40

Alice Walker and Womanism

Although black women writers have contributed significantly to the African-

American fiction since the eighteenth century, yet their contribution and writings largely

remained unrecognized and unnoticed. They, like their male counterparts, responded

equally to the various historical developments that took place in America. Various fields

especially political and educational saw some major changes taking place and thus

African-American literature started becoming visible in the American literary canon. The

issue of race was held synonymous with the African-American fiction which was earlier

neglected, and thus taken for granted by the feminists. Black women scholars and writers

exploited the issue of contestation of race and gender in their writings. The evil issue of

race affected them harshly impelling them to portray this issue in their writings. Toni

Cade Bambara in the introduction to her anthology The Black Woman commented:

We are involved in a struggle for liberation: liberation from the

exploitative and dehumanizing system of racism, from the manipulative

control of a corporate society, liberation from the constructive norm of

mainstream culture, from the synthetic myths that encourage us to fashion

ourselves rashly from without rather than from within. (7)

Black women writers since the eighteenth century ranging from Phillis Wheatley

to the contemporary ones dealt with a number of themes viz. racism, sexism, violence,

sexuality, religion, citizenship, sisterhood, motherhood, etc. Contemporary black women

writers like Toni Morrison, Rita Dove, Gloria Naylor, and Alice Walker express the

various aspects of the perplexity of contemporary African-American life. They also work
 41

with the aim of shattering the beliefs of the Western society as these beliefs according to

the writers in question impede the growth and development of black people in general

and black women in particular. This chapter shall be divided into two parts. The first part

shall attempt to bring into focus Alice Walker’s biographical and literary background and

her contribution to contemporary African-American fiction while the second part shall be

based on her theory of ‘Womanism’ which is her greatest contribution to the African-

American literature, a term coined exclusively by her, a variant concept from feminism

itself. Feminism did not discuss or consider black women or the women of colour and

their miseries. Walker coined the term which presented the issues of black women in

literature, culture, and history.

Alice Malsenior Walker, a prolific writer, poet, novelist, short story writer,

essayist, educator, theorist, activist, editor, and publisher was born on 9 February 1944 in

the rural southern town of Eatonton Georgia to sharecroppers Willie Lee and Minnie

Tallulah and was the eighth and last of children of her parents. She witnessed that black

women were confronted with issues like lack of education and ignorance and were

destined to witness the evils of sexism, racism, violence, poverty, etc. Since her

childhood, she was an active witness to violent racism, poverty, and the injustice of the

sharecropping system which adversely affected the African-American families. She used

to play with her brothers and “was a tomboy, and played Cowboys and Indians regularly

with two of her older brothers. They had matching outfits and were armed with bows and

arrows” (Donnelly 12). At the age of eight, she was accidently shot in the eye with a BB

gun by one of her brothers and lost vision in her eye. This unfortunate calamity resulted

in her conversion from a confident girl to a timid, tremulous, and an isolated individual.
 42

“This disfigurement eventually enabled her to develop a writer’s voice, because she

withdrew from others and became an acute observer of her surroundings, human

relationships, and interactions,” says Page (579). As a result, she turned up reclusive and

even thought of committing suicide. Nevertheless, it was her kind mother who came

forward and helped her to move beyond her world of loneliness and isolation in the

South. Along with her household chores, she allowed Walker to read well which helped

Walker start reading different books. She took refuge in reading books written by some

of the world’s best writers and this knowledge opened new gates for her. At the age of

14, in the summer of 1958, Alice Walker’s brother, Bill invited her to spend the summer

with him and his family in Boston. He made arrangements for her surgery and

consequently the scar tissue in her eye was removed. It did not help her regain her vision

but her appearance got rejuvenated. Walker in one of her essays entitled “Beauty” writes:

Almost immediately I become a different person from the girl who does

not raise her head or so as I think. Now I have raised my head I win the

boyfriend of my dreams. Now that I’ve raised my head I have plenty of

friends. Now that I’ve raised my head class work comes from my lips as

faultlessly as Easter speeches did, and I leave high school as valedictorian,

most popular student, and queen, hardly believing my luck. (qtd. in

Donnelly 14-15)

This surgery brought a transformation in the life of Walker. After the tissue

removal, she regained self-confidence and self-belief. Walker did not let her injury affect

her personal or professional life in the later years of her life. Evelyn C. White in her

book, Alice Walker: A Life writes:

 43

ALICE MAINTAINED a public silence about her eye injury because she

did not want to be pitied. Not by friends, lovers, future employers—and

especially not by literary critics, who, as her career progressed, would be

called on to assess her talents as a writer. For Alice, the injury and the

circumstances surrounding it were a private matter. Besides, in the years

immediately following the incident, she was less concerned about her

compromised vision than she was about the “glob” of scar tissue that

covered her right eye, making her feel flawed and ashamed. (41)

After graduating from high school, Walker’s mother gave her some gifts like a

sewing machine, handsome suitcase, and a typewriter. Her progress in the school helped

her to get an achievable scholarship from the state of Georgia and thus she went to

Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia in 1961. She carried the three gifts from her mother

there also. Spelman, being an African-American Woman’s College, gave Walker an

opportunity to meet other women with the spirit of activism and this in turn enhanced

Walker’s activist spirit and consequently, she grew as an activist. While heading to the

Spelman College, Walker was asked to move to the back of the bus which offended her

severely. This episode provoked her not only to pursue her studies there but also to take a

very good part in the civil rights movement in Atlanta. At Spelman, Walker was greatly

influenced by her history professor, Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the

United States who wrote about the injustice and was against all restrictions and

oppression. She herself says about him that he was “the first white man with whom she’d

ever had a real conversation” (White 69). After that, she left Spelman College because of

some of its shortcomings, and joined Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York
 44

where she was to receive her B.A in 1965. It was here that she became a political activist.

She later left Spelman and transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York in 1963.

This gave her the opportunity to travel to Africa and experience African community. She

visited Kenya and Uganda on an educational grant in the summer before her senior year

and returned to college pregnant, and was so much disturbed that she even thought of

committing suicide. Then she arranged an abortion and kept herself busy with writing,

culminating in the first collection of her poetry “Once” which was accepted by the

company, Harcourt Brace Jovvanovich, thus becoming her long-time publisher. Walker,

after completing her graduation worked for the New York City Welfare department for a

short period of time which formed the basis for writing some of the sections of her novel

Meridian and also a story based on the controversial theme of interracial rape,

“Advancing Luna- and Ida B. Wells.”

She, after that returned to Georgia where she continued her activism, took part in

voter registration, and thereby took certain important measures to promote change in the

South. Walker moved to Mississippi in 1966, taught there and also continued her social

activism and worked in Mississippi in voter registration and welfare rights from 1960s to

mid 1970s. The remarkable thing about this period is her discovery of the writings of

almost forgotten Zora Neale Hurston whose works later had a profound influence on her

own subsequent works. In March 1967, Walker took the decision of marrying a white

Jewish lawyer and a civil rights activist, Melvyn Laventhal and thus theirs was the only

legal inter-racial relationship. She suffered the loss of her first child in 1968 and began to

write poetry. Thus, Walker began her literary career that gave expression to her

experiences of African-American women of the South in particular who suffered from the
 45

pernicious evils of racism, sexism, violence and poverty, and world women in general.

Walker became their voice and she portrayed in her writings how racism, sexism, and

violence made a hell of their lives. Then she gave birth to a daughter, Rebecca. Alice and

her husband Mel had not been received well in the maternity ward. Walker writes, “No

one could believe we were together, married, to have our neither black nor white child,”

(qtd. in White 182). She became anxious of her writing and career after the birth of her

child as she felt herself caught between motherhood and profession. Regarding the years

after Rebecca’s birth, Walker writes, “I was afraid I could not be a successful writer and a

mother at the same time. I was torn between my desire to do justice to my art and the

demands of my marriage in a place where the tree of freedom was constantly being

watered with blood” (qtd. in White 182).

Walker became an editor in Ms. Magazine after leaving Mississippi for good in

1974. Her marriage culminated and she divorced Leventhal in 1976 and two years later

moved to San Francisco with Robert Allen who was later to become one of her partners

in Wild Trees Press. Walker became an involved and staunch activist in the civil rights

movement of 1960s. Page remarks: “Walker has been an involved activist. She has

spoken for the women’s movement, the antiapartheid movement, for the anti-nuclear

movement, and against female genital mutilation” (579).

Walker is considered as one of the most productive, gifted, fruitful, controversial,

and esteemed African-American writers. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, she has been

bestowed with a number of prestigious and reputable awards like, the Lillian Smith

Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rosenthal Award from the

National Institute of Arts and Letters, a nomination for the National Book Award, a
 46

Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, a Merrill Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The

Front Page Award for Best Magazine Criticism from the Newswoman’s Club of New

York, and a Lyndhurst Prize among many others.

One of the important themes in the works of Walker is the belief that black

women have historically been silenced, oppressed, and victimized. Being a woman and

black writer herself, she takes the experiences of black women as a movement from

victims of society and by their own men. Walker classifies the black women into three

cycles: ‘Suspended’, ‘Assimilated’ and ‘Emergent’. Suspended women belong to the

period from nineteenth century to early decades of 20th century. The Assimilated women

belong to the forties and fifties when blacks were fighting to gain prestige and honour for

them to be equal citizens of American society. The Emergent women belong to the

sixties. Almost all the works of Walker trace the theory of ‘womanism’. Some of the

important themes, which pervade her fiction, are the female solidarity and wholeness,

identity and consciousness-raising in her black community. Her writings show her

connection with other black female writers like Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor and others,

and she is considered as a revolutionary figure in the history of African-American

women’s literature.

The themes of racial, sexual, and political issues and most particularly with the

African-American Women’s struggle for spiritual survival often recur in the works of

Alice Walker. She herself once said that her most overriding preoccupation was “the

spiritual survival, the survival whole of my people. But beyond that, I am committed to

exploring the oppressions, the insanities, the loyalties, and the triumphs of black women”

(O’Brien 192). Her works are pregnant with the theme of exploration of the individual
 47

identity of the African-American women and their showing of a female bonding with

each other, thus understanding the common problems they face in the oppressed sexist

and racist society.

Christian writes about some specific recurrent motifs in the fiction of Alice

Walker. According to her, the most obvious theme in the writings of Walker is the notion

of black woman as creator and the concept of her ‘whole’ which is much beneficial for

her community. This theme is central to her works like In Love and Trouble, You Can’t

Keep a Good Woman Down, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, Meridian, and The

Color Purple. Another important recurring motif in her fiction is her insistence on

probing the relationship between struggle and change which embraces the pain of black

people’s lives and Walker protests against it. According to Walker, such pain can

sometimes end in growth because of the struggle. This theme is treated in her novels like

The Third Life of Grange Copeland and Meridian, her poetry and essays as well.

Walker’s works are considered as organically redundant. Christian remarks:

One might also characterize Walker’s work as organically spare rather

than elaborate, ascetic rather than lush, a process of stripping off layers,

honing down to the core. This pattern, impressionistic in Once, is refined

in her subsequent volumes of poetry and clearly marks the structure of her

fiction and essays. There is a concentrated distillation of language, which,

ironically, allows her to expand rather than constrict. (Black Feminist

Criticism 82)
 48

Walker’s emphasis on the struggle of black people in general and black women in

particular, their self-knowledge, and love are seen in her works. Walker focuses deeply

on her female heritage. She outlines the images of ordinary black women particularly of

the South in the existing literary tradition. She describes the creativity and genius of the

black women and their transformation despite much opposition. She does not include

black women of the South as her major characters in her fiction merely because she is a

member of that community, but due to their understanding of the oppression they were

subjected to which helped them in rejecting the existing conventions, a very tough job

though.

Walker has emerged as the chief spokesperson and symbol for black feminism,

but she described herself as a “womanist”, a term which she used for a black feminist.

Page again remarks that, “Walker’s works have the characters of African American

women who have struggled to maintain an essential spirituality and creativity in their

lives” (579). In her works, Walker mainly reflects on issues like cruelty, domestic

violence, child abuse, black women’s sexuality, racism, sexism that are encountered by

African-American women, thus becomes their chief supporter and patron, and gives them

a potent voice. She also explores the idea of individual identity with respect to African-

American women and this clearly is an index of her deep concern for her community. In

her childhood, Walker was greatly influenced by the writings of Russian novelists like

Dostoyevsky, Gogol, and Tolstoy. She read them as if “they were a delicious cake”

(Gentry 33). In 1974, she published a children’s book, Langston Hughes: American Poet,

a biography of the poet whom she had met during her college years and who later on

helped her in publishing her first short story, “To Hell with Dying.”
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One of the crucial achievements of Walker was the recovery of the lost works of

another influential African-American novelist of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale

Hurston who had died in poverty and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Garden of

Heavenly Peace Cemetery in Florida, and later in 1973, she walked to the gravesite and

marked it as Hurston’s Grave, and lauded Hurston as “genius of the south.” It was after

that event that Walker in Ms. Magazine published an essay; “In Search of Zora Neale

Hurston” in 1974 where she detailed about her efforts in rejuvenating and resurrecting the

lost works of Hurston and it is all because of her efforts that today one can read the

printed works of the aforementioned lost author. This enabled her to receive the

Guggenheim Fellowship award in 1977-78. Walker edited the collection I Love Myself

When I’m Laughing . . . and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A

Zora Neale Hurston Reader for the Feminist Press in 1979. She has also edited The

Audre Lorde Compendium (1996). Walker writes about Zora in her essay “Looking for

Zora”:

There are times—and finding Zora Hurston’s grave was one of them—

when normal responses of grief, horror, and so on, do not make sense

because they bear no real relation to the depth of the emotion one feels. It

was impossible for me to cry when I saw the field full of weeds where

Zora is. Partly this is because I have come to know Zora through her

books and she was not a teary sort of person herself; but partly, too, it is

because there is a point at which even grief feels absurd. And at this point,

laughter gushes up to retrieve sanity. (qtd. in Bloom 2)

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Walker continues to be a vital figure in reorganizing and exploring the canon of

African-American literature. Walker is better known for her novels. Her first novel, The

Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) presents the theme of suppression and domination

of powerless women by their equally powerless male partners which became a powerful

theme in her coming works also. The National Endowment for the Arts funded her work

in which Walker portrayed the journey of a father and son who abused their women and

took them as their legacy. Its recurrent theme is the suffering of black women at the

hands of black men and the social conditions also that affect their family relationships.

The novel portrays the racism-affected life of a southern African-American

sharecropping family in which male violence affects three generations. Grange, the

father, fed up by the racism and oppression himself oppresses his wife and children,

leaves them for the north. After his return back after so many years, he finds his son also

oppressing his own family. It was only his grandfather, Ruth, who could receive his love.

The novel has been labelled as a depiction of a powerful, beneficent, and benignant view

of African-American family life.

Meridian (1976), her second novel explores the same theme and portrays the lives

of women in the civil rights struggle. She describes how racism and sexism affect the

lives of African-American women. The novel is a bit autobiographical in nature as

Meridian, like Walker herself, born in rural south got pregnant and married a high school

dropout. Meridian, like Walker, decides to commit suicide or kill her child and finally

gives the child up and attends college. She returns to rural Mississippi with the sole

intension of struggling against oppression in her society. It is the personal evolution and

development of a very young African-American woman during Civil Rights Movement

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who spoke and fought against racial discrimination and sexism. The novel was completed

before three days of her daughter, Rebecca’s birth. This novel comparatively received

more critical attention than the first one. It was highly praised for its aspiring exploration

of the civil rights movement.

Her third novel, The Color Purple (1982) is the reason behind her fame as it made

her the first African-American woman to have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1983.

After its publication, Walker became an internationally acclaimed and renowned writer

and the work also earned her The American Book Award in the same year. She explores

the theme of oppression—sexual, racist, and political which African-American women

face. The novel introduces the theme of selfhood of Celie and her becoming a strong and

independent woman with the help of other women in her society. The epistolary novel

spans thirty years in Celie’s life, a poor Southern African-American woman victimized

by men and her society who became a victim of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.

She writes letters to God and Nettie, her sister. With the help of Shug Avery, she

discovers her inner self, esteem, and courage. At the end of the novel, she is reunited with

her sister and children. Walker’s fourth novel, The Temple of My Familiar (1989) is

spiritual in nature. Miss Lissie is portrayed as an ancient African goddess and has been

incarnated hundreds of times and she represents African culture. She breaks her bonds

with Suwelo, a narcissistic university professor who wished to oppress, dominate, and

exploit his wife. He, by her interactions with Miss Lissie and her friend Hal, learns about

different experiences of Miss Lessie’s many lives that helped him to gather his ability to

love and respect himself and others again. This novel stayed on the New York Times best-

seller list for more than four months. Possessing the Secret of Joy (1993), her fifth novel
 52

introduces the theme of horror of female genital mutilation, an evil practice performed to

guarantee a girl’s virginity before marriage. Tashi, the main character who has also been

a character in Walker’s previous novels like, The Color Purple and The Temple of my

Familiar, is genitally mutilated, and shows her resentment to such a harmful and

shameful practice.

By the Light of My Father’s Smile (1998) is also pregnant with the theme of

female sexuality. The novel is the story of an African-American family who go to

Mexico to study the Mundo people (mixed black and Indian tribe) whose experience

tends them to change their mentality and challenge the sexual hypocrisy of their society.

The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart (2000), her other book is autobiographical in

nature in which she accounts the stories of her own past life, her marriage to Melvyn

Laventhal, the birth of their daughter, her divorce, and life after that. This collection of

stories focuses on friendship and passion. Now is the Time to Open Your Heart (2004),

one more work of Walker’s fiction describes the story of Kate Talkingtree, a successful

African-American female novelist who starts a journey of spiritual discovery. She

decides to leave her sexual life to preserve life of virginity.

Walker has also short story collections and poetry books to her credit. In Love and

Trouble: Stories of Black Women (1974) and You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down

(1981), her important short story collections, delineate the issues of racism and sexism

which affect cruelly the lives of African-American women. In Love and Trouble is a

collection of thirteen short stories depicting the lives of thirteen African-American

women protagonists who challenge the existing conventions of race, sex, age, etc. You
 53

Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down also challenges the conventions and show how

sexuality affects African-American women.

Better known as a novelist, Walker started her literary career with poetry. Her

poetry reflects her commitment to her social activism. Her debut collection of poems

“Once” was written when she was pregnant and was thinking of committing suicide only

to end with an abortion. The collection reflects her anguish and frustration, despair and

destitution during her tough time of pregnancy and her experiences of activism in the

civil rights movement, and her trip to Africa. Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems

(1973), her second collection of poems was nominated for National Book award. Good

Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning (1979), her third volume of poetry is her

mother’s farewell to her father at his funeral. The collection describes love and history of

slavery. Walker’s poetry has been highly praised for its plausible and evident simplicity

of statement and its simple affordability and accessibility.

Walker’s fourth volume of poetry, Horses Make a Landscape Look More

Beautiful (1984) contains poems written between 1979 and 1984 and deal with various

personal and political issues. Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems,

1965-1990 Complete (1991) is a collection of Walker’s four previous volumes, with an

introduction to each. Sent by the Earth: A Message from the Grandmother Spirit after the

Bombing of the Trade Centre and Pentagon (2001) reflects political commentary where

she exposes the evil environmental effects of war. In In Search of Our Mother’s

Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983), Walker gives much credit and pays homage to the

African women who showed their creativity, no matter how racism and sexism

encountered them and tried to hinder their progress.

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She also wrote Living by the Word: Selected Writings 1973-87 (1988) where she

pens down her love for the planet she had loved as a child. She wrote a non-fiction piece

on the evil of genital mutilation titled as Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and

the Sexual Blinding of Women which became a source for a documentary film directed by

Pratibha Parmer in 1993.

Thus we have observed that after emerging on the literary scene in 1968 with the

publication of her first poetry volume, “Once,” Walker has tried her hand on almost all

genres of literature. All her works trace her theory of ‘Womanism’. She defines the idea

of womanism in four parts at the beginning of her collection of essays In Search of Our

Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose:

Womanist 1. From womanish. (Opp. of “girlish,” i.e. frivolous,

irresponsible, not serious.) A black feminist or feminist of color. From the

black folk expression of mothers to female children, “You acting

womanish,” i.e. like a woman. Usually referring to outrageous, audacious,

courageous or willful behavior. Wanting to know more and in great depth

than is considered “good” for one. Interested in grown-up doings. Acting

grown up. Being grown up. Interchangeable with another black folk

expression: “You trying to be grown.” Responsible. In charge. Serious.

2. Also: A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually.

Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility

(values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter), and women’s strength.

Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed

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to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a

separatist, except periodically, for health. Traditionally universalist, as in:

“Mama, why are we brown, pink, and yellow, and our cousins are white,

beige, and black?” Ans.: “Well, you know the colored race is just like a

flower garden, with every color flower represented.” Traditionally

capable, as in: “Mama, I’m walking to Canada and I’m taking you and a

bunch of other slaves with me.” Reply: “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

3. Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves

love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves

herself. Regardless.

4. Womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender. (x-xi)

The above definitions clearly state that womanism firmly believes in equality and

egalitarianism ranging over the issues of not only gender, but race, class, ethnicity also

and thus has a universal appeal. Womanism believes in the ideals of women’s struggle

for the admiration, liberation, advancement, promotion, and empowerment of women. It

highlights the racial, ethnic, class, and gender identities of black women.

Walker endeavours to define the term ‘womanist’ in its origin and meaning in

black folklore. Walker says that ‘womanist’ is synonymous for a black feminist or

feminist of colour. This part of the definition deals with the root of the concept of

womanism. The word ‘womanist’ is derived from an adjective ‘womanish’ which is used

by the black people in expression ‘You act womanish’, a phrase often used by mothers to

their female children if they seem to be grown up. The word ‘womanish’ is used to refer
 56

to ‘outrageous, audacious, courageous, or willful behavior’. These adjectives carry an

optimistic vision accompanied with motivation. Walker further says that ‘womanish’ is

the opposite of ‘girlish’ which means ‘frivolous, irresponsible and not serious.’ In

contrary to the ‘girlish’, ‘womanish’ means to be grown up, responsible, and solemn.

This aims for their responsibility. Walker derives the word “womanism” from

“womanish” used by black mothers for girls who want to “know more and in greater

depth than is considered ‘good’ for anyone.” Womanish girls are curious to know and

seek more and more and that too deeply as they are responsible, trustworthy, and serious.

Walker constructs the experiences of black women as opposite to those of white women.

Thus, womanism is different from and superior to feminism. Black women can be

referred to as “womanist,” while white women remain “feminist” always. Most of the

black women hold the view that feminist movement is exclusively for women and works

for the best efforts to attack or exclude men while womanism helps black women to treat

gender opposition without attacking or eliminating black men.

In second part of her definition, Walker explains black women’s sexual identities.

Harris in Gifts of Virtue, Alice Walker, and Womanist Ethics remarks: “Her inclusion of

homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual love, as modes through which womanists can

express their sexuality, suggests that Walker honours varied forms of sexuality as

avenues through which women of African descent can be wholly themselves” (84). This

shows Walker’s perspective honouring various expressions on sexuality. While giving

the second definition of womanism, “Mama, why are we brown, pink, and yellow, and

our cousins are white, beige, and black?”, Walker clearly wants to prove the point that

womanism provides a theory which explains the vision that women and men of different
 57

colours live in harmony like different flowers in a garden, retaining their cultural

harmony. Womanism works for equality of all races, ethnicities, and cultures. It works

for the negation and elimination of all the forms of oppression and marginality and works

for the commitment of social justice.

Womanist is a woman who loves both men and women sexually or non-sexually.

A womanist appreciates and cherishes women’s culture, their strengths, their abilities,

and capabilities. She is committed to the survival and wholeness of entire people—male

or female. Walker also shows her concern for men. She further goes on to say that

womanists love men and their culture too. So Walker offers both the relationship—

lesbian as well as heterosexual. This differentiates ‘womanism’ from ‘white feminism.’

Collins remarks that, “Womanism seemingly supplies a way for black women to address

gender oppression without attacking black men” (WHAT’S IN A NAME? 11).

Walker moves on to define ‘womanist’ in relation to black women’s love for

dance, music, the moon, the spirit, etc. Womanists love to struggle, as struggles are

inevitable in human life. Finally, she makes a comparison between ‘womanism’ and

‘feminism.’ They are slightly different as those of purple and lavender. Thus, we can see

that feminism and womanism as theories have so many things in common but possess

many differences as well. Womanism is deeply rooted in black women’s struggle and

history of racial, economic, and gender subjugation. It works for black empowerment.

Walker states that a womanist is different from a feminist, as purple is different from

lavender. Womanism reflects the issues of black women through which these women of

colour formulate their policies and ideas. She stresses for the survival of her whole

community. Walker states: “I am preoccupied with the spiritual survival. Whole of my

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people, I am committed to exploring the oppressions, the insanities, the loyalties, and the

triumphs of black women” (In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens 250). She elevates and

eulogizes womanism and compares it to purple colour which is described as royal colour.

Feminism is associated to weaker lavender and her comparison shows that feminism as a

movement failed to appeal to many women of 1980s and 1990s especially to those of

women of colour. The paler lavender colour cleverly delineates that feminism was related

to white women, not the women of colour.

In the beginning feminism as a movement aimed to win equal suffrage rights for

women, but white women did not support the struggle of black women. Even the white

feminist critics ignored and excluded the works of black women. Mainstream feminism

only took gender discrimination into consideration and neglected racial discrimination

totally. Walters writes:

There is also an increasing recognition that, whereas Western feminists

have struggled against sexism, and against social and political inequalities,

women in the ‘Third World’ have had to confront additional, and even

more intractable, problems. They often have to combat sexism in the form

of deep-rooted local beliefs and practices, to do with class, caste, religion,

and ethnic biases. In some countries, their battle with these issues has been

combined with, and sometimes complicated by, a struggle for the

establishment of democratic government and for the most basic freedoms.

(118)
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This prompted Walker to start her womanist movement. The essays in her

collection, In Search of Our Mothers Gardens: Womanist Prose, are very aptly called as

“womanist prose” where she elaborately explains her concept of “womanism.” When

Walker realized that black feminists would not think for the inclusion of black women

writers in the literary tradition, she took the responsibility of framing a special theory,

‘womanism’ which will fully include the writings of black female writers and give them

an identity and recognition. Ogunyemi writes:

Many black female novelists writing in English have understandably not

allied themselves with radical white feminists; rather, they have explored

the gamut of other positions and produced an exciting, fluid corpus that

defies rigid categorization. More often than not, where a white woman

writer may be a feminist, a black woman writer is likely to be a

“womanist.” That is, she will recognize that, along with her consciousness

of sexual issues, she must incorporate racial, cultural, national, economic,

and political considerations into her philosophy. (63-64)

Her works reflect the concept of womanism. She focused purposefully on creating

a sense of literary continuity and tradition among black women. However, one should not

blame Walker to underestimate and exclude white female writers, rather her holistic

intention is to include and give recognition to them as well. Walker advises her fellow

women to stop bearing oppression of their men and listen to each other for the

development and expression of their artistic potential and capabilities. She recalls how

Patricia Meyer Spacks and Phyllis Chesler ignored the African-American women writers

in their survey of women writers’ history. They included the eighteenth and nineteenth
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century British women writers whose experiences were quite different from theirs. Alice

Walker explains further the meaning of the term ‘womanist’ in her essay “Audre’s

Voice” where she recalls a conversation with Audre Lorde, another important black

feminist writer and explains the difference between womanist and black feminist to lorde.

Walker said:

She had questioned my use of the word “womanist,” in lieu of “black

feminist,” saying that it appeared to be an attempt to disclaim being

feminist . . . I pointed out to her that it is a necessary act of liberation to

name oneself with words that fit; that this was a position her own work

celebrated . . . . We talked until Audre seemed to understand my point

about using the word “womanist”: more room in it for changes, said I,

sexual and otherwise. More reflective of black women’s culture,

especially Southern culture. (qtd. in Harris, Gifts of Virtue, Alice Walker, and

Womanist Ethics 44)

Womanism helped coloured women to present their problems, issues, values, and

objections. It grew from a feminist theory to an enormously political struggle and

activism which provided a platform for the black women to oppose the marginalized

policies and worked for their empowerment. It focused on the need and development for

a commendable female community where women could help each other to put an end to

the long standing oppression, patriarchal dominance, racism, and sexism. Womanism

worked for the notion to end everything influenced by power which is responsible for

hindering human growth and development. Some black theologians stated that

womanism paved way for their religious beliefs. It helped black women to get
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empowered and preserve their cultural heritage. According to Walker the word,

“Womanist needs no qualification. Just the word itself stands for doing something that

might get you in trouble” (qtd. in White 379).

Walker influenced many other eminent female scholars and writers like Buchi

Ememcheta, Miriam Teali, and many others who labelled themselves as womanists, not

feminists and took recourse to the theory of womanism in their analysis of the writings of

women from minority groups or third world countries. Womanism did not appeal only to

the black women in the U.S, but also to African women and as well as women in Latin-

American countries. It was due to this fact that womanism, like feminism did not take

gender inequality into consideration alone; it also focused on the issues of race and class.

Consequently, these women followed womanism through which they fought against the

various evils of oppression. Thus, womanism gained a universal appeal day by day.

Walker’s womanism is one of the concrete forms of black feminism. This theory does not

pave way for discrimination as white feminists do. Walker defines “womanist” in terms

of different relationships possible between women. Womanists love other women, their

culture, their strengths, and their values. Though Walker supported lesbian relationships,

she does not disapprove of heterosexual relationships. She asks women to love each other

but does not display animosity towards men.

In the essay “In Search of Our Mothers Gardens,” Walker expresses her concern

about how the creativity and intellect of Black women have been neglected and

underestimated due to the social, political, and economic problems created by slavery and

racism. Walker in her essay points to and writes about the African-American writers and

artists preceding her. Writing about writers like Phillis Wheatley, Bessie Smith, Zora
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Neale Hurston, and some Southern women of African descent, Walker remarks, “These

grandmothers and mothers, were not saints, but artists: driven to a numb and bleeding

madness by the springs of creativity in them for which there was no release” (233).

Walker as a womanist writer embodies sexual, economic, racial, ethnic, cultural, national,

economic, and political considerations in her theory of womanism. She writes with the

notion of changing the ideology of both male sexist oppressors and female oppressed

folks about the cruel patriarchal system. Walker’s experience of seeing black people

being denied the right to live in peace and dignity makes her champion of the cause of the

betterment of all the human and non-human inhabitants of the earth including trees,

animals, etc. In a conversation with Oprah Winfrey in 1989, she expressed a deep

concern for the planet earth:

There is no heaven. This is it. We’re already in heaven, you know, and so

in order . . . for the earth to survive, we have to acknowledge each other as

part of the family, the same family, and also reaffirm those things in

ourselves and in other people that we’ve been brought up to fear or to

hate. (qtd. in Winchell, 133)

Black women felt alienated by the faulty standards of mainstream feminism.

Barbara Christian writes, “‘womanist’, with its emphasis on independence and unity

came directly out of black women’s culture.” She further writes, “The word had a

monumental impact in shaping a consciousness that allowed black women to dialogue

and organize separate from white feminists who had proven themselves insensitive to our

concerns” (qtd. in White 378). Walker being a womanist writer has also taken recourse to

the African myths, folklore, songs, dance, Voodoo, epistolary form, and many other
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things used by her male and female predecessors. Walker’s use of the epistolary form

sketches her as an authentic storyteller and displays the qualities of simplicity and

brilliance. Walker interweaves her novels with some songs and repeated phrases which

help in the clear expression of some higher emotions. Her writings put more focus on the

innermost aspects of African-American life. She aims to search for some ways and

measures which would help in healing the long standing bruises created by humiliation

and works also for putting an end to the wrongs created by such offensive things.

Black feminism is taken as a synonymous term with womanism. Barbara Onolade

points out that “black feminism is sometimes referred to as womanism because both are

concerned with struggles against sexism and racism by black women who are themselves

part of the black community’s efforts to achieve equity and liberty” (qtd. in Collins,

WHAT’S IN A NAME? 10). The term ‘womanism’ caters to the needs of black women

in best possible ways. Onolade further comments that, “Walker suggests that black

women’s concrete history fosters a womanist worldview accessible primarily and perhaps

exclusively to black women” (Collins 10). By and large, womanism focuses on race and

many other problems. The idea of masculinity is not taken as a threat here; both the

genders are given prominence. Womanists do not believe that it is only the colour which

makes black women oppressed but try to address various issues of women from a much

broader and universal perspective.

Black women fiction writers are not feminists like white women writers; rather

they are ‘womanists’ because of their race. Alice Walker’s term ‘womanism’ solely

aimed at defending the rights of black people. She thinks not only about the black people

alone but also about the other people around the world. After studying the novels of
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Walker, one gets fully aware that womanism is not only concerned with black women

alone, but it is concerned with the welfare and well being of entire human race, both male

and female. Womanist theory aims to challenge all oppressive forces that hinder the

development and survival of black women, thus seeking ways and means for a positive

and productive life for them. Alice Walker attempts, through her fiction, to bring a

reform in the lives of black women and thus emerges as a staunch champion and

supporter of their rights in American society. Her womanist theory is free from any

political or ethical considerations, as her purpose is to honour black women’s struggles,

strengths, capabilities, and experiences. Her female characters address the problem of

oppression without attacking black men.

Walker’s ‘womanism’ is different from the term ‘Africana womanism’ which was

coined by Clenora Hudsom-Weems in her influential book Africana Womanism:

Reclaiming Ourselves (1994). The term does not denote African feminism.

Differentiating between the two terms, Gerri Bates writes that, “One difference is that

Africana Womanism rejects as foremost in women’s struggle gender as an issue and the

male as an enemy. It also focuses globally exclusively on women of Africana heritage,

and it has no identification with any traditional feminist organizations” (37). The theory

of womanism helped Walker to explore “the oppressions, insanities, loyalties, creativity,

and triumphs of African-American women and women of color” (37).

The womanist theory of Walker and her depiction of the history of black women

are structured in almost all her works. She tries her best to immortalize and narrate

impartially the condition of black women who are marginalized and oppressed, whose

voices would otherwise remain unheard. In her works, black women who often appear as
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central characters are seen as victims of exploitation and marginalization at the hands of

white people and men of their own race. The treatment of black women in her writings

corroborates the fact that Walker is a strong chronicler and firm advocate for them.

Walker through her fiction gives voice to those who have no voice—black

women. She holds an optimistic attitude as all her female characters despite the problems

they encounter—harsh economic system, racism, patriarchy, misogyny—stand for hope

and strength to gain recognition for them. Her female characters largely recognize their

strengths and individuality even after being marginalized. Walker believes the

‘womanist’ to be a self-confessional statement of the contemporary black women who

believe in self-actualization and recognition. Her fiction explicitly shows her

commitment to the ideology of womanism. Walker tries to rewrite the history of black

women from a womanist perspective for the empowerment of these women and to bring

to them their autonomy and freedom.

Black women writers are counted among the most exhilarating writers on the

contemporary literary scene in America. This is because of the commendable

contribution of these writers since the 1970s and the black readership in itself. Black men

writers portray the black female characters unfavourably in their writings. Deborah E.

McDowell in her essay “New Directions for Black Feminist Theory” comments on this

negative and derogatory portraiture of females by black males and sees it as something

which gave impetus to early black feminism. Sherley Anne Williams in her essay, “Some

Implications of Womanist Theory” points out that black women have been negatively

portrayed in black men’s fiction. She aimed at challenging the existing theoretical

assumptions of traditional literary criticism and history. She writes:

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Black women as readers and writers have been kept out of literary

endeavour, so we had, and have, a lot to say. But to focus solely on

ourselves is to fall into the same hole The Brother has dug for himself—

narcissism, isolation, inarticulation, obscurity. Of course we must keep

talking to and about ourselves, but literature, as Chinweizu and Walker

remind us, is about community and dialogue; theories or ways of reading

ought actively to promote the enlargement of both. (74)

Essentially, womanism is a theory in the creative aesthetics of African-American

women and women of colour. Walker prefers to make use of a term from her own culture

which possesses all clear meanings. The term ‘womanist’ in African-American tradition

implies audaciousness and in the white culture it implies weakness. Walker felt that the

word is more appropriate to the needs and aspirations of the women in her society.

African-American women are now no longer marginalized. They have proved

their worth in various fields in American society. Alice Walker is a successful and skilful

writer who has tried her best to give voice to these women. She very skilfully narrates the

stories of black women who have been absent from American literature. Bates comments:

Her special appeal stems from her ability to develop the stories of African

American women, who are noticeably absent from American literature.

These are women who find themselves exploited and victimized

emotionally, physically, and psychologically, women who endure

alienation and confinement, women who struggle to get from margin to

center, whose only way out sometimes is insanity. (20)

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Her writings are autobiographical personifications. She is an outstanding writer,

weaving stories coming from oral and written traditions into a unified whole. Bates

further comments that, “She is interested in the edification of her readership, leaving

them with a feeling of catharsis, the essence of classical literature” (22). Alice Walker

continues to be the central figure in the contemporary Afro-American literary scene.

Thus, Walker has helped to explore and expand contemporary African-American

women’s literary canon and tradition and has exerted a lot of effort for the maintenance,

conservation, and preservation of African-American culture. She has achieved a

remarkable and extraordinary position in contemporary American fiction in general and

African-American fiction in particular.