Ecofeminism in Alice Walker's The Color Purple 1. Introduction 1.1 Research background Alice Walker (1944-) is an African America black female writer, whose works are focused on the struggles of black people, especially concerning about the survival and fate of women living in the southern United Sates under patriarchal system. And she wrote many novels with events closely parallel some of her real experiences and collections of poems, aiming to record the rise of women#8217;s self-consciousness and their growing up. These books have revived people#8217;s interest in the work of this African-American writer and anthropologist, which have exerted profound influence on African-America literature. In 1982, her novel The Color Purple has gained widespread attention since its publication and become a hit. The awards ( the National Book Award for hardcover fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) she gets are the best witness of her success. Alice did not indulge in the fame and progress what she has made, but passionately devoted herself to various non-profitable activities to protect people#8217;s civil rights. What is worth emphasizing is that as avowed feminist, Walker was the first person to use the term "womanist" to mean "A black feminist or feminist of color" in 1983. The term is not only a useful lubricant to unite women of different color but also an effective weapon to advocate feminist movement at "the intersection of race, class, and gender oppression."As Walker#8217;s solemn confession, "'Womanism#8217; gives us a word of our own." because it is a declaration of independence of Black women that they must be the owner of themselves, as well as the issues they have to confront and fight for in society. Those thoughts and actions do not come out of thin air but come from her experiences which deeply rooted in her blood and soul. She was born in Eatonton, Georgia, a rural farming town. When she was an eight-year-old girl, she was accidentally wounded by her brother#8217;s BB gun shot, her right eye scarred and blind. Since then, she started to separate with friends and embarked on reading, which is an important key to open the door of reading and writing. And in her family, Alice#8217;s mother, a determined and industrious woman, played an significant role in Alice#8217;s life. Her mother who was just a common black woman and worked as a seamstress to earn extra money to support life, had an outstanding soul and thought because she consisted in the belief that not only boys but girls were supposed to have the opportunity to enjoy the right of education. Despite of the shortage of materials, her mother was willing to save money cent by cent for her and buy books for little Alice. What is important was her mother#8217;s spirit of fighting and independence, encouraging her towards the paths of pursuing equality and human rights. The Color Purple has been widely believed as Alice Walker#8217;s masterpiece, which exerts a widespread and profound influence around the world. It tells a story that Celie, a poor, uneducated 14-year-old girl living in a violent and tortured environment for most of her life, has become an independent and assertive woman from a naive and obedient girl with the help of Shug both in physical and emotional aspects. In this novel, Alice Walker portrays carefully the miserable life of women by taking advantage of letters from Celie, disclosing such problems as sexism, racial discrimination, self-identity and so on. Walker also analyzes the process of their awakening of self-consciousness and their strenuous struggle against patriarchal system under the influence of Shug. In the traditional thought, men dominated the women so they had supreme power to control women#8217;s destiny including raping and abusing them at any time at will. At the same time, human dominated nature so that they could develop their economy at the cost of sacrificing nature including the native#8217;s home. Women is merely men#8217;s slaves and property. As women, nothing could be done but to obey men#8217;s orders and take care of their families. However, in the mind of Alice Walker#8217;s heart, women and nature were not attached to men and human. She ponders over the relationship from an ecofeminism point of view and believes that women and nature will take a bad return for men if men continued to do what they did before. 1.2 Need for the study There are two indispensable reasons for the need of the study. First of all, ecofeminism has been a popular topic over two decades. With the improvement of women#8217;s statues, much attention are paid to women#8217;s rights and destiny so that many female experts like philosophers, historians, sociologists ponder over and expound the issue of ecofeminism from their respective fields, trying to destroy the old male-dominate world and establish a harmonious society between human and nature. Besides, in our studies of literature, whether in Chinese literature or in foreign literature, ecofeminism, of which would often be talked, is an inevitable topic if readers are longing for a better understanding of what they have read. In short, ecofeminism is a hit deserving careful and strenuous studies. Secondly, the female characters in The Color Purple have their own struggles against men#8217;s authorities and grope for special paths to blend into nature eventually, especially its heroine Celie who has achieved her identity and value through her arduous and courageous fight. Celie, who has suffered double oppression of racism and sexism, intends to subvert the role that the patriarchal society imposes on her and manages to change her destiny by herself. It will be a powerful book for female readers around the world, especially the oppressed countries and nations, to arm themselves for equality self-consciousness and independence. To sum up, the study can provide some enlightening thoughts on the feminist theory as well as enhance the readers#8217; reinterpretation of the novel from a ecofeminist perspective. 2. Literature review The Color Purple has gained abundance of attentions and been the subject of critics and scholars, among some of whom highly praise the novel but the others of whom hold a negative of the novel. Whether in home and broad, quiet a few scholars and critics study the novel from vast and various perspectives, which contributes to establish a comprehensive understanding of the novel for readers. Swamps of scholars fix their eyes on the novel and study it from these three aspects. Firstly, a plenty of critics comment the novel from the perspective of womanism. In Alexander-Floyd (2007)#8217;s monograph ---Gender, Race, and Nationalism in Contemporary Black Politics interprets Walker#8217;s womanism and analyzes the ideology and behavior of womanist under the political situation of that period. He also mentioned, ”Many womanist scholars continue to exhibit a commitment to heterogeneity in their intellectual work; however, some nationalist womanists continue to see feminism, generally, and Black feminism, specifically, as an illegitimate political identification for Black women” (Alexander-Floyd 131). Jiang (2013) depicts black women#8217;s gradual growing awareness of the womanism and discusses their hopes of happy and harmonious life. And then it will explain the positive effects of Walker#8217;s womanism awareness between then and nowadays at American society, meanwhile to recognize the essence of womanism. Secondly, some people analyze the novel from the translation comparison and translation skills. Ma (2014) studies the two Chinese version of The Color Purple from the perspective of feminist translation. Sun (2015) makes a study: study on the translation of homosexuality in the Chinese versions of The Color Purple, which explains the reasons why the relationship between Celie and Shug has such a huge gap in translation by analyzing and synthesizing the texts. Besides, the author also further claims some factors that might influence the results of the study in order to enlarge the reliability and completeness of the study. Wang (2012) investigates the differences of three versions from feminist translation, analyzing the details of different aspects of the novel and thinking the potential shortages and concluding that feminism consciousness of female translators is stronger than that of male translators. Thirdly, plenty of scholars show great interest in the analysis of transformation of characters and growth. Jing (2018) clearly analyzes and explores the growth of main characters from the character, plot and narrative structure of the specific genre and concludes that a harmonious relationship will be achieved only when black men respects women#8217;s values and wemen become independent. Chen (2015) makes an analysis on how the heroine, Celie, gets rid of inferiority, recovers self-consciousness and achieves economic, spiritual and social independence. And then a summary is made that only women are independent in economy and spirit, can they free themselves from oppression and abuse under cruel system. Unlike the above theses, Jiang (2012)#8217;s thesis pays much attention to the change of male character Mr. Albert, Celie#8217;s husband. She takes a great use of symbolic indications and phenomena to reveal the personality formation in each important stage of his life. At last, she points out the theme of spiritual survival and harmonious coexistence of men and women. However, she doesn#8217;t study in depth the relevant reasons and effects and omit an important symbol, shell in the novel; as a result, her interpretation seems too superficial. Apart from the acclaimed praise, there are some controversial commons about the novel, some scholars believe that the plot is accidental and delicate because Celie's misfortune and her change of personality are too fast and the ending is not realistic. According to An Introduction to Literature written by Shao、Bai (2011), a good plot arrangement makes the reader feel that the plot has a quality of inevitability, given a set of characters and an initial situation. It is obvious that the plot of the novel is not of this kind. As the advance of the theory ”ecofeminism” is in its head way, it plays a key part in understanding the themes of The Color Purple, its reinterpretation encouraging and inspiring people in oppressed nations and countries, especially female to fight and struggle for their independence and basic rights and creating a harmonious society where black people and white people, men and women, human and nature are able to equal and balanced. However, the relevant search of cnki.net and cqvip.com are little. Therefore, it is of vital importance to conduct an interpretation of Alice Walker#8217;s The Color Purple from an ecofeminism perspective, which will be helpful to see how Alice Walker endeavor to achieve a balance or close relationship between men and women, human and nature. References Alexander-Floy, N.（2007）. Gender, Race, and Nationalism in Contemporary Black Politics. Virginia: Palgrave Macmillan Press. Mellor, M.(1997). Feminism and Ecology. New York: New York University Press. Nisvan, E., Karen,W. (1997). Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Yanick,S., Feagin, J. (1998). Double Burden: Black Women and Everyday Racism. New York: M.E.Sharp, Inc. Sturgeon, N.(1997). Ecofeminist and Nature: Race, Gender, Feminist Theory, and Political Action. London and New York: Routledge. Walker, A.(1982). The Color Purple. New York: Washington Square Press. 陈丽媛（2012），评《紫色》中西丽从自我否定到独立的成长历程，硕士学位论文。

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