Alice Walker’s Construction Of Female Alliances In Her Three Novels

Alice walker is regarded as one of the most important Afro-American writers.In 1983,her masterpiece The Color Purple made her the first Afro-American female writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.This paper is based on three novels by Alice Walker: The Third Life of Grange Copeland,The Color Purple and By The Light of My Father’s Smile.In it I will be attempting to identify how Walker provides us with solutions to building harmony between the Afro-American males and females through imperturbable alliances between the two,in order to better realize collective survival.On the ground of Alice Walker’s womanism,I analyse relationships between characters from the above novels and sort out the reason,process and meaning of such alliances.Furthermore,I discuss the role of males and females from different ages,social status and economic status in the alliances and therefore illustrate how womanism contributes to Afro-American collective survival.The first part is an introduction,which provides background information about Alice Walker and her works,followed with literature review and theoretical foundation.The second part analyzes how Walker achieves Afro-American collective survival through womanism indicated by female-female and female-male alliances,which combines with foundation of Afro-American female alliances through explanations of shared oppression and self-identity crisis.I will also examine the construction of Afro-American alliances in female alliances and female-male alliances and the significance of Afro-American alliances,leading to the fulfilment of self-identity that bring about real independence.The last part is the conclusion,which from the perspective of womanism,analyses how the characters in the novels have changed their minds.They often begin as negative and ignorant,but as time goes by they achieve self-transformation and become positive.Female alliances have finally become a collective concept,which includes both of female-female and female-male alliances.Such relationships need to be further perfected in order to achieve Afro-American collective survival and harmonious coexistence.