Meridian: A Womanist Interpretation

Eulogized as "the apologist and spokeswoman for black women", Alice Walker is an important American black female writer, characterized by her versatility as a poet, novelist, critic, storyteller and essayist. At the outset of her writing career, Walker was not so known as a poet and a novelist, while her essays published in black-and-feminist-oriented magazines kept her name current in American letters. The Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1983 changed the situation squarely and permanently, which entitled Alice Walker "the first black female" winner. The enormous success of The Color Purple immediately drew worldwide attention to this female writer and generated critical interest in her womanist ideology as well, which suffused the novel. It is well acknowledged that this novel is so significantly rich in the womanist thought that someone even owes Alice Walker's success to the womanist ideas in it.Meridian is one of her early works on the basis of her experience as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement of 1960s. Possessing strong belief in change both personal and societal, Walker created a young black woman, Meridian Hill, to reflect the social change and the personal growth of its participants in the Movement. Though it is an early novel, Meridian indeed plays a vital role in Walker's writing career. The author of this thesis intends to explore the relationship between Meridian (1976) and Walker's womanism (1983)— namely, to examine whether the novel, Meridian embodies the womanist ideas and to trace the evolution of the womanist thought through a comparative study between Meridian and The Color Purple, the famous womanist classic.This thesis consists of three chapters.In the introduction, the thesis briefly introduces Alice Walker, her womanist ideology and the second novel, Meridian. After a simple literature review of Meridian, it is supposed to address the research questions: Does Meridian embody Alice Walker's womanist thought? As to the womanist principle, what is the difference between Meridian and The Color Purple?Chapter one comprehensively interprets Alice Walker's womanism by analyzing the four tenets respectively on the basis of her womanist prose—In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens(1983). Then it is supposed to develop an array of comparisons between womanism and feminism to expose the uniqueness of womanism.Chapter two analyzes Meridian in light of the womanist principles. The study has been developed from these four aspects: the embodiment of Anti-sexism, of Anti-racism, of Afracentrism and that of Humanism. Through the text-based analysis, the thesis ascertains that Meridian essentially conforms to the womanist tenets and can be defined as a womainst novel.Chapter three is a comparative study of Meridian and The Color Purple in light of the womanist principles. Upon analysis, it has been found that both Meridian and The Color Purple have expressed Walker's rebellious spirit and put forward a series of problems in the anti-sexism and anti-racism struggles. As regards the heroine's approach in the struggle and the solutions to sexism and racism and the heroine's religious belief, there still exist some immature elements in Meridian.The conclusion is that Meridian is a significantly created novel because the womanist thought has come into shape in it; without it, it is impossible for the creation of The Color Purple, the womanist classic. Meridian is still incomplete in the womanist ideas and it is a previous work preparing for the fulfillment of Walker's womanism.