（英语语言文学专业论文）从自我否定到精神永存——对《紫色》中主人公茜莉的人物分析.pdf

摘 要 摘 要 紫色是美国黑人女作家爱丽丝沃克比较成熟的一部代表作它以全新的视角新颖的构思和独特的手法对美国现代黑人女性的思想和生活 进行了深入细致的探讨在这部作品中爱丽丝沃克塑造了一个崭新的女性形象-茜莉引起了众多评论家的极大关注 本文从小说产生的历史社会和文化背景出发系统地分析探讨了在充满歧视的美国社会中经历了自我丧失后谋求自我肯定和精神自由的黑人女性本文共分三部分第一部分分析在茜莉一步步走向自我丧失的过程中传统心理信仰和现实生活所起的作用第二部分讨论茜莉如何从肉体和精神上发现和肯定自身的潜能和价值第三部分也是结论部分探讨了茜莉奋斗的结果即茜莉通过不懈的奋斗获得了肉体的自由和经济的独立并在此基础上寻求精神的存在和延续最终建立了与男人和世界的平衡关系获得了内心的平和与幸福 关键词 女权主义自我否定自我肯定独立精神存在 abstract abstract the color purple, one of the maturest and the most representative works of alice walker, probes into the thought and life of modern afro-american women with a new visual angle, original conception and special writing skill. in this novel, black woman writer alice walker shapes a new womanist image-celie, who arouses great interests of many critics. at different levels of historical, social and cultural background, this thesis gives a coherent and systematic analysis of the image of a woman who reaches self-affirmation and spiritual survival after undergoing self-abnegation in the american society which is filled with problems of discrimination. the thesis falls into three parts: part one analyzes the influence of the traditional forces in real life upon celie, which leads to her self-abnegation; celies discovery and affirmation of her physical and spiritual values makes up the second part; part three concludes the paper, illustrating the outcome of celies struggle, that is, after her unremitting efforts, celie wins her spiritual survival based on her physical freedom and economic independence, achieves harmony with men and the world, and gains happiness and peace of mind in the established social environment. key words: feminism; self-abnegation; self-affirmation; independence; spiritual survival acknowledgements this thesis is the final conclusion of my three-year postgraduate study in hebei university. under the direction of my supervisor professor mao zhuoliang, i read widely about the black feminist in the united states and select alice walkers the color purple as the starting point of my research. i am greatly indebted to mr. mao zhuoliang, who has given me invaluable advice on my writing and revising this paper. i should express my sincere gratitude to him for the immense patience, inspiring suggestions, attentive supervision and unfailing encouragement, without which i could not have completed the thesis. moreover, i am deeply impressed by his precision and scrupulousness in pursuit of literary research, which is of great benefit for my future study. i would like to give special thanks to my classmates, who have offered frank criticism and generous assistance. thanks are also due to all my teachers and classmates, whose encouragement helps me carry on. finally, i dedicate the fruit of my painstaking labor to my beloved husband who has lent his steadfast support in all respects through the years of my academic endeavor. introduction - 1 - introduction the color purple is the masterpiece of the outstanding afro-american woman writer in american contemporary literature, alice walker, also a steadfast womanist, whose major contribution to literature is that she has portrayed a series of images of black women successfully. alice walker began her literary career in 1968 at the age of twenty-one. by 1984, she has produced a significant body of works among which the best ones are: a collection of poetry, once (1968); a collection of stories, in love and trouble (1973); three novels: the third life of grange copeland (1970), meridian (1976) and the color purple (1983) which won her the pulitzer prize and american book award. in these works, the fate of black women has been her major concern. walkers works are all inseparable from her life experience. walker was born on february 9, 1944, in eatonton, georgia, as the eighth child of a poor sharecroppers family. being a daughter of south, walker senses deeply the misery of the black women, since her childhood. the black women have been struggling for living at the bottom of america society for long in the white patriarchal society. black people suffer from inhuman slavery, plunder and oppression, and today, they still live in dreadful plight under racial discrimination and segregation, which has been difficult to ravel out since the black people first stepped on the land. the division of lines of color was, and is still rigid in place. the famous black woman writer zora neale hurston pictures the black woman in their eyes were watching god as follows: “ so de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. he pick it up because he have to, but he dont tote it. he hand it to his woman folks. de nigger woman is de mule of the world so fur as ah can see.”1 this celebrated passage indicates that black females together with black males have undergone great hardships from racial prejudice, yet they have also been fettered by 河北大学英语语言文学硕士学位论文 - 2 - sexual discrimination inside. the black men consider the black women as being created to be their housekeepers, maidservants, even the sexual tools. the black women toil all the time but have no property under their name. moreover, when the black men are oppressed, or when they feel their humiliation, they frequently vent their depression, frustration and indignation on their wives. in walkers article, in search of our mothers gardens (1983), she calls these women “the hanged women”. in an interview followed, walker explains that these women are hanged in history, because their choices are very narrow, either to commit suicide, or to toil to death. most of the female protagonists in walkers first novel, the third life of grange copeland (1970), and her collection of stories, in love and trouble (1973), are of this kind. mem is the representative of these women who are slaves of the patriarchal society. she, having internalized the principle of males domination, bears the torture from the black men day after day. by portraying mem, walker successfully shows the misery and humiliation of the black women to the world. just as mae g. henderson says: “singing herself as an author and medium, walker suggests that her purpose has been not only to create and control literary images of women, and black women in particular, but to give voice and representation to these same women who have been silenced and confined in life and literature.”2 the wheel of history is going forward. walker was active in the civil right movement of the 1960s, and the feminist movement in 1970s, which awoke the oppressed black women as well as walker. in an interview in 1973, walker pictured for the first time the new image of her female protagonist. she said that the women in her works would change, which marked a final of a stage in which women were just the victims of the patriarchal society. meanwhile, walkers feminine consciousness developed along with the feminist movement in 1970s. she realized that the feminism criticism was a kind of political movement, of which the aim was not to explain the world, but to change it by changing the readers consciousness.3 then, in her second novel, meridian (1976) walker combines the feminism theory and feminine social introduction - 3 - practice with her work. in this novel, walker analyzed the history and presence of the black womens oppression, guided the female readers to get a clear understanding of the relationship between people, mankind and nature, and individual and society, in order to develop the black womens feminine consciousness. in meridian, walker shows readers a new image of black women who challenge the tradition and religion and no longer spend most of their time in cabinets, bearing so many children and being obedient slaves of their husbands. they alter their stage of life from family to society, of which meridian is a representative, who gets rid of the inferior figure of black woman by making one effort after another to counter the tradition in her different life stages: as a daughter, she does not obey her mothers life rules because she does not want to live like her foremothers; as a wife she refuses to sacrifice herself blindly for her husband; as a mother, she is unwilling to spend all her time on her child. she takes on an awakened posture to look for her social value in struggle against the racial and sexual discrimination for herself and for the black people in south. however, meridian pays greatly for what she has done. though she has more life choice than her foremothers, she loses maternal love, divorces with her husband and gives up her baby with deep pain in heart. when reading the text carefully, it is easy for readers to find the feeling of guilty and unrest in her mind, just as walkers other protagonists. at last, meridian saves herself in the black peoples church, but what she accepts is the church, not the christianity. the old holy songs, sung by the black people, inspire her and fill her heart with hope of the black peoples bright future. at the end of the novel, meridian takes on a new journey, but where can she go? 4 that is also a problem that baffled the feminism and the “noras” who have left home. in theory, women have got the equal civil rights as men, but in reality, the man-centered notions are still dominating peoples mind, and the role of men and women defined by the tradition does not change. women cannot find successful female paradigm as their guider in real life and literature. many feminists and writers explore for the outlet for “noras”. for instance, the famous feminist virginia woolf pointes out in a room of ones own that womens individual independence is based on their 河北大学英语语言文学硕士学位论文 - 4 - economic independence, which can be achieved by skill in production. doras lessing says in her free women, one part of the golden notebook, that women have to make a compromise with men in marriage. walker puts forth her answer in her own way. in in research of our moth gardens, alice walker initiates “womanism” to differentiate from “feminism”, because besides sexual discrimination, the black women have to undergo racial prejudice. alice walker defines a womanist as “a feminist of color and a woman who loves other women sexually or nonsexually” yet “is committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female”5. alice walker has a deeper understanding on the emancipation of the black women, that is the emancipation of women also means the emancipation of men, even the emancipation of mankind. she demonstrates her ideas in her third novel the color purple. the color purple is well represented as an outstanding womanist work. combining the authors resolutely womanistic perspective, with narration from a black womans viewpoint, the novel reveals the heroines spiritual way to survival. celie, as an ugly, common, and uneducated afro-american woman living in the rural south, suffers the physical and psychic abuse at the hand of the male hegemony, and eventually, with the help of black sisterhood, finds a voice capable of articulating black female identity, and becomes the ideal image of the new generation of black women. walker divides celies life into three stages: the first part of her life bears some resemblance to mems to some degree, the second is similar to meridians, the third absolutely new. in this novel, walker not only shows the suffering of the black women, but finds an outlet for them. celie, after hard struggle, wins self-respect, self-assertion and spiritual survival, and changes her husbands patriarchal concept and makes him to accept her values. by showing a woman more powerful than man, walker redefines male and female roles and suggests a new paradigm of relationship between them-living in perfect harmony. the novel has caused a great sensation among feminists, the black people, readers and critics since its publication in 1982. the exuberance, the depiction of womans spirituality, and the black womens high spirit in the novel are affirmed. it is the introduction - 5 - “flagship text of difference and the literary embodiment of the new identity politics par excellence”. 6 however, some critics do not like its happy ending. molly hite thinks “ in the last third of the book the narrator-protagonist celie and her friends are propelled toward a fairytale happy ending with more velocity than credibility”. 7 some critics attack its display of lesbian relationship and its black men who lack of morality. among walkers most virulent black critics is trudier harris, who makes the objection that the book “reinforces racial stereotypes”. 8 yet it is unfair to criticize the black women from a perspective of black men or the white since black women have experienced quite differently from them and their struggle is usually imbued with more difficulties and hardships. show me how to do like you show me how to do it - -stevie wonder beginning with its epigraph, alice walker makes off the color purples territory and its purpose, “it is a novel that intends to teach its readers and it is a novel about how that instruction might take place.”9 the color purples centeral character, celie, serves as an example of the ideal learning process. having been oppressed in miserable life, she learns to shed the yoke of patriarchal oppression in many forms- in marriage, in love, in economics and in religion. her struggle is also a spiritual process to survival-from the self-abnegation to spiritual survival. walker believes that “people can hear celies voice. there are so many people like celie who make it, who came out of nothing. people who truimphed.”10 in this sense, walker sets celie as a paragon to the black women, and to all the oppressed women in the world. she hopes that they can learn from celie “how it is done by seeing it done”. 11 for walker, art is liberal and life-saving. attempts are made to analyze the protagonist-celie in the color purple, whose exploration for independence and dignity is also a spiritual process from self-abnegation to survival. 河北大学英语语言文学硕士学位论文 - 6 - chapter i process to self-abnegation “you better never tell nobody but god. itd kill your mammy.” alice walker, the color purple this dominating male voice is present as the first words of narrative, said by celies stepfather. the statement simultaneously demands female that the order issued by men cannot be resisted by women who have to keep silent and accept the misery consequences of mens atrocity. it is a voice hanged over celies first half of life, just as it has been dominating generations of women. celies role and position as a black woman is defined by the patriarchal culture and tradition just as her foremothers who have passively accepted the thought that women are inferior to men and born to be the slave for men. this concept is created and insisted on by men and has been part of womens collective unconsciousness. womens self-abnegation means, under the erosion of the patriarchal culture, women have internalized the man-centered codes, changing themselves to be the inferior part of mens world, relying on men and losing their independence in spirit and in practice. simone beavoir says that woman is made by the culture and tradition. in the color purple, celie, a made slave, in her first half of life, never resists the spiritual and physical oppression, because she does not know how to resist, moreover, she does not know that she should resist. under the patriarchal oppression, she constrains her hope of being educated and being a beloved woman, gives up self-respect, self-assertion, self-awareness, and self-independence. as a result, she believes that she is a cipher. walker steps inside the world to explore how women are affected by all those around them, particularly by other family members, and how they allow the outside world and people to render their impotence, what is worse, without thinking and feeling. chapter i process to self-abnegation - 7 - 1. oppression from tradition custom dies hard. alice walker, the color purple tradition is immanent. living in it, nobody can ignore it when he does or talks about something. as an important component of the true-life, tradition comprises all modes of living, with the unconsciousness as its deep gradation and the convention as its exterior. in tradition, man is passive, as well as positive, because man is dominated by the tradition in reality, meanwhile all his behavior is part of it, and is creating it. in south america, to the black women, tradition implies racism and sexism, which makes up their enslaved position. black people suffer from inhumane slavery, plunder and oppression. they live in dreadful plight under racial discrimination and segregation. the division of lines of color was, and is still rigid in place, though the civil rights movement constantly claims credit for desegregation in schools, housing and public transportation. in the color purple, the white show racial discrimination in economy and cultural monopoly. they view the black not only as the different race, but the vital competitor in economy. here is the whites treatment of celics natural father: “and as he did so well farming and everything he turned his hand to prospered, he decided to open a store, and try his luck selling dry goods as well, well, his store did so that he talked two of his brothers into helping him run it, and, as the months went by, they were doing better and better. then the white merchants began to get together and complain that this store was taking all the black business away from them, and the mans blacksmith shop that he set up behind the store, was tacking some of the white. this would not do. and so, one night the mans store was burned down, his smithy destroyed, and the man and his two brother dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night and hanged.”12 河北大学英语语言文学硕士学位论文 - 8 - while this episode exposes the economic bases of racial oppression, it also suggests the far-reaching consequences of violence directed toward black men. moreover, the murder of celies father result