Certificate: View Certificate
Published Paper PDF: View PDF
Confirmation Letter: View
DOI: https://doi.org/10.63345/ijrsml.v8.i6.1
Dr. Aparajita Shukla
English dept.
Christ Church College
Kanpur
Abstract— This study examines the processes of identity formation and feminist self-discovery in the fiction of Alice Walker, tracing the movement from silenced selves to reclaimed voices within the lived realities of African American women. Drawing on a womanist framework, the paper explores how Walker represents silence not merely as absence of speech but as a condition produced by intersecting forces of patriarchy, racism, economic dependence, and cultural tradition. Through close engagement with major works such as The Color Purple, Meridian, selected short stories, and later novels, the study highlights how selfhood emerges through writing, memory, female bonding, spiritual reorientation, and resistance to oppressive norms. The analysis situates Walker’s narratives within critical discourse, engaging debates on voice, representation, community ethics, and the politics of gendered suffering. Rather than presenting identity as a fixed or individualistic achievement, Walker’s fiction is shown to conceptualize self-discovery as a gradual, relational, and ethically grounded process shaped by historical and social constraints. The study concludes that Walker’s literary project redefines feminist liberation by emphasizing wholeness, healing, and communal responsibility, positioning voice as both a personal and political act central to the reimagining of Black women’s identities.
Keywords— Identity formation, feminist self-discovery, womanism, voice and silence, African American women’s fiction
References
- Walker, A. (1976). Meridian. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
- Walker, A. (1982). The Color Purple. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
- Walker, A. (1983). In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
- Walker, A. (1992). Possessing the Secret of Joy. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
- Christian, B. (1985). Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers. New York: Pergamon Press.
- Collins, P. H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
- Harris, T. (1984). Black Women in the Fiction of James Baldwin. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
- Harris, T. (1989). “On The Color Purple, Stereotypes, and Silence.” In H. Bloom (Ed.), Modern Critical Views: Alice Walker (pp. 155–170). New York: Chelsea House.
- Smith, B. (Ed.). (1983). Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
- Washington, M. H. (1987). Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women 1860–1960. New York: Doubleday.
- Vega, S. (1991). “The Female Body as Text in Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy.” College English, 53(3), 303–310.
- Bloom, H. (Ed.). (2009). Alice Walker. New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism.
- McDowell, D. E. (1995). The Changing Same: Black Women’s Literature, Criticism, and Theory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
- Awkward, M. (1995). Negotiating Difference: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Positionality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Gates, H. L., Jr. (1988). The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Hooks, b. (1984). Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Boston: South End Press.
- Hooks, b. (1990). Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End Press.
- Byerman, K. (1994). Remembering the Past in Contemporary African American Fiction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.