Quest And Striving For Freedom And Harmony: An Interpretation Of The Color Purple By Queer Theory

Alice Walker is one of the greatest Afro-American female writers in American history. All her life she was seeking for the natural and reasonable rights of the marginal groups. In her representative The Color Purple, Alice Walker demonstrates her claim upon harmonious interpersonal relationships on the basis of real freedom and equality.Queer theory as the new branch of post-modernism and post-feminism focuses on any marginal, non-mainstream phenomena and challenges all hegemonies. Denying the dichotomy and advocating unity, queer theory respects and encourages the development of human personality.This thesis attempts to interpret The Color Purple from the perspective of queer theory by analyzing the text in detail to show that Alice Walker in this novel tries to construct the ideal and harmonious world where each individual gets perfection without the hindrance of the sex/gender status and the boundary of the center and the margin is surpassed.This essay consists of four parts:the introduction, the theory foundation, the main chapters and the conclusion.In the first chapter, introduction, a brief survey of Alice Walker's life and the theme of her writing are given. The literary status, the main content and the current studies of The Color Purple are discussed.Chapter Two is the theoretical foundation of the whole analysis. In this chapter, firstly, the dichotomy mainly about sex and gender that queer theory focuses against is exposed. Then, this part analyzes queer theory's theoretical sources from philosophical and psychological aspects, its main contents and present research situations.Chapter Three from the perspective of queer theory deconstructs and reconstructs the dichotomy of homosexuality and heterosexuality as well as the dichotomy of male and female gender identities.Chapter Four under Lacan's Mirror Theory explores the process of Celie's self-wholeness from no self-consciousness to self-assimilation then to self-dissimilation. Furthermore, this chapter displays queer theory's proposal striving to achieve freedom and integrity of the human being.Chapter Five, after individual integration, continues to examine the tendency of grand integration in the works---from women integration into integration of men and women, then into racial integration and finally grand integration of man and nature.Chapter Six, the conclusion part, again emphasizes the similarities between the main principles of queer theory and some themes in The Color Purple. The limitation of queer theory is summarized.