Quest For Self Identity In The Color Purple

Alice Walker is considered to be a brilliantly gifted, productive and celebrated Afro-American woman writer, who exerts great influence on contemporary American literature. The Color Purple mainly delineates Celie’s spiritual growth from a numb object to an independent female, from an obedient slave to a rebellious warrior and finally transforms from being oppressed to actively fighting against oppression.As the initiator of womanist theory, Alice Walker provides a new angle for critics and scholars to form a deep understanding of women’s oppression and liberation. Womanism shows concerns to the colored women’s plight and destiny, lays emphasis on female bonding and attaches great importance to the black heritage and legacy. Most importantly, womanism sets an ultimate goal of survival wholeness that black men and women would transform from confrontation to coexistence and live in harmony altogether.This thesis explores black women’s quest for self identity under sexist and racist oppression from a womanism perspective, focusing on black women’s spiritual growth under dual oppression. Firstly, the author reviews both the western and Chinese understandings of womanism and self identity, which lay the theoretical foundation for the whole thesis. Then the thesis probes into historical causes for black women’s marginalized identity from the perspectives of patriarchal dominance and racial discrimination. Under the sexist and racist oppression by being both black and female, black women fail to claim their own voice, subordinate to a marginalized position and suffer a great loss of self identities. Afterwards, the thesis aims to emphasize on the significance of female bonding and their inner awakening to strive for black women’s self identity. Black women never stop claiming their voice and seeking their self identity even being severely oppressed. They make great efforts to resist exploitation in the process of struggling for their self identity. Gradually, with the help of female bonding, black females accumulate great courage and hope to fight against dual oppression. Meanwhile, they walk on a new journey of inner awaking and start to reconsider their value and identity. By restoring the body and liberating the voice, black women are on their way to quest for self identity and liberation. Eventually, this thesis interprets black women’s fulfillment of their self identity by achieving both economic independence and spiritual liberation. Owing to their endless struggling, they finally transform themselves from a subordinate role to an independent female with obvious self identity and realize the ultimate goal of survival wholeness by establishing a harmonious relationship with black men.The Color Purple aims to delineate black women’s ceaseless struggling for freedom and liberation. The thesis concentrates on black women’s quest for self identity, which contributes new insights for readers to understanding the essence of this great novel.