Womanism In Alice Walker's The Color Purple

She struggles against sexual objectification and exploitation. Through Helga’s fight for sexual autonomy, the book illustrates two stereotypes of African American females which prevail throughout the literature. The novel depicts limitations of stereotypes held across Europe and the United States. The stereotypes’ pervasiveness is conveyed via constant change of settings. For instance, it criticizes reactionary stereotypes that treated sex with reticence and caution to counterbalance literary and social myths about sexuality of the black women.

Alice Walker wrote her own literary criticism; Walker has stated before she is “committed to exploring the oppressions, the insanities, the loyalties, and triumphs of black women”. It is evident that Walker writes about oppressions, loyalties, and triumphs of a black women masterfully because her description of these is realistic. Alice Walker realistically portrays Celie being oppressed by men because she is sexually, physically, and emotionally abused. Celie opens up her story by explaining how she is sexually abused by her father because her mother is sick and can not fill the needs of what her father wants. Celie tells the only person she can, God about what her dad has done.

In 1982, Alice Walker decided to write the novel ‘The Color Purple’ to let us all see life with sexism and racism from the perspective of a black woman. But what exactly is the definition of racism and sexism? According to W. LaVerne Thomas (p.214), racism is the belief that one’s own race is superior to other races. Sexism is the belief that one sex is superior to the other. This are the main reasons for discrimination.

Throughout the novel, Whitehead utilizes a girl named Cora to navigate the political and personal consequences of escaping slavery, the Underground Railroad, and her transition from the title of fugitive to freed. Cora’s ability to convey descriptions of events both tragic and hope-filled such as the dehumanization of slaves or the truth of freedom, while utilizing literary elements, create an emotional understanding of the 1800’s of the United States. From this, derives a bond with the reader that pushes their understanding of the evil nature of slavery that society deemed appropriate therefore enhancing their understanding of history. While only glossed over in most classroom settings of the twenty-first century, students often neglect the sad but true reality that the backbone of slavery, was the dehumanization of an entire race

Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, African American Novelist, poet, and social activist. Alice’s works are best known for their embodiment of the African American woman’s life. Alice portrays vividly the sexism, racism and poverty that often makes life a bit of a struggle. She also depicts as parts of that life, the strengths of community, family, spirituality, and self-worth. Alice Malsenior Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia.

The two literary texts (novels) that the researcher is going to work on are The Color Purple and The Handmaid’s Tale. The African- American novelist Alice Walker is always concerned with presenting the problems of females especially black women because they are doubly oppressed due to their gender and their color. In order to portray their struggle, she wrote one of the marvelous novels The Color Purple which was published in 1982. As for the Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, who shares the same interest with Alice Walker, she depicted the struggle of women and how they are victimized by the patriarchal society in her brilliant novel The Handmaid’s Tale that was published in 1985. As a result of the existence of

They say don’t judge a book by its cover, yet everyday people are judged just based on skin color, gender or anything else that sets them apart. Walker’s pulitzer prize winning novel “The Color Purple” talks about the struggles of an African American woman, Celie, and the journey she goes through in order to overcome the barriers of sexism to become a stronger woman and discover her independence. Similarly, “In Love and Trouble: Everyday Use” - also written by Walker - goes into a story about an African American woman, Dee, and her struggles with sibling rivalry, racial identity, and racism during a chaotic period of history. Through narrator point of view, symbolism, setting, and imagery, Walker illustrates the prominence of discrimination

African-American male and female writers have dealt with the sufferings, slavery and freedom. Being Black male and female writers Langston Hughes and Alice Walker play an eminent role for the Black people’s welfare. In the novel, The Color Purple author Alice Walker introduces Southern Black female characters not only faced slavery, but sexism, racism and oppression .Throughout the novel Walker not only describes the injustices against African-Americans but focuses to read an oppressed races and struggles underwent by Celie .The Color Purple is an extraordinary account of a Black women 's plight as Celie strives towards acceptance, freedom and independence. Langston Hughes is Black American’s most representative writer and a significant figure

Not only does the Matriarch emasculate Black men verbally, but also by taking the leadership role in the family. The characteristics of this stereotypical image build the persona of the strong Black woman. As a form of resistance many

Unit Analysis II Each phase in the the lives of women comes with certain expectations. They are born as daughters, built up to settle down as wives and eventually mothers. For black women, each step in their womanhood is caught between race and gender. They are denied humanity due to their blackness, yet demanded as women to bring life into a world that does not even consider them human. The burden of black womanhood is proven to be inescapable for those who choose or deny the path of domesticity.