Alice Walker Continues African-American Women's Writing Tradition

Since the beginning of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, women have worked to communicate their experiences in dealing with a repressive patriarchal society and their efforts to destroy the degrading myths regarding women through writing. One of the most insistent and passionate voices of the emerging women authors has been that of the African-American woman. Intent upon survival as a result of being violently forced into slavery from their ancestors' introduction to America to their existence, such women as Harriet A. Jacobs, Harriet E. Wilson, and Frances E. W. Harper birthed a new literary tradition by recording their stories for the world, especially women, to hear. Traditions known as the Slave Narrative, the Sensitive Novel, and the Cult of True Womanhood were reinforced by these women. As a result, their legacy continues to affect the women of the twentieth century.

Growing from such a rich heritage as the African-American woman built, Alice Walker is the newest heiress and contributor to the African-American Women's tradition. The manifestation of the black woman's history and a hope for the future can also be seen through the transformation of Alice Walker's protagonist in her novel The Color Purple. Raped and beaten as a young child, Celie grows into a submissive, silent woman until she is liberated by the introduction of love and eroticism through a relationship with a fascinating blues singer Shug Avery. Celie's journey parallels to that of the black woman in America and arrives at a promising conclusion.