The Color Purple Sexism Analysis

Alice walker created the splash in the literary world because of his womanist concept in her epistolary novel The Color Purple in 1982. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her fiction in 1982. And she was the first black woman to won this prize. Many women writers during 1970’s and 80’s like Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Toni Code Bambara, Walker, Joyce Carol Thomas, Audre Lordes and Paul Marshal talk about how black women’s lives were affected by sexism and racism. Their writings were like bulwarks against social taboos. As far as the characteristics of black writing is concerned it includes the themes of search of identity, cross-cultural context, history of slavery, entrapment, restricted mobility, low self esteem in women and theme of lesbianism like in Alice Walker’s The color Purple.

This novel is a typically radical American text because it speaks about female bonding and lesbian relationships. As we know Walker doesn’t call herself a feminist but womanist. Her ‘womanism’ is a philosophy of respecting and believing in abilities of women. She gives it a broader spectrum by making it a “feminist of color”, a women who loves other Women sexually or non- sexually, appreciates and prefers women’s emotional flexibility and women’s abilities. The Color Purple gives limelight to self-made women Celia. And it forcefully tried to restore the dignity of the female character. The novel was published in 1982 is one of the most read texts across race, class, gender and cultural boundaries. The Novel fallows Celia, a black woman who struggled in her life. She was raped by her step father, fallowing two pregnancies. Then she was forced to merry a man whom she never loved. She is pinned underneath a deep- rooted dominating force of patriarchy. It is only through love of