Cell's Pursuit Of Identity In The Color Purple

Alice Walker is a most important black woman writer in the contemporary American literature, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the American Book Award for Fiction in American history. Her identity and life experience, as a black woman writer, make her has a very deep understanding of the black women's lives of the black people, in particular that of the black women who suffer the oppression from the patriarchal domination and the racial discrimination and the sexual discrimination. What she has been mainly concerned in her literary works is the issue of black women. In her works, she describes not only the black women's love and hatred, but also the pursuit of their rights and identity.In 1982, The Color Purple, Alice Walker's great literary achievement, was published. Soon after its publication, it became provoked comments from critics and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the American Book Award for Fiction. Later, in 1985, it was adapted for film.The novel shows the vividly description of the hard life and the struggle of black women in America, who suffer the oppression from the patriarchal domination, the racial discrimination and the sexual discrimination, and are inspired to fight for their rights and identity.By the combination of the historical background with social and cultural background, this thesis analyzes systematically and profoundly Celie's awakening, pursuit and establishment of the identity, from the aspects such as:spirit, culture, economy etc, with the help of sisterhood among black women.The thesis mainly falls into three parts. The first part is the introduction, which gives a brief description of Alice Walker and her works.The second part is the main body, which is divided into three chapters. The first chapter explores Celie's awakening of identity and the reasons of Celie's loss of identity, which are the oppression from the patriarchy and the racial discrimination. With the help of the sisterhood and the women's household activities, such as quilting and sewing, Celie gradually recognizes her female identity. With the help of black sisterhood and writing to herself, Celie gradually and subconsciously rediscovers her a human being. Celie regains her self-confidence and self-respect.The second chapter explores Celie's pursuit of economic and spiritual independence, a most crucial step for Celie's independence. The regained self-confidence and self-respect power Celie to pursue economic independence. Making pants and speaking help Celie to be an economic independent woman. The economic independence offers Celie the power of speaking and arouses her to pursue of equality with men.The last chapter explores Celie's pursuit of equality, including the love equality, the familial equality and the social status equality with men. With the regained love equality, the familial equality and the social status equality and men's transformation to the loving and lovable human, Celie eventually obtains her equality and thus fulfills her individual independence.The third part is the conclusion. From the previous three parts, the thesis concludes that only winning the economic and spiritual independence can black women live equally as men.