The Growth Of Black Men In The Color Purple From The Perspective Of Woman Ism

Alice Walker (1944-) is one of the most outstanding contemporary Afro-American women writers and literary critics. As a prolific writer, she has published a large number of works, including poems, essays, novels and short stories. Alice Walker is committed to finding "a house of one’s own" for black women in the patriarchal society during all her life, and is acknowledged as "the defender and speaker of black women." Her attitude towards gender, class and race as well as her interest in black cultural heritage is deeply rooted in her own life experiences. Her most recognized novel, The Color Purple, won American Book Reward and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in1982. As an immortal literary monument in the history of the black and American literature, it is a great novel about the growth of black women. It goes beyond the previous blacks’and women’s works which focus on exposing and protesting racial discrimination. However, it brings her great success and at the same time leads to blame and condemnation. Some critics accuse Walker of smearing the black men, and disintegrating the unity of the black community. Such kind of accusation is irresponsible and inappropriate. In the novel, the images of black men are rich and multi-leveled. Walker never excludes or uglifies the black men. On the contrary, on describing the process of black women’s growth, Walker also emphasizes the possibility and the importance of black males’growth and transformation, which therefore reflects her ideal-womanism.The whole thesis is divided into five parts:The first and the last chapter are introduction and conclusion part. Chapter two and chapter three apply the approaches of textual analysis and Alice Walker’s womanism. The two chapters look at black men’s growth respectively from their identities as victims of racism and sexist victimizers. Chapter four focuses on the causes of the growth of black man in the novel. The independence of the women characters, the development of black movement and Alice Walker’s own thought all lay the solid foundation of the growth of black men in the novel. These causes, from the surface to the center, demonstrate the changes and growth of black men in the novel. Based on detailed textual analysis of The Color Purple with Alice Walker’s womanism as its major theoretical support, this thesis explores images of black men and the black community in the novel. This thesis not only breaks out of the conventional formula of the critiques about the novel, but makes an attempt at unveiling the images of black male characters and carrying out the core of womanism advocated by Walker:the black community’s wholeness with both men and women’s growth and transformation. Moreover, the paper also points out the limitations of Walker’s womanism.