Introduction
The last quarter of the twentieth century has marked the rise of African American prose and poetry, born from the massive cultural legacy and complex history of the Black people. Moreover, the professional literary criticism in African Americans also began to define prominently, outshining the famous names in the Black literature of that period. A connection between the African American literary works and the Western literary tradition was outlined in the 1970s, providing new ground for contextual analysis. Among the most significant names of that period, the literary genius of Alice Walker especially stands out in the light of her strong feminist narratives.
Main body
In 1944, on February the 9th, Alice Walker came to life in Eatonton, Georgia, as the eighth child of a Negro sharecropper. When she was a child, an accident occurred, due to which Alice Walker lost her sight in one eye, which, as she herself later claimed, had a great impact on her. As she grew older, she began to view her trauma as a “patriarchal wound,” drawing parallels with the physical and psychological pressure women experience. Despite her injury, Walker did exceptionally well in school and received a scholarship in 1961 to continue her studies at Spelman College in Atlanta, where she became a civil rights activist. Two years later, in 1963, Walker decided to transfer to the Sarah Lawrence College in New York to continue her studies there. In Sarah Lawrence College, a famous political activist and poet Muriel RĂĽckiser was among her teachers, who had also impacted Walker’s views. Thus, Alice Walker’s longstanding career as a civil rights activist, prominent writer, and feminist supporter began.
She made her debut as a writer in 1968 with the poetry collection Once. Next was the novel The Third Life of Grange Copeland, published in 1970and telling the story of three generations of a family which has been destroyed. After that, Walker began to get recognition for her works and started to become a visible figure in feminist action. Plant (2017) adds that “she has been a voice for human rights, love for earth, and love for every little thing” (p. 12). In 1976, one of the most famous Walker’s novels, Meridian, was published, instantly becoming a hit. Often cited as the best novel on the civil rights movement, the book is included in some curricula in not only literary history but also US history.
However, some consider Walker’s third, the most recognized novel, The Color Purple of 1982, her best work. The book was so outstanding that it won both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Prize of 1983 – and Walker became the first African American woman to achieve that (Medine 2019). The Color Purple is a tale of sibling love between two dark-skinned sisters, which continues unabated despite years of separation. The love story echoes the narrative of how at the same time, a shy, ugly, and uneducated sister discovers her inner strength thanks to the support of her friend.
In The Color Purple, Walker masterfully portrays the dreams and failures of gullible and trustworthy people. The leading theme of the book speaks of preserving African American culture, and its female characters act as important links that maintain continuity, both in personal relationships and in relationships within the community. According to Brewer (2020), “the historical context of Womanism centers Black culture located in the lived experiences of Black women and in self-determination” (p. 91). Walker’s women are characterized by the manifestation of strength, endurance, ingenuity in confronting and overcoming oppression, which is so characteristic of their lives spent under the influence of racism and sexism. Zeng and Li (2018) state that “she shows her concern on women’s inferior political, cultural and economic status and issues associated with women’s poverty, the celebration of femininity, women’s marriagial and familial oppression” (p. 162). Moreover, the theme of mutual support between women reminds of the autobiography of the writer Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Bird in a Cage Sings (1970). This is due to the fact that the book celebrates the spiritual bond between mother and daughter and the writings of the White feminist Adrianna Rich.
Walker writes her every piece with respect to the “spiritual uplift” of the Negro people and with alarm about black extremism and white chauvinism. Shi (2020) states that Alice Walker unites together two agendas: the racial discrimination from male writers’ perception and racial and sexual discrimination experienced by female writers. With irony, she exposes those who are “tired” of struggle, as well as those who “liberate” their consciousness from moral prohibitions with the help of drugs, like the characters of the short story The Source.
Walker also often touches upon the theme of “tragic mulatto” – a woman of mixed blood, a topic which was traditional for the literature of that period since the time of Harriet Beecher-Stowe. Censuring former fighters for “faded idealism,” Walker was one of the first Black writers to recognize the danger that arose in the 70s – the temptation of a Black man to be part of the White community. It came through the idea of ​serving the Black intelligentsia to significantly improve living standards and admitting to the upper strata society. Walker rejects the inertia of outdated ideas as her predecessors, White and Black writers such as W. Styron – the author of The Confessions of Nat Turner, or Killenz – creator of Cotillion and Slaves. Moreover, Walker perceives her own literary talent as a legacy from her grandmother. The latter, unable to express herself in socially recognized forms of spiritual activity, sought to organize her little world in accordance with her own ideas of beauty. Thus, Walker focuses on the need to reproduce a special type of worldview inherent in generations of Black women in modern literature, painting, music, and other fields of art.
Conclusion
In The Color Purple, Walker characterizes herself as a womanist rather than a Black feminist, believing the former to be violent, daring, fearless, and willful. Noting the similarity of ideological and aesthetic attitudes and the coincidence of views on many issues with representatives of feminist and ethnic movements, Walker can be characterized by a bright individuality and uniqueness of style. The peculiarity of the writer’s worldview is shaped into her own concept of humanism, which realizes the multicultural heritage of African Americans from a uniquely feminine point of view. Alice Walker has written a variety of works, including poetry, novels, short stories, essays in which she raises questions of the spiritual revival of her nation, as well as the position of women in society. Her works continue to be relevant up to this day, providing material for thoughts and discussions.
References
Brewer, R. M. (2020). Black feminism and womanism.Companion to Feminist Studies, 91–104. Web.
Medine, C. M. J. (2019). Womanist religious interpretation: Alice Walker. In S. J. Bloesch & M. Minister (Eds.),Cultural approaches to studying religion: An introduction to theories and methods (pp. 77–100). essay, Bloomsbury Academic. Web.
Plant, D. G. (2017). Alice Walker: A woman for our times. Praeger, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC. Web.
Shi, L. (2020). Womanism and the color purple. Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Education, Language and Inter-Cultural Communication (ELIC 2020). Web.
Zeng, R., & Li, Q. (2018). Alice Walker’s continuum and revision of feminism: Womanism in the color purple.2018 International Conference on Education Technology and Social Sciences (ETSOCS 2018), 162–166. Web.