B.A. Thesis Introduction

Introduction

Throughout the ages, women have always been part of literature. They have inspired many writers, whether dramatists, novelists, poets or essayists. Unfortunately most works often depicted women as the inferior gender, a passive object that could not survive on its own and that could do nothing for itself. Women, in literature, could only exist through the eyes, minds and lives of men but never for themselves.

Many of Walker?s works are inseparable from her life experience. She is very proud of her origins and she believes that the grace with which we embrace life, in spite of pain, the sorrow, is always measure of what has gone before. She was born in Eatonton, Georgia on February 9, 1944. Her father was a sharecropper and she is the youngest of the eight children in her family. At the age of eight, Walker was accidentally injured by a BB gun shot to her eye by her brother. Then she set out to learn to write poetry in order to ease the loneliness.

Alice Walker?s epistolary novel, The Color Purple, is one of the best literary works that vividly depict the sufferings of African-American women from patriarchy sexism and racism. The Color Purple does not only describe but goes beyond that purpose. In fact, Alice Walker?s true intention from writing this novel is not only to give voice to black women

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B.A. Thesis Introduction

but also to provide them with a path to follow in order to emancipate themselves and get their freedom. Walker shows us the evolution of her major character, Celie, from being a sexually abused child to a passive wife and finally to an emancipated woman.

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B.A. Thesis Chapter 1 Feminism and Womanism

Chapter 1

Feminism and Womanism

1.1 The Background of Womanism: Feminism in America

Feminism in America has a long history and it is not an invention of a singleperiod of time. Here, this thesis just focuses on the 19th and the 20th centuries to give a very general account of American feminism from the perspective of history time and different types of schools. 1.1.1 The First Wave of American Feminism: 1840s to 1920s

In 1848, the first Women?s Rights Convention, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other women who had been denied a place at the international anti-slavery convention in London in 1840, was held in Seneca Falls, which marked the beginning of the first wave of American Feminism. The convention passed the Declaration of Sentiments, which was primarily drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal…The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman …” (Schneir 77).

In 1869, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony established the National Women?s Suffrage Association . In the same year, Lucy Stone founded the American Woman?s Suffrage Association. Both of the

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B.A. Thesis Chapter 1 Feminism and Womanism

two associations were devoted to promote a suffrage amendment of women to the Constitution. In 1890, the two organizations merged into the National American Woman?s Suffrage Association, which later became the League of Women Voters.

The first wave of American feminism focused on the suffrage right for women but was not very successful. However, there was some progress in the reform of property laws and educational opportunities and “it did lay some of the intellectual groundwork for the second wave of American feminism ” (Madsen 6).

1.1.2 The Second Wave of American Feminism: 1960s

The second wave of American feminism began with Betty Friedan?s The Feminine Mystique, which was published in 1963. Later, Friedan founded the National Organization of Women (NOW) in 1966, marking the formal beginning of the second movement of American Feminism. The main concern of the movement was against different kinds of discrimination, especially sex-based, of women in a patriarchy society.

With the development of feminist activism, feminist theories in the areas of literature, politics, philosophy and history also began to rise. Many women?s study programmes emerged in America. “The first full Women?s programme was set up at San Diego State College in 1970” (Leitch 325). The intended aim of the organization was “to change the sexist bias of traditional education and social practices” (Madsen 15). In

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B.A. Thesis Chapter 1 Feminism and Womanism

literary critical field, traditional criticism became the target of feminist theory because of its blindness to gender. The pioneer in this field was Kate Miller, the author of Sexual Politics (1971). Other critics working in this field included Ellen Moers, Elaine Showalter, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar, Nina Baym and so on. They aimed to help people recognize women?s value by criticizing the images of women in literary works and “define a tradition of women?s writing by finding and publishing the work of neglected writers ” (Madsen 15-16). Different schools of feminism also appeared during the two periods of feminist movements,

such

as

Liberal

Feminism,

Marxist

Feminism,

Psychoanalytic Feminism, Ecofeminism, Socialist Feminism, Feminism of Color and so on. And it was the Feminism of Color that shaped the real backbone of Alice Walker?s womanism.

American feminism continued, more and more colored women gradually realized that they had been excluded from the mainstream white feminism, which only paid attention to white middle class women. Therefore, different kinds of colored feminism appeared. They were Black Feminism, Chicana/Latina Feminism, Native Feminism and Asian Feminism (Madsen 216). Each group of them had a distinctive historical experience in America. From the first wave of American feminism, the white leaders did not pay any attention to the relationship between racial prejudice and gender discrimination. Angela Y. Davis, a black feminist,

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