Alice Walker's Womanist Theory And The Color Purple

Alice Walker (1944-) is one of the most influential American black women writers. Her novel The Color Purple has aroused great reverberation since its publication in 1982.The Color Purple is different from the works of the black male writers, as well as those of the white female writers. The black male writers only emphasize the racial discrimination, and ignore the sexual discrimination; while the white female writers limit the struggle for women's equal rights to the white race. Confronting this partiality, Alice Walker proposed womanism, which emphasizes both the racial discrimination and the sexual discrimination, and expands the struggle for the black women's equal rights. The thesis will analyze how the black women characters in The Color Purple seek self-identity under the two oppressions from the angle of womanism.Part One introduces Alice Walker and her main works and makes a brief introduction to The Color Purple, and analyzes the symbol of the color purple.Part Two introduces Walker's womanist theory, including its connotation and formation as well as the differences between womanism and feminism..Part Three mainly focuses on the analysis of the theme of the novel from womanist theory, which is illustrated in two points. The first point is an examination of black women's two oppressions of racial and sexual discrimination; the second point focuses on the black women's quest for self-identity, which is subdivided into two aspects: the sisterhood between the black women and the lesbian relationship between Celie and Shug Avery.Part Four summarizes the contents mentioned above and restates the theme of the thesis.