Celie's Quest For Her Identity As A Black Woman

Alice Walker, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is one of the most popular and successful Afro-American women writers in American contemporary literature. The Color Purple, her great achievement so far, has attracted the attention of many readers and critics. In The Color Purple, Walker describes the development of the female protagonist Celie's awakening process from a miserable girl to a mature and successful businesswoman, who has finally achieved her independence both in family and society. And this fiction is always regarded as the best illustration of Walker's womanism. Womanism differs from feminism and mainly concerns about the colored women, and it is called "the feminism of color" by Walker. It is in pursuit of the survival and coexistence of the whole people. This paper attempts to analyse the difficult questing process of Celie from a womanist perspective. This paper consists of three chapters including an introduction and a conclusion: The first chapter is mainly about Celie's maturing process from numbness to awareness, which is the prelude for her to fight for both familial and social independence. And such awareness is the premise for Celie's later success in gaining her identity.The second chapter basically analyses how Celie fights for the familial independence. Through Celie's own determination and with the support and love of other black women, she finally gets the courage to rebel against the domination of patriarchy and becomes the subject in her family life.The third chapter mainly makes an analysis of Celie's seeking after social independence, which is necessary for her final social identity reconstruction. After a long and difficult process, Celie finally finds her identity and becomes a womanist with the help and encouragement of other women.The thesis ends with a conclusion that the colored women should still be independent even though both racism and sexism are reluctant to vanish into history. If the colored women failed to be independent and powerful enough, Celie's tragedy will happen again sooner or later.