Womanism and the Reconstruction of the Self in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

Abstract

This Thesis discussesthe status of the black female in her community andinvestigateshow black females resist hardships that they face in The Color Purple, through confronting many difficulties such as domestic violence, sexism and racism.In addition this study traces the effect of female bondage on Celie,the protagonist’s process of emancipation. The study attempts to explore the miserable circumstances that the color purple’s females lived-in such as psychological and physical violence and the main empowering factors that helped in reconstructing the identity, in addition to breaking away and challenging the patriarchal social structure of the black community. To realise the objectives of the thesis two main approaches has been used; the pychoanalysit and the feminist approach.