The Analysis of Basic Womanism Novels Written by Alice Walker

Abstract

A theory formulated by Alice Walker, “womanism” focuses on the unification of men and women with nature and Earth. This book explores womanism in regard to its specific concerns with African American women’s rights, identities, and self-actualisation, and points towards its more overarching concerns with human relations and sexual freedom, as expressed in each of Walker’s seven novels. The seven novels discussed in the book are The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), Meridian (1976), The Color Purple (1982), The Temple of My Familiar (1989), Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), By the Light of My Father’s Smile (1998), and Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart (2004). Although Walker introduced the term “womanism” in 1983, this book traces the development of the concept across her canon of fictional works. By analysing the novels written in the 1970s, I establish how the term came to be coined, and, by investigating how themes and issues addressed early on can be mapped onto analysis of her later works.