Celie's Emancipation Process
The People‘s Democratic Republic of Algeria
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
Mentouri University, Constantine
Faculty of Letters and Languages
Department of English
Celie’s Emancipation Process in Alice Walker’s
The Color Purple
A dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment for the
Degree of Master in British and American studies
By
Miss BAGA Amira
Supervised by:
Mr. BOUGHENOUT Hamoudi
June 2010 i Don 't wait around for other people to be happy for you.
Any happiness you get you 've got to make yourself.
ALICE WALKER
ii
Acknowledgements
Above all, thanks to Almighty God who is my source of wisdom. All glory to
Him for granting me the chance and the ability to successfully complete this study.
I would like to express my enduring gratitude to my supervisor Mr.
BOUGHENOUT for his great help and precious advice.
I would like to thank also my dear parents who never doubted me and always provided me with unwavering moral and emotional support. Thanks to my brothers and sister, my nieces and nephews for their unconditional love.
Heartfelt thanks to all the teachers who trained me throughout my education.
I am thankful to my faithful friends and all those who supported me along my studies. Special recognition is due to my dearest friend Agsous Amina.
Sincere gratitude is herby extended to the staff of CCF library: Hakim
Bouchama, Fatiha Bekkar and Sonia Hamadouche who helped me in collecting many of the necessary documentation without which it would not be possible for me to complete this work.
Lastly, I would like to thank everybody who was important to the successful realization of this thesis, as well as expressing my apology that I could not mention them personally one by one. iii Abstract
This study examines the protagonist‘s emancipation process in Alice Walker‘s epistolary novel The Color Purple. Walker does not limit herself in describing the sufferings of
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
Mentouri University, Constantine
Faculty of Letters and Languages
Department of English
Celie’s Emancipation Process in Alice Walker’s
The Color Purple
A dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment for the
Degree of Master in British and American studies
By
Miss BAGA Amira
Supervised by:
Mr. BOUGHENOUT Hamoudi
June 2010 i Don 't wait around for other people to be happy for you.
Any happiness you get you 've got to make yourself.
ALICE WALKER
ii
Acknowledgements
Above all, thanks to Almighty God who is my source of wisdom. All glory to
Him for granting me the chance and the ability to successfully complete this study.
I would like to express my enduring gratitude to my supervisor Mr.
BOUGHENOUT for his great help and precious advice.
I would like to thank also my dear parents who never doubted me and always provided me with unwavering moral and emotional support. Thanks to my brothers and sister, my nieces and nephews for their unconditional love.
Heartfelt thanks to all the teachers who trained me throughout my education.
I am thankful to my faithful friends and all those who supported me along my studies. Special recognition is due to my dearest friend Agsous Amina.
Sincere gratitude is herby extended to the staff of CCF library: Hakim
Bouchama, Fatiha Bekkar and Sonia Hamadouche who helped me in collecting many of the necessary documentation without which it would not be possible for me to complete this work.
Lastly, I would like to thank everybody who was important to the successful realization of this thesis, as well as expressing my apology that I could not mention them personally one by one. iii Abstract
This study examines the protagonist‘s emancipation process in Alice Walker‘s epistolary novel The Color Purple. Walker does not limit herself in describing the sufferings of
Bibliography: Phylon 47 (1986):107-16. Badinter, Élisabeth. L‘un est l‘autre. Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1988 :76. 4thed.England: Penguin Books, 1999. Cyrulnik, Boris. Un merveilleux Malheur. Paris: Odile Jacob, 1999 :56. Ideology. Ed. James Phelan. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1989: 162-85. ---. Ain‘t I a Woman black women and feminism. South End Press: Cambridge, 1981:20. Jackson: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1984. 39 - 53. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One 's Own. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1989:52. Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. London: Woman‘s Press, 1983. Studies 34.1 (1988): 69 –83. Friedman, Susan Stanford. "Creativity and the Childbirth Metaphor: Gender Difference in Literary Discourse." Feminist Studies 13 (1987): 49-82. Harris, Trudier. "On The Color Purple, Stereotypes, and Silence." Black American Literature Forum 18 (1984): 155-61. McConkey, James H.ed. The Anatomy of Memory: An Anthology.New York: Oxford University Press, 1996: Questia, Web, 23 June 2010 Women Novelists." New Literary History 18 (1987): 281-302. Ross, Daniel W. ―The Desire for Selfhood in The Color Purple‖. Modern Fiction Studies 34.1 (1988): 69 – 83. Wall, Wendy. ―Lettered Bodies and Corporeal Texts in The Color Purple.‖ Studies in American Fiction 16 (1988): 83-97. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 22 Jun. 2010. Web. 23 Jun. 2010. Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 13 Jun. 2010. Web. 23 Jun. 2010. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 19 Jun. 2010. Web. 23 Jun. 2010. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 1 Jun. 2010. Web. 23 Jun. 2010. Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 1 Jun. 2010. Web. 23 Jun. 2010 GradeSaver