摘 要

紫色》是在当代美国文坛颇有影响的黑人女作家爱丽丝·沃克的长篇小说代表作之一。在这篇小说中，爱丽丝·沃克成功地塑造了女主人公茜丽从逆来顺受的黑人妇女最终成长为具有独立人格时代女性的形象，表达了对妇女解放的关心。本文将从种族歧视、性别压迫、阶级冲突这三方面来来探讨黑人与白人之间以及黑人男女之间的矛盾和冲突，并且挖掘人与人之间和谐相处的可行之道，从而展现爱丽丝·沃克的“妇女主义”的要旨及其思想。

关键词: 爱丽丝·沃克；文化分析；种族歧视；性别压迫；阶级冲突

Contents

1. Introduction--------------------------------------------------------------------------------1

2. Demonstration -----------------------------------------------------------------------------2

2.1 Racial discrimination in The Color Purple-------------------------------------------3

2.1.1Celie’s father as the victim of racial discrimination-------------------------------3

2.1.2 Sophia as a victim of racial discrimination----------------------------------------4

2.1.3 Beyond racial discrimination---------------------------------------------------------6

2.2 Gender oppression in The Color Purple----------------------------------------------6

2.2.1Celie’s miserable life-------------------------------------------------------------------7

2.2.2Sophia’s unfortunate marriage--------------------------------------------------------8

2.2.3Beyond gender oppression -----------------------------------------------------------10

2.3 Class conflict in The Color Purple----------------------------------------------------11

2.3.1The class conflict between the black and the white -------------------------------11

2.3.2Beyong class conflict------------------------------------------------------------------12

3. Conclusion---------------------------------------------------------------------------------12

Works Cited ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13

Bibliography------------------------------------------------------------------------------------14

A Tentative Cultural Study on the Color Purple

1. Introduction

Alice Walker, born on February 9, 1944 in a peasant family in the southern Georgia, is a prominent African-American writer, as well as a novelist, a poet, essayist, critic and short story writer. She was studying at Spelman, a college for black women in Atlanta, Georgia, when she caught up with the tide of American Civil Rights Movement. So Walker involved herself in the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement. In most of her novels she conveyed her new feminism viewpoints. She mainly discussed the black women who lived in the south of America and depicts women who were neglected in American literature history. Alice Walker's works dealt with rape, violence, isolation, troubled relationships, sexism and racism. Her works included: Once(1968)and Revolutionary Petunias(1973), Search of Our Mother’s Garden（1974）, Everyday Use(1973), to Hell with Dying(1965), in Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women(1973), The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970),Meridian(1976), The Color Purple(1983), the Temple of My Familiar(1989)By The Light of My Father’s Smile(1998), etc.

Walker caught the tide of Feminism Movement, because of the experiences of being both a black and a woman, Walker was deeply influenced by the traditional feminism and strove for women’s liberation and racial equality. Walker made up the weak part of the white-world feminism theory that is the ignorance of race and class. Walker created the theory of African Womanism. This theory in-depth explored the issue of the black women’s survival and development, emphasized womanism against the racial and gender discrimination, and advocated a harmony relationship between men and women and regarded it as the goal of the tolerant spirit.