Toward The Spiritual Survival

The traditional study of Alice Walker has mostly focused or. her black female images and the double oppression they are suffering in Afro-American society. The author herself has enjoyed high praise for the vivid and faithful portrayal of the black women characters in her fiction. By contrast, her characterization of the male characters has had hard luck and received unjust criticism for the author's "enmity" against her black male compatriots. In other words, the critical world, the black male critics in particular, improperly censure Walker for adopting a negative attitude in portraying the black men in her fiction, which, as some critics posit, results from Walker's awkward relationship with both her father and brothers (with her eldest brother as an exception). Given Walker's persistent pursuit of the ideal of womanism, this thesis tends to make a womanist study of her first three novels - The Third Life of Grange Copeland, Meridian and The Color Purple - and trace the positive motives underlying the seemingly negative presentation of her black male images, i.e., the author's consistent concern with the spiritual survival of the black men and the black race in general.The thesis consists of four chapters. After a short sketch of Alice Walker's life and literary career and a brief introduction to her first three novels, Chapter I presents a survey of the critical responses to the three novels, which witnesses a cold and even hostile reaction to her description of black males in the works in the critical circle - particularly in the black male critical world - and suggests that the study of these novels from the chosen perspective is a necessary and worthwhile undertaking. Chapter II deals with the theoretical perspective, i.e., the womanist theory. In this chapter the author of this thesis traces the development of "womanism" and analyses its connections with and differences from both "feminism" and "black feminism", which is immediately followed by a summary of the accessible principles of the womanist theory, the heart of which is its ultimate goal of "the survival and wholeness of entire people" and its concern with sexism and racism.With this as a guideline, Chapter III, the main part of the thesis centers on the exploration of Walker's womanist ideology implied in the male images in her first three novels. This chapter is subdivided into two sections. Through the analysis of the impact of Eurocentrism and androcentrism (i.e., the influence of racism and sexism) on the shaping of black male stereotypes, the first section concentratedly explores the limitations of the black male stereotypes and their detrimental influence on the life of black females and the black race as a whole, and thus naturally emphasizes the urgency and hardship for black men to undergo a self-healing change to reach the womanist goal of the spiritual survival. In the second section, the focus directly falls on the long and hard struggle of the stereotypical black men for self-redemption and self-improvement. This section examines howthese black male characters strive to shake off the confines of supremacist patriarchy, redefine their notion of manhood, regain their masculinity and humanity, and realize their regeneration in their equal and friendly relationship with other blacks (particularly black women) and even whites. Thus it sums up that the black male characters in Walker's first three novels either achieve their spiritual survival or possess the potential for such a survival. That is to say, these male images well express the author's womanist ideology.On the basis of the analysis in the previous chapters (especially that in Chapter â…¢), Chapter â…£ draws a conclusion that Alice Walker never detaches herself from the core of womanist fiction - the commitment to the spiritual survival - in her characterization of the black male images in the three novels. She reveals the typical shortcomings of black men only to prove the necessity and hardship of their self-healing transformation and, to some extent, to manifest their courage and gre...