Intersectional Oppression and a Womanist Capitalism Utopia in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple
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This paper examines Alice Walker’s The Color Purple with intersectionality as an analytic tool to understand the African American female characters’ multilayered oppression, stemming from their intersectional identities based on the factors of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Walker reveals multiple sources of oppression against her meticulously constructed female characters and how they survive through sisterhood, friendship, homosexual love, and work. Walker’s strategy of adopting capitalist values in the novel by transforming Celie, the protagonist, from a simpleton to a successful entrepreneur highlights her material success as an equivalence in gender power dynamics. It seemingly contradicts Walker’s womanist agenda of achieving gender equality, as Celie’s entrepreneurial success does not provide an ultimate solution to fight patriarchy. In this respect, this paper aims to analyze the intersectional oppression of the African American women in The Color Purple based on their multidimensional identities and Walker’s grappling with gender issues by applying capitalist ideals in creating a gender-equal womanist utopia.
Abstract
This paper examines Alice Walker’s The Color Purple with intersectionality as an analytic tool to understand the African American female characters’ multilayered oppression, stemming from their intersectional identities based on the factors of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Walker reveals multiple sources of oppression against her meticulously constructed female characters and how they survive through sisterhood, friendship, homosexual love, and work. Walker’s strategy of adopting capitalist values in the novel by transforming Celie, the protagonist, from a simpleton to a successful entrepreneur highlights her material success as an equivalence in gender power dynamics. It seemingly contradicts Walker’s womanist agenda of achieving gender equality, as Celie’s entrepreneurial success does not provide an ultimate solution to fight patriarchy. In this respect, this paper aims to analyze the intersectional oppression of the African American women in The Color Purple based on their multidimensional identities and Walker’s grappling with gender issues by applying capitalist ideals in creating a gender-equal womanist utopia.
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