Identity And Liberation

American literary world has taken on a new look since the1970s and a number of African-America women writers began to gain worldwide reputation. Alice Walker is an influential African-American author in the contemporary American literary world. She reflects black women’s suffering and sings the praise of their spirit to struggle with difficulties and strong will to win independence in her novels. In order to distinguish from other feminists, she put forward a new special theory named "womanism". The Color Purple published in1982is the concrete practice of this theory. Once published, this novel made a sensation in the American literary circle. It won three big prizes in America: The Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Prize and the National Book Critics Association Award. Alice Walker is the first Afro-American woman who wins the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Prize.Alice Walker’s works are full of originality and profoundity. Her works are quite different from those of traditional black male writers or white female writers. The black male writers like s to only focus on the racial discrimination that black Americans suffered while the white female writers tend to describe their miserable sexual discrimination. However, Alice Walker described the conditions of black women under both racial and sexual oppressions. The Color Purple portrays new images of black women who are brave to fight for their identity and liberation. This thesis is aimed at discussing how black women struggle to gain their identity from the perspective of womanism. This paper is made up of five chapters.Chapter one introduces Alice Walker’s life, her major works and the background of her representative work The Color Purple.Chapter two gives some information about the historical and cultural background of the novel and criticism and accomplished research on it.Chapter three discusses the ideology of Alice Walker’s womanism. Walker thinks that sisterhood is the core spirit of black womanism, creativity is the material guarantee and harmony between men and women is the goal of self-survival and liberation under the double oppression of race and gender.Chapter four explores the double oppressions of both racism and sexism of the black women that led to their loss of identity. Alice wants to help the black women break free from their oppressions towards a bright future."Womanism" created by her is committed to all humanity, including the survival and wholeness of both men and women, and to build a harmonious society.Chapter five analyzes the experience of the protagonist, Celie and explores how the black women get rid of double oppressions and seek their identity towards the realization of self-worth and seek the ways of women’s liberation and even humanity’s liberation.Chapter six is the conclusion. Walker expresses the ideological connotations of womanism by virtue of the novel The Color Purple and points out the direction for the cause of liberation of black women.