A Study Of The Color Purple From The Perspective Of Post-Colonial Feminism

The American black women writers as a powerful force active in the American literary circles in the1970s, and undoubtedly Alice Walker (1944_) is the most influential one. In a certain sense, her works are pictures of the struggling black people, about which the feminist researchers both at home and abroad are increasingly enthusiastic. Alice Walker’s creation cannot separate from her own experience and her deeply understanding of the southern women’s life common experience. She connects gender politics with racial struggle and class struggle, which shows her post-colonial feminism hold a different standpoint from the white feminists.Walker’ The Color Purple published in1982which aroused the most extensive attention of literary critics. It won two awards of the American literary world:the Pulitzer Prize in1983and the American Book Award in1984. And it is the most distinguished one among her works. The Color Purple not only makes Walker become the first black woman writer who wins the prize but also makes many scholars view it as a contemporary American literature, ethnic research and female research subjects’ required classic materials. Many researchers study this book from the perspective of patriarchal discourse, feminism, ecological feminism and themes.The Color Purple is different from the works of other black male writers, whose works do not pay attention to women’s sufferings from the patriarchal society and ignore the sexual discrimination, but only focus on racial discrimination. The novel profoundly revealed black men and white women’s oppression and persecution on black women, and depicted women struggle from the unique perspective of postcolonial feminism, which focuses on both the racial discrimination and gender discrimination and emphasizes the struggle for the class discrimination. Therefore, this thesis attempts to approach this novel from the perspective of post-colonial feminism, discussing’post-colonial’and’feminism’and discussing the black women’s oppression in race, gender and class and seek the course of liberation. The author will discover the new aspect of the text so that explain the work from a new angle on the basis of previous studies. This thesis is organized in six parts:introduction, four chapters, and the conclusion. The introduction makes a full view of Alice Walker’s life and her work The Color Purple. Besides, it introduces the literary review at home and abroad.Chapter one is the theoretical part of this thesis. It describes the brief introduction of the source and development of post-colonial feminism and its main features. This chapter is also the foundation of the thesis.From the second chapter, this thesis begins its main part. It mainly talks about the anti-racism in The Color Purple. This chapter analyzes the two parts race and culture other and the racial discrimination from the American main society. The former explains the roots of racial discrimination, the early African Americans and the otherness of the black culture in the American main culture. The latter explains the black women suffer racial discrimination in white society and it takes Celie etc as example to analyze.Chapter three mainly talks about anti-gender in The Color Purple. This chapter analyzes women in the patriarchal society and black African women’s sufferings. The first part focuses on black women’s plight the absence of female role and the absence of female voice in patriarchal society.’The first type women keep mute, the second type women who are from mute to fight against for themselves, the third type women who are the new women rich in fight spirit.’The second part emphasizes The African Women’s Sufferings.Chapter four mainly talks about anti-colonialism in the The Color Purple. This chapter analyzes the western’s social economic, political and mental aspects of the ruling oppression and the ancient African people suffered colonial oppression.The last part is the conclusion, in which it restates the post-colonial feminism based on that sums up the whole thesis. Through the analysis of the novel, it expresses Alice Walker’s deeply concerns and sympathy to the black women. The sixth part points out the significances of this novel based on the following analysis. And it is also the thesis’s conclusion part.