Black Males’ Transformation

Alice Walker is one of the most talented African-American womenwriters in20thcentury. After the publication of The Color Purple, she became thefirst black woman writer in America to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. In this paper,three major novels of Alice Walker are selected, namely, The Third Life of GrangeCopeland, The Color Purple, and By the Light of My Father’s Smile. In these novels,Alice Walker probes into the internal problems of the black family, that is, therelationships between black male and female, father and son, father and daughter,and husband and wife, etc. Walker describes the oppression of black males and itssocial roots. Moreover, she indicates that only through the transformation of blackmales, harmonious relationship between black males and black females and survivalwholeness of entire people could be realized.Besides being a prolific writer, Walker has also put forward the theory ofwomanism, which is widely regarded as her great contribution to literature. In orderto differentiate it from feminism, Alice Walker coins the term womanism and givesa definition in her collection of essays entitled In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens(1983). Womanism advocates the survival and wholeness of the entire black race,including black males.Most of the existing researches aim at the black females’ transformation andgrowth in Walker’s works. Some critics speak highly of Alice Walker and considerher to be a classical author in American literature. Yet many critics and scholars hold negative attitude toward the black males and they believe that Walker describes theblack male characters as abusive, violent, arrogant and weak. They are not satisfiedwith such negative depiction of the black male characters. After a close reading ofthe texts, this paper holds the view that the black male’s transformation and growthalso reflect Walker’s womanist theory.On the basis of womanism, this paper analyzes the major black males of thethree novels and explores the black males of different ages and different social andeconomic status. As fathers and husbands, their destructive influence on their wivesand children. As sons, they are victims of their fathers. Then the necessity, processand result of their quest for transformation are analyzed step by step in order toreveal the embodiment of womanism on black male characters.This thesis is divided into three parts: introduction, main body and conclusion.The first part is introduction, including Walker’s literary status, literaturereview, theoretical basis and layout of the thesis.The main body of the thesis analyzes womanism that is reflected by the blackmales. The first chapter analyzes the necessity of transformation for the three works’major black males. The second chapter analyzes the process of their quest fortransformation in detail. Chapter three is about the transformation of black malesand its positive influence on black females’ transformation and the survivalwholeness of black community. Chapter four analyzes the similarities anddifferences of the major black males in the three works, the reasons for womanism’sconcern with black males and the relationship between black male characters andwomanism.The conclusion is that the depiction of black male characters reflects Walker’swomanism. That is, the transformation and endings of the main black males realizethe ideal of womanism: survival wholeness of all people, including black males.