Womanism In The Color Purple

Alice Walker is one of the most important and remarkable black women writers of American literature. Her works always focus on the problems of American black women. In 1983, because of her most successful and popular novel, The Color Purple, Walker won the Pulitzer Prize, and she is also the first one who gets such honor as a black women writer. The success of the novel not only lies in the theme of racism and sexism, but also in feminism. The novel reveals the cause of black women's oppression—patriarchy, and it also points out to the black women that only sisterhood can unite them together and help them to realize their consciousness about their own worth and get liberation. Compared with the works of the former black women's works, this novel does not stay on the stages of disclosing, complaining, appealing, attacking, or retreating to the retrospection of religion and soul any more. The novel sensibly reflects the social stage where black women walk out of darkness, get rid of the bondage and walk toward the new birth. In order to differentiate from other feminism, Walker creates her own term"womanism". Different from the other feminist's ideas, while the novel depicting the new birth of the protagonist, it also talking about the transformation of the black man who ever bullied her. In the end of the novel, the black women and the black men form a harmonious relationship with each other. Walker's womanism surpasses the sexual discrimination and racial discrimination, it is with the view to the wholeness of the entire human people. And such distinction is the key point of Alice Walker's Womanism, and it is a great contribution to the traditional feminism. In today's American society, the racism and sexism not only does exist but also is still serious, Walker's suggestion (reflected in the novel) of solving such social problems may be helpful and positive. In the same way, her womanism is also a great contribution to the traditional feminism, especially to the black feminism.The development of this thesis can be divided into five parts: the introduction of the author and her contributions; the cultural and historical context of The Color Purple and the relationship between the theory womanism and other feminism; the analysis of womanism through the case study of The Color Purple; the uniqueness of Alice Walker's theory womanism.Structurally, this thesis is composed of five main parts. Chapter One deals with the introduction of the author and her main contributions, the general introduction of The Color Purple, and literature review. Chapter Two concentrates on the two main sources of womanism. This chapter explores the cultural and historical background of the context of The Color Purple, and the sources of womanism. Chapter Three illustrates the analysis of womanism through a case study of The Color Purple. It is the most important part of this thesis. This chapter analyzes the novel in detail, and revealing the true connotation of womanism through The Color Purple. Chapter Four makes an analysis of the uniqueness of Alice Walker's womanism. The last chapter is the conclusion of the thesis.