The Quilting Of Ethnic,Gender And Literature

The rise of Contemporary African-American women writers groups is a remarkable phenomenon in the 20th century international literary circles. Alice Walker (1944 - ) is one of the most important representatives. In this paper, the author chooses to analyze her masterpiece By the Light of My Father's Smile(1998), borrowing the metaphor of quilt which is a concept in Western feminism. It respectively focuses on race,gender and literary aesthetic perspectives to reveal the rich complexity of thinking cultural connotation and unique artistic charming. This paper includes three parts: introduction, body and conclusion.Introduction: Review the association of Alice Walker with the Contemporary African American Women's Literature. Card the present study situation on Walker's novel By the Light of My Father's Smile at home and abroad. Expound the thinking, perspectives and purpose of this paper.The body includes three relative chapters.Chapter One: From the context of post-colonial criticism, this chapter discusses the cultural identity and ethnic issues contained in the father image, taking the image of father Robinson in this novel as a core. Viewing the course of the black cultural identity of Robinson from lost to seeking-back, it shows the worry of Walker to the fate of the edge cultural or ethnic minorities'culture and expresses her ideal of poly-intergrowth of mainstream cultural and non-mainstream culture. This novel displays the concern and consideration of African American women writers to the multi-cultural identity and discourse.Chapter Two: This chapter focuses to analyze the gender discourse in the framework of feminist theory, taking the image of two daughters and relationship between father and daughter as a core in this novel. It thinks that the novel reflects the sympathy to the fate of black female and the criticism to male- centralism of Walker in the position of the edge culture, black female, Lesbian. It reveals her ideological and aesthetic values orientation of the "womanism" which builds the harmony of male and female. Chapter Three: This chapter mainly analyzes two variable forms of the motif " the trial of Father"from ethnic and gender perspectives, taking the literary characteristics of novel as a core. Through smearing the image of father and the seeking-back of "father" in spirit , it thinks that Alice Walker arranges such plots in order to express her concerns to the edge culture and the marginalized groups. She hopes to built a world in which the cultures mix together but are different, male and female play dual-tone ensembles in the ethnic conflicts.Chapter Four: This chapter reveals the literary multi-dimensional narrative skills of this novel, such as performance skills and aesthetic significance from the post-modern culture style aspect, taking the literary narrative characteristics as a core. The novel of Alice Walker reflects the literary writing strategies of marginalization of the contemporary African-American female writers and the characteristics of post-modern narrative. Her novel also expresses the literary aesthetic ideal of multi-culture symbiosis from conflict to harmony and peaceful coexistence of men and women.Conclusion: Alice Walker's novel By the Light of My Father's Smile expresses her thinking to the choice of contemporary American culture and the concerns about the fate of black women from three perspectives: ethnic and cultural identity, gender discourse and literary aesthetic. The novel shows a kind of aesthetic culture model of African-American female ---- "sewing quilts", criticize the alienation of cultural identity and the bias of the gender discourse distortions of the white male-centralism. It also describes the ideal of"the Light of Father's smile"using the post- modern narrative skills and aesthetic style. It expresses the author's good wish that wants to build a new type of inter-personal relationship about harmony and coexistence of different cultures, different races and different gender. The novel inspires people to re-think the culture, ethnic and gender issues in the context of globalization.