From Double Oppression To Physical And Spiritual Liberation--Decoding The Symbols In The Process Of Celie’s Awakening In The Color Purple

Alice Walker (1944-) is one of the most prominent contemporary African American female writers. Her masterpiece The Color Purple (1982) wins her worldwide popularity as well as critical attention.By analyzing the novel closely, apart from the title, the author also finds that there are various symbols in the novel and they can be categorized as follows: symbols of Celie’s low status (cow and tree); symbols of traditional African heritage (quilts, blues, letters); symbols of violent struggle and non-violent struggle (razors and needles); symbols of Celie’s liberation (pants and a room of one’s own); symbols of Albert’s transformation (frogs and shells), and symbols of black people’s reunion (Independence Day). Decoding the symbols can better illustrate the process of Celie’s awakening from a numb girl, whose status is lower than a cow to a brave and independent woman, who owns her own room and a pants company.Among all these symbols, quilts, the spirit of blues and letters play magnificent roles in elevating Celie. By decoding these symbols, it becomes obvious that the blues singer Shug, as the spreader of blues spirit, her free spirit and selfless effort to help Celie match with the womanist character described by Alice Walker:"A black feminist or feminist of color. A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or non-sexually. Love music, Loves the spirit. Loves love. Loves struggle. Love the Folk. Love herself." What’s more, at the last stage of Celie’s awakening, after achieving independence, Celie does not revenge her former abuser; instead she forgives him and helps him find back his real being. What Celie does matches with another character of Walker’s womanist:"Committed to the survival and wholeness of the entire people, male and female. Womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender." All these shed a light on Walker’s womanism:"A womanist does not set black women’s independence and freedom as the ultimate goal, rather, she is greatly concerned with the survival of all black people, male and female, even to the extent of the survival of the entire mankind."(Walker, In Search of Our Mother’s Garden: Womanist Prose)...