Women’s Creativity in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

• Main Authors: Yi-fang Weng, 翁藝芳
• Other Authors: Shu-fen Chen (陳淑芬)
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/65366220612793882159

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 外國文學所 === 95 === The thesis mainly discusses the relationship between the idea of women’s creativity and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple by using Liberal feminism, Socialist feminism, Radical feminism, and Womanism to interpret it. Chapter One focuses on the oppression female characters suffer from the perspective of feminism. Chapter Two points out the fictional female character Judith Shakespeare in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own to compare with the female characters in The Color Purple. Among them are the women with cleverness and creativity, desiring to find a job for being financial independence by their creativity. However, Judith Shakespeare fails to reach the goal, while the female characters in The Color Purple success. The fatal factor resulting in their success is because they are encouraged and assisted by a network of female nurturance, which is what Judith Shakespeare lacks. Chapter Three illustrates how the oppressed women foster and make good use of their creativity after obtaining encouragement and assistance from the female bonding. In Chapter Four, it focuses on how the oppressed women liberate themselves from the patriarchy by their creativity, and re-create a new self with autonomy. At the end, there is a conclusion, the oppressed women can foster the creativity by the nursing from a female network, and then they can find a job to sustain themselves without men’s financial support. After that, women are able to reconstruct another autonomous self. To be concise, women do not need to be submissive to the patriarchy because they can live a life with autonomy as long as they own female bonding, creativity, and financial independence.