The Self and The Community in Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Meridian

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Date
2012-04-03
Authors
Tembo, Dennis
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Abstract
This was a qualitative research. The research was mostly desk based, examining the primary texts The Color Purple and Meridian, as well as secondary sources of information such as critical articles in books, journals as well as the electronic sources on the internet.The research mostly used the Feminist Literary Theory of Criticism and referred to other relevant theories like the Psychoanalysis Literary Theory of Criticism where necessary. The self, the complete individual personality, is affected, in its construction by the community. The community, taken here to mean a group of people living in the same area in which they share a common background or interests, with its norms and values affect the development of the self as evidenced in Sula in Toni Morison's novel Sula and Brownfield in Alice Walker's novel The Third Life of Grange Copeland to mention but a few. How individuals interrelate with their communities has an effect on both the community and the self. The community in which individuals are situated do have their own challenges. The communities in which Celie and Meridian live in The Color Purple and Meridian are faced with challenges of racism and sexism. This is reflected by the circles in which power is exercised. There is the white world which has ultimate power followed by the Black American world which is enslaved in the White world. Within the Black American world is an oppressed world of the Black American Woman whose state is given as inferior and negative. In this world, the Black American Woman has to fight in order to attain an identity and an image of the self for herself.The study examines how a female character in such an oppressive environment can interrelate with the community and still attain the self. Both novels present a female character as the protagonist; Celie in The Color Purple and Meridian in the novel Meridian. The study investigates how the concept of the self and the community in the novels The Color Purple and Meridian has been created, developed and presented. The role of race, sex and religion in a community is examined especially in the way they each affect the development of the individual self.The findings of this work show that a girl child in a world of men is not always safe and that the woman has to break some of the bonds that keep her in oppression for her to attain a sense of the self. The findings show that society looks at such a woman as a rebel but that by confronting her situations and oppressors the woman attains her identity and place in her community.
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Keywords
Personality , Self
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