ABSTRACT:Alice Walker is one of the most important black female writers in the American literary world today. It was Alice walker’s peak in 1982, and she published the novel of The Color Purple. In 1983 this novel won three highest honors of American literature: the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Association. The Color Purple is an excellent example of black feminist literature. 

This paper will research on the four leading woman figures’ different fates and the different attitudes to life to analyze the theme of The Colour Purple, and the causes of women’ s oppression and the different ways they tried to save themselves will be also discussed deeply. It contains five parts. Part one gives a brief introduction to Alice Walker and her famous novel, The Colour Purple. The value, significance and aim of the novel are also included. Part two is the literature review. It introduces three main theories of Post-colonialism, Feminism and Post-colonial Feminism. Part three and part four are the main body of the paper. Part three mainly analyzes the causes of black women’ s tragic fate from two aspects of race and culture, and gender. Part four mainly analyzes the four black women’ s different ways to struggle for emancipation. Part five is the conclusion of the essay.

From the perspective of post-colonial feminism, this paper analyzes the oppression of black women by racism and sexism, and shows that the emancipation of negro women has great influence on the emancipation of the blacks. It calls on attention to women’ s rights and encourages women to focus on their own rights. At the same time, it appeals to people of the same nationality to pursue and promote the national culture in a unified way, and so realize the self-identity of their nation.

Keywords: The Color Purple; Alice Walker; post-colonial feminism; emancipation

Table of Contents

ABSTRACT

中文摘要

1  Introduction-1

-  1.1  An Introduction to Alice Walker-1

-  1.2  An Introduction to The Color Purple-2

2  Literature Review-4

2.1  The Theory of Post-colonialism-4

2.2  The Theory of Feminism-4

2.3  The Combination of the Post-colonialism and Feminism-5

3  The Causes of Black Women’ s Tragic Fate in The Color Purple-6

3.1  Race & Culture-6

-    3.1.1  The Early Slave Trade-6

-    3.1.2  Domination of the White Mainstream Culture-7

3.2  Gender-8

-    3.2.1  The Influence of Patriarchy-8

-    3.2.2  Identity Cognition from Black Men under White’ s Oppression-9

4-  Black Women’ s Struggles for Liberation in The Color Purple-10

-  4.1  Celie’ s Awakening-10

-  4.2  Nettie’ s Insistence-11

-  4.3  Sofia’ s Resistance-12

-  4.4  Shug’ s Independence-13

5  Conclusion-13

References-15