Celie, a poor southern black woman, is raped by her stepfather when she is young and her two babies are sold by her stepfather。 Then she marries Albert, whom she calls him Mr。_。 In this marriage, Celie has to undertake all housework and suffer the abuse from her husband, no dignity, no self-identity, which is common in that time。 Nettie, her sister, runs away from home because of the mistreatment by her stepfather。 At first, the only relief in Celie’s marriage is the relationship with Sofia, the wife of her stepson who is willing to have a heart-to-heart talk with her in the home, and she is the first black woman Celie knows that refuses the abuse of her husband but is beaten and jailed because she won’t be a maid of a white family。 Later, Celie meets Shug, a blues singer and Albert’s true love。 Shug’s beauty and confidence attract Celie deeply。 Strengthened by the relationship with Shug, Celie ends her marriage and has her own life。 Celie’s husband also builds a new relationship with her。 In the end of the novel, Celie has a reunion with her sisters and children。

    Primarily, Alice Walker reveals the suffering life black women live under the double oppression of racism and sexism and the way black women search self-identity。 Simultaneously, Walker wants to point out the fact that although America abolishes slavery, the social status of black people don’t get improvement, especially black women。 If black women are to eliminate the oppression of sexism and racism, they must do it by themselves。 

1。2 Research Significance

In the novel, Alice Walker describes black women’ s living condition and process how they search their total liberation。 According to this novel, Walker wants to wake up black women’ s consciousness of self-identity。 The process from Celie’s obedience to liberation reflects the situation that black women in the new generation are no longer willing to be the anonymous existence, but to seek their own independence and make the voice of their own。 The novel tries to convey the fact that black women have the ability to get liberation, and the only way can they achieve their dreams is to fight by themselves。 Moreover, the significance of this novel is not only applied to black women, but all the women who are suffering oppression。   

    Nowadays, there are still many women living in unfair condition, and they muddle along from day to day。 No self-identity, no dream。 From the progression of Celie’s awakening and searching for self-identity, it not only enlightens black women but also other women who still suffer the oppression from men and society that they have the ability to stand up on their own feet。 From this novel, not only black women but other women who are still suffering the oppression could establish a view that they should fight for their own life。 Women should shake the unfair society-the men-dominated and the white-dominated society。 All the oppressed women will be strong pillar of each other。 Although women still need to go through hazards and hardships, they will succeed one day in the future。 In that day, they will find their self-identity and gain liberation totally。文献综述

1。3 Research Questions 

Black feminist critics state that sex is not the only factor to influence women’ s destiny。 Besides sex, black feminist literary criticism should take race, culture etc into consideration。 The differences in sex and race lead to inequality between male and female。 What’s more, to establish black female’s subjectivity is the key purpose of American black feminist literary criticism。 According to black feminist perspective, this paper is to deal with two questions: what’s black women’ s oppression and how they struggle for liberation。 Taking the main female characters as research objects, the paper will search their double oppression and the way they search for self-identity。