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摘 要

艾丽斯·沃克的《紫色》是典型的关于黑人女性意识的小说，揭露了黑人女性在生活中所遭受的不平等待遇，例如种族歧视和性别歧视。这篇小说主要描述了在性别和种族的双重压迫下黑人女性生存的政治环境和生活状态，以及她们反抗双重压迫不断完善自我、追求美好生活。出于对自己同胞姐妹们处境的同情、理解、支持和热爱以及对于她们命运的关心，艾丽斯·沃克在小说中成功塑造了莎格，索菲亚和西丽等几个典型的由传统走向独立的黑人妇女形象。本文通过剖析莎格，索菲亚和西丽这三位小说女主人公殊途同归的妇女形象，浅析作者意图阐述的反对性别歧视，追求自由独立博爱的妇女主义概念。

关键词：艾丽斯·沃克；黑人女性；妇女主义；

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2.Literature Review 2

3. An Introduction to Alice Walker’s Womanism 3

4. Typical Womanist Images in The Color Purple 5

4.1 Traditional Black Women in History 5

4.2 Celie-- from Submission to Rebellion 7

4.3 Shug--an Independent and Unruly Black Woman 9

4.4 Sofia--a Rebellious Spirit 10

5. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

Alice walker is one of the most famous and successful black women writers in American literature. She was born in a small town of Eatonton, Georgia. She has witnessed her parents’ tragic experience with the oppressive sharecropping system and the racism of the American South and it also had influenced her life a lot. Once in 1965, Alice Walker joined Civil Rights Movement after her graduation, which had deep influence on her novels, such as The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), Meridian (1976) and The Color purple. Alice Walker was also involved in the Women’s Liberation Movement. The two movements all influenced Alice Walker’s life. Walker’s attitude towards race, gender and class issues and her searching for the black cultural heritage were rooted deeply in The Color Purple published in 1982, which is considered as her representative and most successful work. Since the publication of the novel, it has caused a great response and also made Alice Walker win the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Greatly influenced by feminism, Alice Walker determined to take racial equality and the emancipation of women as her life career, which was reflected greatly in The Color Purple. This novel is a deep analysis of the double oppression of black women, which is racial discrimination and gender discrimination. The barriers of awakening and liberation for black women also have been revealed in the novel. It encourages black women to wake up and fight for themselves. This novel also reveals black men and white people’s oppression and discrimination to black women.

The Color Purple attracts me because of its unique writing style and Walker has applied the epistolary form in this novel and this form of narration is very rare among the latest novels. The whole story is made up of ninety-two letters. Black people’s culture and black women’s subsistence status reflected in the novel attract me a lot. This thesis is aiming to analyze the typical womanist images in the novel. Structurally, this thesis is composed of five main parts. Chapter one deals with the introduction of the author and her main contributions, and general introduction of The Color Purple; chapter two is literature review; chapter three introduces Alice Wallker’s womanism; chapter four briefly analyzes the negative stereotype of triditional black women and illustrates the important part of this thesis. This chapter analyzes the novel in details, revealing the womanist images and spirits of frighting on Celie, Shug and Sofia. And the last chapter is the conclusion.

2. Literature Review

Many people abroad are very interested in Alice Walker and her novels, especially The Color Purple. Some people regard it as striking and consummately well-written. The book is very attrative, as a result, it places her in the company of Faulker, from whom she has learned many ideas, such as, the presentation of a complex story from a naive point of view.

Many critics have praised the novel, The Color Purple. Peter Prescott consider it as “an American novel of permanent importance”（1985: 68）; Barbara Smith asserts it“The book is like a jewel. Any way you hold it to the light you will always see something new reflected”（1990: 214）. But in contrast, many people hold different views, some critics stated Alice Walker as an apologist, because she speaks or writes in defence of the liberation of the black woman. Other people also criticize the description of the bloody violence in her novels.

Similar to scholars abroad and with the passion for American minority literature, more and more Chinese scholars made their contributions to the literary studies of the novel the color purple, such as Wang Chengyu who analyzes the black women and the language in the text:

Blank language art in The Color Purple deepen the theme, and also has emphasized the rhetoric effect of irregular variant. It can cause the attention of readers, leave them more memorable deep impression, it also increases the readability of the story and mystery, so that readers can"t help track Celie, to explore the secret life of the black family and pay attention to the development of Celie’s destiny. Blank language art will make this novel have more artistic charm. (2000: 70).

Zhang Hongmin who tries to reveal what are the roles of God in The Color Purple; Wu Hongjun who want to deconstruct sexism and racism of the patriarchal society embodied in The Color Purple:“It describes the black women’s political condition and state of life under the racial and sexual oppression, their fighting against the double oppression and searching for the integrity of self and life.” (2004: 43) And Sun Qiao tries to analyze the novel from the perspective of feminism, but she focuses on the relationship between the writing style of the novel and the theory in the novel. Ji Min makes an analysis of the protagonists from the perspective of transformation. This thesis analyzes the womanist images of Celie, Shug and Sofia in the novel and they all overturned the negative stereotype of black women.

3. An Introduction to Alice Walker’s Womanism

Alice Walker is a famous contemporary black feminist novelist in the United States. After suffering so much hardship of double oppresion, she was acutely aware of the difficulties and the negative impact black women have undergone. For centuries, they have experienced the oppression of white racism and gender discrimination of black men and white men. Their identities were marginalized and disenfranchised, they are still at the bottom of the society. Therefore, Alice walker has made great efforts to explore the living conditions of black women, revealing their tragic destiny, and tried her best to seek possible solutions. Womanism is one of her most outstanding achievements in her career .

Obviously, womanism should be a woman doctrine; but the point is that the womanist should serve for which sex, man or woman? First of all, Walker noted that a womanist should love other women, no matter sexually or nonsexually, which means that both lesbians and non-lesbians can be the womanist. It also puts emphasis on the sisterhood. Among Walker’works, good relationship between women can be found everywhere. The protagonist in Meridian, Meridian, helps "Wile Chile" pregnant. In The Color Purple, the lesbian love between Celie and Shug, and the friendship among Celie, Shug, Sophia, Nettie and etc., which all illustrate the important influence of sisterhood on the liberation of black womem. She also put emphasis on women’s culture and women’s emotions. When she wrote The Color Purple, Alice Walker lived a very simple life in a mountainous village, but she still did not forget to make the quilt. “I bought a quilt pattern for my mama to cover, it was easy. I worked on my quilt. And my quilt began to grow”. (Walker, 2006: 71) It was making the quilt that helps walker a lot to finish this novel. In The Color Purple, Celie, Sophia and Shug also make a quilt named “sister’s choice” that symbolizes their friendship. In addition to women’s good relationship, Walker also never forgets men. The womanist should also love individual men, sexually or nonsexually, because they are womanists, they should devote themselves to the entire people, no matter they are male or female. The womanist should not only work for the liberation of their own race of black people, but also be the universalist, which means that they should also work for all the human beings regardless of their skin colors. People with any skin color, such as white, beige, black, brown, pink, yellow are all brothers and sisters. Therefore although the womanist are the colored women, they should work for all human beings, no matter male and female with any skin color. Womanists should be brave and be activists. They should be brave and capable enough to fight for freedom and protect their people. The ancestors have fought for years and it would not be the last time to fight until everyone gets his/her liberation. Therefore, the womanist must be full of love, loving music, loving poetry, loving dance, loving all the creatures and mostly important, loving himself/herself. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, Walker depicts the lives of many black women, who should be her mothers and grandmothers. They are all the sexual objects of men. “They stumbled blindly and hardly through their lives: creatures so abused and mutilated in their bodies, so dimmed and so confused by pain, that they considered themselves as unworthy people without any hope”. (Walker, 2006: 2) Under such living conditions, however, their creativities are still strong enough and enable them to be artists. They would like to paint watercolors of the sunrise and model heroic figures of rebellion in stone or clay; they do not have any free time and their time was full occupied with baking biscuits and bread for lazy men and their bodies were weak because of bearing so many children. The quilt made by an anonymous black woman in Alabama a hundred years ago was hang in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.. This quilt was the best example of black women’s artistic creation. Thus, for black and any other colored woman, the uniqueness of their culture lies in that their heritage are all full of love: love struggle, love creatures, love their folks and themselves. Womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender. The explication delimits the scope of the womanist, which means that only the black or colored feminist can be called the womanist. This notion is set against the main-stream white feminism that has alienated working class and colored women from the movement of liberation struggle.

As a black woman, Alice Walker is mainley concerned about the condition of black women, but she never forget other oppressed colored women. Therefore the womanist is not simply the black feminist. In the first explanation, Walker also gives the origin of the womanist Therefore, a womanist must have the characterastics which the word “womanish” suggests, such as, generous, willful, brave, courageous, serious, responsible and mature. As a womanist, Alice Walker demonstrates these characters thoroughly through this novel. When she was young , she was very confident with herself and knew exactly how to show herself. Girl as she was, she could cry out in front of her brothers unscrupulously. When she was a student in college, she actively took part in the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Movement on her own. Walker was also the pineer who opened the course of black women literature in her college. Walker commits herself to the literation of black women and connects her destiny with all the black women’s closely. There are many differences between the goals of feminism and those of womanism. The goal of feminism is only for the situation of the white middle-class women, and the goal of womanism is for all the women in the world.

Alice Walker tries to invent the new word “womanism” to describe the black women’s tragic experience of feminism. Walker makes a very clear definition for the “womanism” theory. Walker’s theory of womanism put emphasis on a close relation between women and nature. If women want to obtain freedom and liberation, they should break the chains of oppression, like a plant that tries to go through stone toward the sun. As a womanist, Alice Walker appreciates the full equality between men and women. Walker has lived through the times when the Civil Rights Movement and Women’s Liberation Movement were developing rapidly. Many black women writers’ works were written and published at that time and they all made many achievements. So these external conditions are very beneficial to the formation of Walker’s womanism.

4. Typical Womanist Images in The Color Purple

4.1 Traditional Black Women in History

Many black women writers have long focused on black women’s negative stereotype images in the white culture and patriarchal society. However, Walker’s novel The Color Purple make these black women who have been rejected from white culture for a long time express their voice, and has overturned the negative stereotype images of black women in the past.

In the 19th century, the typical images of the white women in the southern United States are submissive, cowardly, fair-skinned and elegant, but they depend on men in economy and psychology. Truly elegant white women should be gentle and holy, and do not need to do manual labor; they also do not need to undertake the responsibility of taking care of children and doing housework, because labor is considered as inferior servants’ work. In the contrast, the two images of the black women in south are the two extremes. One kind is unfettered wild black female image, which is beautiful, passionate, and dissolute. White women are different, and they are submissive and noble. Black women are thought to belong to the inferior race; they have never received education, and thus their instincts are more prominent than white women. They are different from white women who have normal moral ethics; these black women do not have moral constraints in sexuality. This kind of black woman is lighter than general black women in skin color. They are hot and sexy, and they enjoy dissolute life. Although those black women’s beautiful appearances accord with the aesthetic standards of the patriarchal society, they do not belong to the beautiful and usually they are credited with evil nature, belonging to the class of bad girls. The characteristic of these beautiful black women who are dissolute, sexually irresponsible constituted a negative stereotype of American black women. The other kind of black women image is strong, hard-working and ugly. Usually they are nonsexual and act as black nannies. One important point that makes black women differ from white women is that they have the same capability with men. They can work in the fields and the strong black nanny takes the responsibility of taking care of the children and doing housework for the white hostess. “Black women are in enslaved status and are considered to belong to the inferior race therefore they cannot have the double identity of wife and mother just like a white woman.”(Yang Jincai, 1995: 6) They only play the role of mothers and workers. Black women attached great importance to the mother’s role. In Africa, the relationship between mother and child is considered sacred, as a symbol of the earth’s relationship with creativity. However, black women’s love for children is crooked to the nature of uncivilized blacks’ passion for children. The fact that black women treat the responsibility of mother as the natural divine duty deepens the white’s view that black women are naturally suitable for baby-sitting and taking care of children.

These negative prototype images of black women in fact play the role of controlling and dominating them and so that they denied the importance of themselves, which is a crackdown on black women in essence. Walker is trying to create strong women images to reverse the negative stereotype images in the novels, and show the real aspect of the black women. Celie, Shug and Sophia are typical strong and independent black women, so they are different from black women’s negative prototype.

4.2 Celie-- from Submission to Rebellion

As the main character in The Color Purple and as a black woman, the protagonist Celie in the novel undergoes the double oppression-not only the oppression of the white men but also the oppression of the black men in the patriarchal society. She is the dual victim of both racial discrimination and gender discrimination. Under the double oppression, she chooses to accept the reality passively instead of rebellion at the beginning of the novel.

Celie gradually awakens from many aspects under the help of Shug, Sofia and Nettie. At the beginning of the novel, Celie regards God as omnipotent who can solve all of her sufferings and confusions, so she always writes to God to pour out her spiritual torture and pain. She expects God to tell her what is happening to her and why she is so confused. Later, she finally finds out that God is a man just like all the other men, she begins to awaken and she does not believe in God any more. Especially after her knowing the truth that God is just a man and he cannot do anything for her, she can neither trust nor forgive the God. She turns to writing to her sister instead of writing to God because of the disappointment and resentment. Celie’s self-consciousness begins to awaken and great changes take place on her. When she knows that her husband has been hiding her sister’s letters from Africa for years, she is so angry that she has an impulse to kill her husband. This behavior was unimaginable before, because Celie never got angry at the dinner table.

Another time, when Celie expresses her hope to go to Memphis together with Shug, her husband wants to beat her in order to stop her. However, she uses a knife to cut her hand and as a result, her husband dares not to beat her again. After awakening, Celie becomes brave to fight against the man and struggles openly with those who oppress her. Celie is gradually awaken and change herself not only by uttering her own voice but also fighting against the oppression of the black men like her husband, so that she can get the same right and dignity with the men.

For the main character Celie, the sisterhood gives her great power, especially the friendship from Shug for many years. The beautiful blues singer, Shug, becomes a symbol of freedom and happiness in Celie’s dream. So she becomes Celie’s life mentor naturally. For so many years after Marriage, for the first time Celie discovers the beauty of the female body. It is also the first time for Celie to realize that sex is not the patent of men. She and Shug gradually develop the relationship of lesbians to strengthen and consolidate the confidence in their hearts. The black scholar Bernard Bell points out, homosexuality is the path for Celie to find herself, to the sisterhood and brotherhood of mankind. The black feminist critic, Barbara Kristen, points out that Celie and Shug’s lesbian relationship is liberating, natural.

The economic independence is also important for Celie in The Color Purple. After Celie’s father and uncles die, she follows her mother to go into the stepfather’s family in order to survive. Consequently, she gets married with a man who has 4 children. The only thing she can do in the family is to do all the housework and to take care of the four children. But she still has no position at all in the family. Later on, under the influence of Shug, she obtains the economic independence by making pants for all kinds of people. Then she no longer needs to depend on her husband. “She is a strong, independent character who is proud of whatever she does, and can’t be controlled by men, no matter who they are.”(Smith, 1990: 34)

Celie’s awakening of self-consciousness marks her progress and maturity. It also symbolizes that she has made a stride on the way to the pursuit of freedom and independence. When Albert satirizes her, “you are pore, you are black, you are ugly, you are a woman…you are nothing at all”, she retorts bravely: “I’m pore, I’m black, I may be ugly…But I’m here.” (Walker, 2006: 91) Till now, Celie has relieved herself completely. She possesses the sense of self-worth that she previously lacked. Her words show that she is a new woman, having own feelings and thoughts. It seems as an independent declaration of a woman who has confidence, dignity and unique personality. Celie gradually gains the ability to integrate her thoughts and feelings into a voice that is her own and try to express it. Celie’s maturity reflects Walker’s idea: woman can gain the real independence and freedom by the means of establishing themselves, getting rid of the traditional mental chain forced on them, protecting the integrity of their own spiritual world and relying on the support and regard among women. If women want to live a better life, they can only start by themselves, and thus gain recognition and respect from men, and then they may establish the proper and harmonious relationship with men.

4.3 Shug--an Independent and Unruly Black Woman

Shug is a typical womanist character created by Walker. She is an independent sexy beautiful black blues singer with characteristics of womanism. Her self-consciousness is very strong .When she was in the church and the pastor was condemning her behavior and even when she was dying, she still paid attention to dressing herself up. Shug seems to be the kind of black woman that is in conformity with the negative image of wild, uninhibited and sexy black women. She is so beautiful that she can attract man by her charm. She never thinks sex is a sin and dares to enjoy it. In the parish of her village, she is considered to be the embodiment of evil, but she never feels guilty for her way of life.

Shug surpasses the traditional social definitions of gender roles. She is so beautiful, confident, and the most important thing is that she has a life of independence. Singer is the profession which not only gives her economic independence, but also helps her develop the independent personality, allowing her to become an independent woman who can avoid patriarchal norms. Celie’s husband Albert once talked to Celie about Shug and he said “to tell you the truth, when Shug is doing something, she is more manly than most men, I mean, she is honest, open, fair..., Shug is good at struggling, just like Sophia.” (Walker, 2006: 102) These are the characteristics of the man, but Albert’s son Hubble isn’t such a person, nor is Albert.

As Shug’s relationship with Celie develops, Shug fills the role of mother, lover, sister and friend. She is different from ordinary black women. She not only runs her own business, but also acts in a more manly way than most men. She is honest and upright. She determines to live her own life and be herself in spite of other people’s comment. And all these features reflect the characteristics in the womanism, which Walker defines. Just under the enlightenment and instruction by such a womanist, Celie finds herself and her self-consciousness. Women call on themselves to be self-liberated and gain success under the guide of themselves. This reflects the author’s hope and confidence of seeking self-liberation through cooperating and struggling together among the black women.

By creating a confident, independent, free and unfettered black female Shug, Walker subverts the past dangerous, irresponsible and wild black women prototype image and sets up a new image of black women.

4.4 Sofia--a Rebellious Spirit

Sofia is another woman who has womanist characteristics in the book. She has strong and stubborn personality, and has a great spirit of resistance. She knows how to maintain her own interests and dignity; she tries to fight all the injustice with intrepid personality. Her strong personality gives her the courage to challenge patriarchy and racism. Sophia’s rebel spirit not only lets she leave her husband, Harper, but also makes her challenge the racial order of her living communities. She doesn’t want to be the servant of mayor’s wife; she also refuses to put up with the mayor’s insult. As a result she has been beaten by the white police, and put in prison. Even when she has been released, she still can’t escape the torture, she is forced to be the servant in mayor’s house for a decade. When Sophia was in jail, she finally let all her defenses down. “Once they order me to work, Miss Celie, I jumped up and do as they say, just like you.”(Walker, 2006: 23) Even when she was beaten and rolled with the punches in prison, she still had a rebellious spirit in her deep heart. She has complained to Celie about the bad environment in prison. “I want to kill people even when I was in my dream.” she said, “whether when I am awake or asleep, I want to kill people.”（Walker, 2006: 141）

Sofia has a strong body and can work in field. She also has been forced to be a servant in mayor’s house more than a decade. In some ways, she is similar to the image of a black nanny. But Sofia is completely not suitable for the role of the black nanny, because she dares to resist and tries to maintain her dignity. Black nannies bear the burden of responsibility because they are patient and will be loyal to the white masters. The most important is that they like the white children. When Sofia goes to white families to be the servant, she is cold and indifferent to the white children. Although the mayor’s daughter Eleanor always wants to approach her, wishing she could love her like a nanny. However, Sofia ignores her. Ten years later, when she finishes the service at the mayor’s house, she tells Eleanor she never loves her from beginning to end.

Sofia is different from the traditional weak women, she boldly crosses gender boundaries: she plays the role of men at home and in the fields, feeding cattle, roofing and chopping wood. However, Hubble who has the nature of cowardice likes doing housework, doing some bits and pieces and taking care of the children. In the patriarchal society, the male character is positioned as able, strong and active, while female character is positioned as weak and passive. The description of the relationship between Sophia and Hubble impacts the traditional gender roles. Shug and Sophia are considered to be more manful than most men, but Celie thinks they have a lot of women’s temperament. However, in the patriarchal culture, strong and independent women are always repressed because it threatens the stability of the patriarchal social order. Sophia is a woman who has a strong body and rebellious spirit, but in that society people do not like strong women, especially black women, thus this leads to her tragic fate later.

5. Conclusion

Alice Walker’s womanism is not merely improving the traditional feminism for the black women. It is important for the black women to unite with the white women who have racism to fight against patriarchy. However, the fact that the blacks are oppressed in the white-dominated society doesn’t mean that racism is the only thing for the black women to pay attention to. Walker has her own unique opinion in her special gender and her cultural background. It concerns not only the sexual discrimination the black women endure, but also the oppression the whole black race suffering in politics, economy and psychology. It is the black women’s awakening under the double oppression. It puts emphasis on the mental health of the whole black race and the final goal is to gain the solidarity between the black men and the black women under the precondition of gender equality.

In The Color Purple, Alice Walker portrays a new black woman image: a womanist image, who struggles to gain self-identify and self-consciousness under racial and sexual discrimination both in the society and in the family. Alice Walker is mainly concerned with the political condition in which black women are living in, reveals the tragic life black women live under the double oppression and explores the sexual and racial politics employed by men and racists to oppress and torment women. Alice Walker subverts the negative stereotype that has imposed on the black women and has broken the shackles which set upon black women for a long time, and successfully creates three new womanist images, Celie, Shug and Sophia, who struggle to reclaim their identities and self-worth.

Works Cited

[1]Presscott, S.Peter. “A Long Road to Liberation--REV. of The Color Purple by Alice Walker”. Newsweek, June 21, 1985.

[2]Smith, Barbara. “The Truth of Never Hurts: Black Lesbians in Fiction in the 1980s”. Joanne M Braxton and Andree Nicola Mclaughlin, ed. Wild women in the whirlwind: Afro an American culture and the contemporary literary Renaissance. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990.

[3]Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Harcourt Trade Publisher, 2006.

[4]王成宇．《lt;紫色gt;的空白语言艺术》．外国文学研究，2000(4)：64-70.

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