From Submission To Confrontation To Self-reflection---A Close Reading Of The Color Purple

Alice Walker(1944-) is a well known African-American novelist and poet in the literary world. She is still active in the literary world now. The Color Purple(1982) is her third novel which brings her a lot of honor. In 1983, because of this novel, she won the Pulitzer Prize and became the first black woman writer who got the honor. The remarkable work also won Walker the National Book Award for Fiction in 1983. This novel is well worth studying.This thesis attempts to give a new interpretation of the novel The Color Purple. Previous studies of this novel mostly are from the angle of culture, personality development, womanism, ecological feminism and so on. For this thesis, the author is going to read the story very closely. Through analyzing Celie’s growing process from obedience to awakening, from awakening to resistance then to reach the reconciliation with Mr. X at the last, other black women and men’s self-reflection as well as black and white people’s reconciliation, the author intends to gain some new insights into the novel, including whole black women and men’s awakening, the premise of the reconciliation between men and women and the possibility of the reconciliation between black and white. The introduction, the three main chapters and conclusion constitute this thesis. Here are the important contents:Introduction includes the domestic and foreign research and literature reviews about the novelist Alice Walker, her life, her works, writing background and the main content of her novel The Color Purple.The main body part includes three chapters. Chapter One discusses Celie’s obedience and aphasia. Celie’s obedience and aphasia both were reflected in her family life and in her marriage life. Chapter Two focuses on Celie’s awakening and resistance. It laid stress on Celie’s struggle of her life and her pursuit of self-identity under several women friends’ help. Chapter Three mainly demonstrates the self-reflection of characters in the novel, also the reconciliation between characters.Chapter Four summarizes the whole paper. First, Celie is different from most of the black female figures in American literature in terms of her course of development. Second, there are other women and men’s self-reflection in the novel. Third, with both black women and men’s self-reflection, they can finally achieve their reconciliation. Finally, the reconciliation between white and black can be achieved by their self-reflection.