Racial and gender oppression in Alice Walker's 'The Color Purple'

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2016 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Literatur, Note: 3,0, Universität Rostock (Anglistik), Veranstaltung: Black History in America, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: 'The Color Purple' is one of the first novels that deals in detail with the oppression of African-American women. On the one hand it has been the first book by a female African-American writer that received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and has until today been part of the canon of the African-American women's literature, but on the other hand it also has been criticized for the negative portrayal of men. In this term paper I want to analyze the intentions of the author Alice Walker to write about the theme of female oppression. At first I exemplify the two occurring forms of female oppression, sexism and racism, by the main characters of the novel. By regarding the numerous interviews Alice Walker has given concerning her writings and by regarding her biography, I will outline her intentions and determine whether she wrote about female oppression due to her own experiences with the theme or whether she had other motives.