Continuity of Womanist Ethos: Intertextuality in Select Novels of Alice Walker

Jesmin Ruhina

doi:10.31178/ubr.10.1.4

Abstract

This study uses the relational content analysis method and theories of intertextuality, intersectionality, and womanism to explore the continuity of womanist ethos in select novels of the African-American novelist Alice Walker. It attempts to explore Walker’s use of womanism as an intertextual trope in The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), Meridian (1976), The Color Purple (1982), The Temple of My Familiar (1989) and Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992); Walker’s portrayal of Celie-Shug as a perfect womanist couple in Color Purple and their reappearance in Temple as mother trees; foremothers as role models in Third Life and Temple; Walker’s telling and retelling of Tashi’s life-long suffering from female genital mutilation (FGM) in Color Purple, Temple, and Possessing – the subject of this paper.

Highlights

Walker’s novels have separately been explored from multiple perspectives, such as racism, sexism, an interlocking system of women’s oppression, lesbianism, feminism, ecofeminism, socialist feminism, womanism, archetypal symbolism, sexuality, female genital mutilation (FGM), human rights violation, etc, till date
Intertextuality promotes a new vision of meaning, and of authorship and reading: a vision resistant to ingrained notions of originality, uniqueness, singularity, and autonomy (Allen 6)
Bates maintains that “womanist is a theory in the creative aesthetics of African American women and women of colour” [41]

Summary

Introduction

Walker’s novels have separately been explored from multiple perspectives, such as racism, sexism, an interlocking system of women’s oppression, lesbianism, feminism, ecofeminism, socialist feminism, womanism, archetypal symbolism, sexuality, FGM, human rights violation, etc, till date. Walker uses womanism as a dominant intertextual trope in Third Life, Meridian, Color Purple, Temple, and Possessing. Walker uses womanism to interweave past and present, interlink individual and community identity, connect personal changes with that of political in the novels.

Results

Conclusion