Walker's representative novels, as an exemplary text to study on Alice Walker's Ecowomanism on race, mainly her criticism of the ruthless destructions of pervasive cancer-like racism to black women's physical and spiritual health and her advocacy of non-violent struggles against racism. This chapter includes two parts. The first part makes a systematic analysis of racism suffered by black women from history, politics, economy, religion and education of American white racist society. Bearing a trauma from racism herself (she lost the sight of her right eye because of the delay caused by a white man's refusal to offer her a ride to hospital), Alice Walker regards racism as an illness3, and asserts that―racist violence has sapped the strength and creativity of the entire American population.‖4 In her opinion, with the disease of racism, neither the white who discriminate nor the black who are discriminated could live a healthy life. In Meridian, overshadowed by the injustice of slavery history and influenced by the institutions of racism, black women were persecuted politically, oppressed economically, stigmatized physically, hurt spiritually, stifled in thoughts, positioned in dangerous natural environment, and marginalized into a silenced―other‖in a white racist society. Walker's detailed and profound depiction of the physical and spiritual stigmatization of racism upon women in different stages of their life ranging from the childhood to the youth time and then to the adulthood clearly reflects her great Ecowomanist concern of black women's spirit ecology and her strong proposal to fight against racism. The second part analyzes the black women's insistent non-violent anti-racist thoughts and struggles. In order to completely devote themselves to the anti-racist struggles, black women broke out of the stereotypes of women with enforced motherhood and marriage, left patriarchal family and achieved self-actualization through education. In their struggles, they firmly insisted on non-violent resistance and did not yield to the pressure from their own black community. Though the black women in the novel adopted non-violence as their way of resistance to racism, their struggles were courageous, intelligent, staunch and selfless. They pursued the truth, challenged government's environmental racism, tried their best to save homeless children, persuaded more and more black people to fight for their rights and took church as a battle field to unify the anti-racist strength of black community. Meridian fully reflects Alice Walker's non-violent anti-racist Ecowomanism, which is originated from three resources of thoughts: Martin Luther King's proposal of non-violent resistance against racism based on his philosophy of love, African animism which believes in equality of everything, and Native American Indian's ecological view that everything in nature should be respected. Alice Walker's absorption of all these valuable resources of thoughts manifests her ecological ethics to cherish life, equality and love.Chapter Two takes Alice Walker's best novel The Color Purple as a typical text and discusses Alice Walker's exposure of sexism within the black community and her Ecowomanist proposal to eliminate sexism with redemptive love mainly from black women's sisterhood for achieving survival whole. This chapter also consists of two parts. The first part takes Celie's life experience from childhood to adult as a clue and thoroughly reveals systematic physical and spiritual dehumanization of black women by black men. For Alice Walker, sexism, like racism and naturism, is also a disease. With sexism, neither the man as the oppressor nor the woman as the oppressed is healthy because―they are, in fact, dreadfully ill, and they manifest their disease according to their culturally derived sex roles and the bad experiences early impressed on their personality.‖5 In the novel, Alice Walker makes a detailed and penetrating depiction of the predicament of black women's spirit ecology, which demonstrates her Ecowomanism against sexism. The second part analyzes Alice Walker's Ecowomanist proposal to redeem black women under brutal sexism with the love from black women's sisterhood and helping them to attain the survival whole. Alice Walker takes The Color Purple as a book which can―help to heal‖.6 Then the healing medicine is certainly the redemptive love. For Walker, love is a so great healing power which helps people to change and grow. She once said:―Love is big. Love can hold anger, love can hold pain, love can even hold hatred.‖7 For Walker, black women could rely on the love from their sisterhood to live a new life. The love resumed their dignity, healed their wounds, helped them to get rid of the white male God and set up an animistic belief in equality of everything; this love gave them an understanding of their own cultures, built up their self confidence and helped them to obtain their black cultural identity; this love helped them to step out the patriarchal family and live on their own ability with autonomy and independence; this love also helped black men to change and grow and finally establish a harmonious relationship with women. With the redemptive love, black men and women eventually achieved their survival whole. Alice Walker's pursuit of survival whole and harmony between men and women shows her Ecospirituality to cherish integrity and harmony.Chapter Three takes The Temple of My Familiar, Alice Walker's most mystical and unique novel as a text, and analyzes Alice Walker's Ecowomanism on nature, namely, the proposal of establishing a green and healthy ecosystem as a refuge from ecological crises, a green temple for poetic dwelling of both human beings and nonhuman nature. It includes two parts. The first part mainly exposes the environmental destructions that western colonialists and imperialist capitalists caused and the health problems and spiritual crises brought by the distorted materialistic consuming concept and lifestyle they advocated and imposed on people. In the novel, the major characters such as Lissie, Fanny, Olivia and Suwelo often got together and exchanged their views on life. Through their mouths, Walker expresses her criticism toward western colonialists and imperialists for their crazy exploitation of natural resources and their ruthless destruction of natural environment. They found that it was their greed that endangered the Earth into serious ecological crises, and it was the unhealthy materialistic consuming lifestyle they preached that did harm to people's physical health and put them into spiritual crises. These crises are manifested as love being taken as a fast food and mere sensual stimulation, and marriage being pushed to the edge of disintegration for lacking of spiritual communion. Part Two makes an analysis about Alice Walker's Ecowomanist ideal to establish a green and healthy ecosystem as a refuge from ecological crises, a green temple for both human beings and nonhuman nature's poetic dwelling. Targeting at all these crises, Walker proposes a holistic world view characterized by African animism and Indians'ecological outlook of life in opposition to the worldview of anthropocentrism. By Lissie's dream of a pre-historical matriarchal society in which people could live harmoniously with nature, Alice Walker portrays to us with hope a promising and picturesque panorama of a green utopia. The temple in Lissie's dream is the symbol of nature, and―my familiar"—the part bird, part fish and part reptile creature—is the symbol of non-human nature. In this ideal world with a healthy ecosystem, human beings maintained equal, balanced, harmonious and unified relationships with non-human nature, with other humans (male and female), with society (the black, or the colored and the white), and with themselves, so that the world turned to be a big family, a green temple full of health, happiness, and harmony for both human beings and nonhuman nature's poetic dwelling.The last part is Conclusion, which summarizes the main contents and features of Alice Walker's Ecwomanism manifested in her fiction. Formed on the basis of Martin Luther King's non-violent resistance based on his philosophy of love, African animism and Native American Indian people's ecological view on nature, Alice Walker's Ecowomanism in fiction is chiefly manifested as her advocacy of black women's non-violent resistance against racism, her upholding of black women's attainment of survival whole by redemptive love against sexism, and her pursuit of an ideal green world with a healthy ecosystem as a refuge from ecological crises. We can see that Alice Walker's Ecowomanism best manifests her concept of equality of cultures and her advocacy of multiplicity of cultures,and her fiction fully reflects her Ecowomanist thoughts and its ecological ethic values. Today, when our living environment gets worsened day by day, human relations become more and more detached, racial disputes and estrangements keep on rising one after another, different cultures clashes one another, inequalities still exist between man and woman, and people's spiritual world is confronting desertification, it is of great value for us to study Alice Walker's Ecowomanism to get positive references, guidance and realistic significance for the construction of an ecological society and world of civilization.