摘 要

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Need for the study 2

2. Literature Review 4

2.1 Womanism perspective 4

2.2 Translation perspective 4

2.3 Characters and plot perspective 5

2.4 Ecofeminism perspective 6

3. Theoretical Basis 7

3.1 Definition of ecofeminism 7

3.2 The influence of ecofeminism on Alice Walker’s writing 8

3.3 Ecofeminism literary criticism 8

4. Domination of and Oppression on Nature and Black Women 11

4.1 Oppression upon nature 11

4.2 Dual oppression on black women 12

4.2.1 Gender oppression 12

4.2.2 Racial oppression 13

4.3 The homogeneity of domination of nature and women 14

5. Pursuit of Harmonious Coexistence 17

5.1 Human’s reconciliation with nature 17

5.2 Harmonious inter-growth of two genders 18

5.2.1 Celie and Mr.__ (Albert) 19

5.2.2 Sofia and Harpo 19

6. Conclusion 21

References 22

Acknowledgments

In the process of writing this thesis, I get lots of help from my teachers, friends and my cousin. Therefore, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone for their assistance.

First and foremost, I owe my tutor, Prof. Guo Ping a great debt of gratitude. She is so kind and insightful. She reads my poor drafts of the thesis patiently and provides me with some effective advice about grammar, structure and format. Each time, I have always drawn great inspiration from our discussions. There is no doubt that without her careful guidance and supervision, I would never have the opportunity to be here for my presentation of my thesis.

What is more, I am indebted to my roommate, Ms. Tao Zhi, who offers me her computer for uploading my thesis because my own computer does not work. And I also want to thank my friend, Zhou Shayi, who is generous to devote her valuable time to revising my headers for my thesis.

Finally, I am deeply grateful to my cousin for her powerful encouragement and support when I get a sense of emptiness and depression in writing thesis.

Abstract

The Color Purple is one of the influential works written by the American famous female writer Alice Walker who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1982. Acknowledging its significant contribution to the developing progress of literature, many scholars make a research in different aspects. Based on the framework of the ecofeminism theory, this thesis explores in great depth the major theme of this novel, with a focus on human’s oppression upon nature, men’s dual oppression on women (i.e., gender oppression and racial oppression) and close relatedness or homogeneity between nature and women in patriarchy. It also analyzes how the heroine and other black women struggle against patriarchy to realize the harmonious development of man and nature, men and women. A conclusion is made that only with mutual respect and understanding of men and women, can they embrace a harmonious society together. It is hoped that the study can encourage women to fight against the old system, to pursue the economic independence and spiritual liberation, and to build a harmonious society. Therefore, this study can not only stimulate more scholars to conduct research on ecofeminism theory, but also help to study the awakening of feminist consciousness under patriarchal oppression.

Keywords: The Color Purple; Ecofeminism; Feminist consciousness; Harmony

中文摘要

《紫色》是美国黑人作家爱丽斯•沃克的颇有影响力的作品之一,于1982年获得普利策奖。许多学者肯定了该作品对文学发展所作的贡献,并从诸多角度加以分析。本论文以生态女权主义理论为框架，深入探究了该小说的主题，研究视角聚焦在父权制下，人类对自然的压迫，男性对女性性别、种族上的双重压迫，以及自然与女性间的同质性或紧密联系。本论文也分析了女主人公其他黑人女性与父权制斗争从而实现人与自然、男性与女性的和谐发展的历程，从而得出结论：男性与女性只有相互理解，才能共同迎接和谐社会。希望本文的研究有助于鼓励女性反抗旧有制度，追求经济和精神独立解放，共建和谐社会。因此，本研究不仅能够激励更多学者对生态女权主义理论进行相关研究,而且还有助于研究父权制压迫下女权主义意识的觉醒。

关键词：《紫色》；生态女权主义；女性意识；和谐

Introduction

1.1 Research background

Alice Walker (1944-) is an African American black female writer, whose works are focused on the struggles of black people, especially concerning about the survival and fate of women living in the southern United Sates under patriarchal system. She wrote many poems and novels with events closely parallel with some of her personal experiences, aiming to record the rise of women’s self-consciousness and their growing up.

These books have revived people’s interest in the works of this African-American writer and anthropologist, which have exerted profound influence on African-American literature. Her novel The Color Purple creates a huge sensation in the whole world and is awarded the National Book Award for hardcover fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Alice did not indulge in the fame and progress what she has made, but passionately devoted herself to various non-profitable activities to protect people’s civil rights. What is worth emphasizing is that as an avowed feminist, Walker is the first person to use the term “womanist” to mean “A black feminist or feminist of color” (Alice, 1983; as cited in Ye, 2014:3). The term is not only a useful lubricant to unite women of different colors but also an effective weapon to advocate feminist movement. It is a declaration of independence of black women that they must be the owner of themselves, and they must be able to confront challenges and fight against injustice.

Those thoughts and actions do not come out of thin air but come from her experiences and are deeply rooted in her blood and soul. When she was an eight-year-old girl, she was accidentally wounded by her brother’s BB gun shot and she lost her right eyesight. Since then, she started to separate with friends and embarked on reading, which is an important key to open the door of reading and writing. And in her family, Alice’s mother, a determined and industrious woman, played an significant role in Alice’s life. Her mother, who was just a common black woman and worked as a seamstress to earn extra money to support life, had an outstanding soul and thought because she persisted in the belief that not only boys but girls were supposed to have the opportunity to enjoy the right of education. Despite of the shortage of materials, her mother was willing to save money cent by cent for her and bought books for little Alice. What is important was her mother’s spirit of fighting and independence, encouraging her towards the paths of pursuing equality and human rights.

The Color Purple has been widely believed as Alice Walker’s masterpiece, which exerts a widespread and profound influence around the world. It tells a story that Celie, a poor, uneducated 14-year-old girl living in a violent and tortured environment for most of her life, has become an independent and assertive woman from a naive and obedient girl with the help of Shug both in physical and emotional aspects. In this novel, Alice Walker portrays carefully the miserable life of women by taking advantage of letters from Celie, disclosing such problems as sexism, racial discrimination, self-identity and so on. Walker also analyzes the process of their awakening of self-consciousness and their strenuous struggle against patriarchal system under the influence of Shug. In the traditional thought, men dominated women so they had supreme power to control women’s destiny including raping and abusing them at any time at will. At the same time, human dominated nature so that they could develop their economy at the cost of sacrificing nature. Women are merely men’s slaves and property. For women, nothing could be done but to obey men’ s orders and take care of their families. However, in the mind of Alice Walker, women were not attached to men and nor is nature to human.

1.2 Need for the study

The thesis is necessary and significant for the following reasons. First of all, the recent four decades has witnessed the development of ecofeminism and ecofeminsm has been a hot topic. With the improvement of women’s status, much attention are paid to women’s rights and destiny so that many female experts like philosophers, historians, sociologists ponder over and expound the issue of ecofeminism from their respective fields, trying to destroy the old male-dominated world and establish a harmonious society between human and nature. Besides, in our studies of literature, whether in Chinese literature or in foreign literature, ecofeminism, of which would often be talked, is an inevitable topic if readers are longing for a better understanding of what they have read. In short, ecofeminism is a hit deserving careful and strenuous studies.

Secondly, the female characters in The Color Purple have their own struggles against men’s authorities and grope for special paths to blend into nature eventually, especially its heroine Celie who has achieved her identity and value through her arduous and courageous fight. Celie, who has suffered double oppression of racism and sexism, intends to subvert the role that the patriarchal society imposes on her and manages to change her destiny by herself. It will be a powerful book for female readers around the world, especially the oppressed countries and nations, to arm themselves for equality self-consciousness and independence. To sum up, the study can provide some enlightening thoughts on the feminist theory as well as enhance the readers’ reinterpretation of the novel from an ecofeminist perspective.

Literature Review

The Color Purple has gained abundance of attention and has been the subject of critics and scholars, some of whom highly praise the novel but the others hold a negative view. Both at home and abroad, quite a few scholars and critics study the novel from various perspectives, which contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the novel for readers. Scholars make analytic research on the novel in the following three facets.

2.1 Womanism perspective

Firstly, plenty of critics comment the novel from the perspective of womanism. Liu (2013) attaches importance to the gradual transformation of men’s personalities from the angle of womanism. It is hoped that by such a detailed analysis, readers will grasp the deep meaning of this novel and have a better understanding of womanism. Jiang (2013) makes a depiction of black women’s awakening process and makes their constant efforts to construct a happy and harmonious society. And then he highly praises the profound effects that Walker’s novel brings to female’s self-identity on the American society, as well as illustrates the essence of womanism.

2.2 Translation perspective

Secondly, there are some people who dissect the novel by means of comparing translation on the basis of some general translation theories. Ma (2014) compares the two Chinese versions of the novel and then carefully analyses it from the angle of feminist translation. Sun (2015) makes a study of the translation of homosexuality in the Chinese versions of The Color Purple, which explains the reasons why the relationship between Celie and Shug has such a huge gap in translation by analyzing and synthesizing the texts. Besides, Sun (2015) also further claims some factors that might influence the results of the study in order to enlarge the reliability and completeness of the study. Wang (2011) investigates the differences of three versions from the feminist translation angle, analyzing the details of different aspects of the novel with the conclusion that feminism consciousness of female translators is stronger than that of male translators.

2.3 Characters and plot perspective

Thirdly, a large quantity of studies have been made on the process of characters’ transformation and their growth and how such changes contribute to the construction of a balanced society. Jing (2018) clearly analyzes and explores the growth of main characters from the character, plot and narrative structure of the specific genre and concludes that a harmonious relationship will be achieved only when black men respect women’s values and women become independent. Chen (2012) makes an analysis on how the heroine, Celie, gets rid of inferiority, recovers self-consciousness and achieves economic, spiritual and social independence. And then a summary is made that only when women are independent in economy and spirit can they free themselves from oppression and abuse under cruel system. Unlike the above research, Jiang’s (2012) thesis pays much attention to the change of the male character Mr. Albert, Celie’s husband. She makes a great use of symbolic indications and phenomena to reveal the personality formation in each important stage of his life. At last, she points out the theme that men and women can spiritually survive and coexist together. However, she does not study in depth the relevant reasons and effects and neglects an important symbol, shell in the novel. As a result, her interpretation seems too superficial.

Apart from the acclaimed praise, there are some controversial comments about the novel, some scholars believe that the plot is accidental and delicate because Celie’s misfortune and her change of personality are too fast and the ending is not realistic. According to Shao amp; Bai (2011), a good plot arrangement makes the reader feel that the plot has a quality of inevitability, given a set of characters and an initial situation. It is obvious that the plot of the novel is not of this kind.