Subversion Of Patriarchal Ideology In By The Light Of My Father’s Smile

Alice Walker (1944-) is one of the most outstanding, influential and productive contemporary African American writers and she is the first black female Pulitzer Prize winner in the history of American literature for her third novel The Color Purple (1982). This thesis holds that her sixth novel By the Light of My Father’s Smile (1998) is different from her previous novels. While her previous works mainly reflect the bitter living situation and sufferings of the black women of the lowest class in America, the characters in the novel are not only black Americans but also European immigrants to America, Indians and Greek and even people of other parts of the word. There are as many as eight narrators and at least the stories of three families, and it is just through such stories Walker tells her readers that people all over the world are suffering oppression to some extent.Applying the discourse proposed by Foucault and Fairclough, the ideology proposed by van Dijk, the knowledge stated by Keith Lehrer, this thesis firstly explores the oppression people are suffering in the novel and points out that such oppression is mainly caused by patriarchal ideology. Then, this thesis points out that since people of both genders are suffering from such ideology it is necessary to subvert it and construct new discourse. Therefore, this thesis also explores the constructive discourse proposed by Walker in the novel, admitting that men, women and the nature can harmonious coexist, women can have sexual pleasure and father’s blessing to their daughters are very important. At last, this thesis explores the hope for and possibility of the subversion of the patriarchal ideology. At the same time, this thesis explores such discursive techniques as repetition, overlexicalization, intertextuality and points out that they have played an important role in the production of the discourses in the novel.