An Analytic Study Of Family In The Color Purple

This study is focused on the analysis of the family in the novel The Color Purple. As an African American writer, Alice Walker addressed in this novel the problems existed and existing within the Black community and families, such as slavery legacy, domestic violence, sexism, etc; as a womanist, she also presented to those problems solutions according to her womanism ideology and African American traditional culture such as sisterhood, mutual help and respect, love, etc, so as to enable both gender to flourish, colored or not, in the world as a whole. In this novel, as well as in the history of African American people's rebellion and survival, the family is closely interwoven with the fate of Black men and women—structurally, family is the scene where main characters'metaphysics take place, where their journey started and ended; spiritually, the vital nexus joins men and women together; culturally, the soil where African American culture and tradition take root. So the ambition of this study is to find out what is Alice Walker's ideal concept of family and to what extent it relates to African American tradition and"womanism"within the context of The Color Purple.This study is primarily divided into three parts. The first chapter of this study focused discussion on how African Americans are tormented by the legacy they blindly inherited from the slavery--the White family ideology and structure. As the novel shows, both Black men and Black women are hurt and maimed in the families haunted by slavery, because in the White pattern of nuclear, isolated families where patriarchal concept dominates, Black women are still treated as slaves by their own men, their fathers and brothers. Consequently, family is absent from Black women; and Black men can't see the happiness they are longing for because they are reinforcing the evil power used to oppress and to exploit Black people, Black men and women alike.In the second chapter, what will be discussed is how men and women purified in their purgatorial family. In their distorted families, female characters learn how to appreciate themselves(such as Celie and Mary Agnes), how to draw strength from sisterhood and communal help(such as Shug and Celie, Sofia and Mary Agnes), to channel their anger into creative activity instead of violence(Celie making Folkpants). Some main concepts of womanism and African American tradition such as the independence of woman, sisterhood, extended family structure are discussed in this chapter. What also is discussed in this chapter is what men learn from their broken families and their women—they learn to relinquish their desire to dominate in order to engage in more human and egalitarian relationships with everyone around them(such as Albert and his son, Harpo).The third chapter is centered on the analysis of how Alice Walker emphasized the importance of the Black people's extended family and problem of the root of the African American through the two symbolic home-returns of the two sisters, Celie and Nettie. The first part of this chapter is focused on discussing how Celie reclaimed her long-lost house and afterward reconstituted on it a traditional African American family where men and women reconciled and fare harmoniously. The second part of this chapter analyses how Nettie's symbolic return from Africa conveyed Alice Walker's thought on the problem about her people's root—African American people should and only can resolve their problems and strive in where they belonged to—America.As history told us, racism, sexism and violence are not completely exocised by the Emancipation Proclamation and Civil Rights Movement; the problems between men and women, between individuals and society do not just exist within Black community; so Alice Walker's emphasis on the power of family is definitely constructive—not only to the Black community—because a happy,harmonious family is the prerequisite and goal of the harmony of society, prosperity of the individual, concord between men and women.