A Journey from Oppression to Self -Discovery in Alice Walker's the Color Purple

Abstract

Alice Walker in her fiction portrays the journey of Afro-American women and their struggle with the social discriminations of hatred, humiliation, oppression, and frustration. Women are treated as the least beings and are deprived of the basic rights. They are treated as commodities without flesh, blood and a soul. Lack of education to these women is the main reason for discrimination and they are made submissive as they are not aware of their own status in the society.This paper aims at dealing with a saga of pain, suffering, humiliation, anger, resistance, suppression, revolt and in the last self-discovery, affirmation and celebration; true salvation of body, mind and soul from every kind of male made shackles in the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Through a womanist perspective, the study investigates black, female oppression as well as the possibility of independence through role models and female support.