An Interpretation Of Now Is The Time To Open Your Heart From The Perspective Of Womanism

Alice Walker is an influential contemporary Afro-American writer and the founder of womanism. Her works mainly focus on the dilemma of Afro-American women and explores the theme of harmonious coexistence of the entire human race as well as man and nature. Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart(2004) is Walker’s latest work, which unfolds the story of the heroine Kate’s and her boyfriend Yolo’s journeys for spiritual salvation. This thesis attempts to make an interpretation of this novel from the perspective of womanism by looking into the relationships between white and colored people, men and women, man and nature, and further to analyze how those conflicts turn into harmonious ones.The thesis consists of three chapters besides Introduction and Conclusion. The introduction introduces Alice Walker, the novel Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart with its literature review, theory of womanism and the significance of the thesis.Chapter one discusses the relationship between white people and colored people. By analyzing characters’ mental trauma caused by racism, the author reveals that white people as well as colored people are victims of racism. However, because of love and mutual understanding, people from different races successfully construct the harmonious racial relationships.Chapter two discusses the relationship between men and women. Black women in the novel live miserable lives under racism and sexism. However, black men are also victims of racism and sexism, which cause their spiritual crisis. The awakening of self-consciousness, sisterhood, and pursuit of Grandmother Spirit contribute to black women’s achievement of self-salvation. Meanwhile, black men obtain continuous spiritual growth by introspection. Thus, men and women eventually build up harmonious relationships.Chapter three discusses the relationship between man and nature. Under the domination of anthropocentrism and Eurocentrism, man’s relentless exploitation of nature has led to the ecological crisis and has threatened the survival of human society. By analyzing the characters’ spiritual redemption in nature to achieve peaceful spiritual states, this thesis reveals one of the core ideas of womansim, that is, to pursue a harmonious coexistence between man and nature.The last part is the conclusion, which sums up the main ideas elaborated in the preceding chapters. By analyzing Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart from the perspective of womanism,and by advocating harmonious coexistence between white and colored people, men and women, as well as man and nature, this thesis aims to draw people’s attention and reflection of future fate of human society and nature, so that we can construct a more open and harmonious world.