| As one of the most famous black writers in America nowadays, Alice Walker’sworks attract many scholars’ attentions and researches and The Color Purple is a typicalone. This novel earns her the Pulitzer Prize after its publication and she is the first blackwoman to win this award. Though it receives many favorable comments, the sensitivethemes of this novel arouse a storm of controversy.The Color Purple mainly describes how a weak black girl, with the assistance ofsisterhood, transforms into a confident, independent and successful woman. Walkercoins the term "womanism" so as to differ from white feminism. Womanist theory aimsto reveal the dual oppressions of sexism and racism which black women experience andmake an appeal to black women to band together in order to realize self salvationthrough awakening in spirit and struggles in action, its ultimate purpose is to commit tothe survival and wholeness of men and women and the harmony of entire people. TheColor Purple fully embodies the ideas and concepts of womanism, so many critics andscholars analyze this novel from this perspective.With the rise and development of queer theory in the90s, more and more criticsand scholars find that there are some similarities between womanism and queer theoryand many characters in this novel have the qualities of queer theory. Both of womanismand queer theory rebel against the heterosexual hegemony and try to deconstruct thedualism on gender and race, their ultimate aim is to build up a harmonious society inwhich people of different genders and races can live freely and happily.This thesis mainly analyzes this novel from the aspects of rebelling againstheterosexual hegemony, deconstructing obsolete dichotomy, establishing a harmoniousand equal society. Through analyzing the "queer" qualities of main characters in thisnovel, such as the free and equal homosexual love between Celie and Shug, thebisexuality of Shug, the reverse gender roles between Harpo and Sofia, thetransformation of Mr.X and so on, and the rebellion against sexism and racismthroughout the novel to show the deconstruction of obsolete dichotomy and the establishment of harmonious world which queer theory proposes. The happy reunion ofthe big family fully represents Walker’s ideas of "the survival and wholeness of entirepeople" and the realization of the final aim of queer theory. |
