The Art Of Subversion: A Survey Of Narrative Structure And Narrative Voice In Alice Walker's The Color Purple

The Color Purple, Alice Walker's (1944- ) masterpiece which has won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1983 illustrates an American black women expression of"self-creation"theme. Since its publication, it continues to elicit a wide range of praise and censure from an increasing number of black and white, female and male reviewers, literary critics, and general readers. At one extreme are those who find the work"an American novel of permanent importance"; at the other extreme are those who feel that the novel should be"ignored"rather than"canonized". This thesis is to analyze The Color Purple's subversive"quiltlike"narrative structure and its personal narrative voice mainly in the light of feminist narratology theory, advocated by American feminist scholar Susan Sniader Lanser (1944- ) and Elaine Showalter (1941- ) so as to highlight Alice Walker's writing essence: her writings have not only enhanced the aesthetic values of the Afro-American culture, but have also enriched the literary ways of expression, which have helped to provide not only a portrait of black feminist's struggling and awakening throughout history, but also a successful model for the reconstruction and subversion of a black feminist literary tradition.