The Color Purple: Womanist Voice In The Post-colonial Context

Alice Walker is one of the most important African-American female writers of the contemporary period. Her greatest achievement, The Color Purple published in 1982, is a typical post-colonial womanist novel. It is the manifesto of black women's struggle in the highly complicated situation of the post-colonial world. Alice Walker presents her deep observation and analysis of the plight of black women in the post-colonial context in terms of racial, cultural and gender issues. This novel not only describes the African-American women's predicament, but also exposes the miserable life of African aboriginal women. In addition, Alice Walker also puts forward some possible ways to change the situation of black women. She appeals to the black women to subvert west centrism and patriarchy with womanist spirit and construct a harmonious life style for all the black people.This thesis adopts Post-colonial theory and Womanism to approach The Color Purple and intends to have a comprehensive analysis of black women's plight, foregrounding the black women's effort to establish their womanists' voice under the interwoven suppressions of race, culture and gender.The thesis consists of five parts.Part one gives a brief account of Alice Walker and her literary position. Besides, it also gives a literature review of this novel and points out the writing purpose of this thesis.Part two is the theoretical presentation of the overall research. Post-colonial theory and Alice Walker's Womanism will be explained in detail. As two major representatives of "the minority discourses", they are associative and even complimentary to each other.Part three analyzes black women's plight in the post-colonial world. The post-colonial notion of "other" is applied in the detailed analysis of black women's position in the post-colonial society from the racial, cultural and gender perspectives. Black women are both victims of white hegemonic ideology and patriarchal ideology.Part four probes the embodiment and deepening of Womanism in this novel on the basis of the affinity between Post-colonial theory and Womanism. It captures the black women's resisting voice against their marginalized position and demonstrates black women's different ways to seek identities and strive for autonomy and independence.The last part gives a brief summary of this thesis. In addition, the thesis ponders on the application of Post-colonial theory and Womanism to The Color Purple and also expects the thesis will shed new lights on the research of other black female writers' literary works.