From Degradation to Dignity Analysis of Celie in The Color Purple 英文毕业论文.docVIP

From Degradation to Dignity: Analysis of Celie in The Color Purple 1. Introduction The Color Purple (1982), written by the famous Afro-American female writer Alice Walker (1944- ), won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1983. She is the first Afro-American woman who wins this award. The novel was adapted for film in 1984 by Spielberg and this adaptation brought her a world wide fame and popularity. Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in the small rural town of Eatonton, Georgia. She was the eighth and last child of Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Tallulah Grant, two sharecroppers. Her parents’ experiences with the oppressive sharecropping system and the racism of the American South had deeply influenced her life. Violent racism and family poverty had left a permanent impression on her writing. In 1965, Walker was involved in Civil Rights Movement following her graduation, which influenced her writing of her novels, such as The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), Meridian (1976) and The Color Purple. She even married a Jewish Civil Rights lawyer, Mel Leventhal. Another movement that influenced her deeply was the Women’s Liberation Movement which she regarded as white women’s movement. She became interested in the conditions of black women who suffered the double oppression---racism and sexism. The latter came from white men, even from black men. She realized the necessity for them to achieve freedom. So the concern of black women and the impact of racism and sexism on them became the major themes of Walker’s novels. She endeavored to explore an ideal way for black women to fight against racial and sexual discrimination and to establish their identity. As a result, she wrote her famous novel The Color Purple, which exposed black men’s sexual abuse and prejudice against female blacks. It is the story of Celie, a poor Southern black woman who struggles to escape the degradation of the treatment by men. Many people abroad are interested in Alice Walker and her n