#For M.A. Semester IV (American Literature) By- Samir Kumar Sharma, Associate Professor of English, Patna University, Patna

Alice Walker’s Idea of Womanism Alice Walker in her collection of essays In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose published in 1983 uses the word ‘womanism’, and defines it as feminist, Afrocentric, healing, embodied and spiritual. This term refers to “African- American feminism or the feminism of women of color.” Walker explains, “I just like to have words that describe things correctly. Now to me ‘black feminist’ does not do that. I need a word that is organic that really comes out of the culture that really expresses the spirit that we see in black women.” Walker wants to give a name to the black women's struggle against white patriarchy against white women’s racism and against sexism of black men. The idea is that the conditions of black women are different from those of the white women. White women have not had to interrogate either their whiteness or their sex quality as political institutions which have cushioned them against the worst effects of racist and sexist violence. Black women writers have to take care of various factors- migration of the Africans and their struggle, retrieval of African- American tradition- the language, songs, stories, dance, cuisine and all the practices such as quilt making, baking, gardening that have shaped their daily lives. Their writings with such significant difference cells are bound to be Afrocentric as opposed to Eurocentric. Their writings have their deep roots in African culture, religious values, and other practices. Walker’s ‘womanism’ depends on the four kinds of meanings and usage. 1. Womanist- A black feminist or feminist of color. In black folk expression when mothers say to daughters “you acting womanish,” they mean that their (daughter’s) behaviour is audacious, courageous, responsible or willful and acting grownups. This expression is the same as “you trying to be grown.” 2. A woman who loves other women sexually/non- sexually. She appreciates and prefers women's culture, women's emotional flexibility and women's strength. She is not a separatist, but traditionally Universalist. For example- “Mama, why are we brown, pink and yellow and our cousins are white, beige, and black?” Answer- “Well, you know the color dress is just like a flower garden, with every flower represented.” 3. A woman who loves music, loves dance, loves the moon, loves the spirit, loves love, loves struggle, loves the folk and loves herself. Regardless. 4. Womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender. This means that womanism denotes different things. Both purple and lavender have many things in common but even then they are different. In the beings in the first entry Walker says that a womanist is a black feminist but to make them different, she chooses purple and lavender, and Sketches black women as beautiful and strong beings.

Walker has given literary, critical and philosophical recognition to black women's intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual wholeness. She further stresses the need to create a global community where all members of society are encouraged to survive. The quality of being ‘Universalist’ gives black women more strength and the power to prove that they are worthwhile.

Walker refers to black people as a community- consisting of men and women- both are equally important but she at the same time does not hesitate to state that she is primarily concerned with black women's case. She says that a womanist is “committed to the survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.” She prefers womanism because she thinks that it is rooted in black folk culture to indicate clearly that the concept is shaped by the specific experience of being a black woman. Black feminism and womanism may seem to be interchangeable because both are concerned with their struggle against racism and sexism and both make efforts to achieve equality and liberty. Black women are like purple with rage, purple as restored royalty, purple blossoming wild in an open field. Womanism is an empowered form of feminism just as purple is a bold and empowered vision of lavender. Purple as a color could also be regarded as a multifaceted erotic symbol, a sign of indomitable female spirit and encoding of joyous vitality of the female spirit. The metaphor of garden is employed to mean the Universalist philosophy. Room exists for all flowers blooming equally and differently yet coexisting and retaining their cultural distinctiveness and integrity. The dominant motif of womanism is sisterhood, inherent in advancement. Walker’s concept of womanism stresses the sense of solidarity and sharing, the sense of community that brings about a blossoming in self and society.

The Color Purple Twenty- five years after publishing The Color Purple, Alice Walker expresses her views on God, the idea of God, his powers, his son Jesus, His thinking, His wishes and how He treats the people. She talks of the time when Africans started believing in God. How Christianity spread and how and why the Africans were turned into Christian faith. She speaks about labour, slave labour, spread of malaria, felling of forests, growing cotton, indigo, rice, brick making, laying, Cooking, weaving and raising animals. How they were considered to be objects, with no regard for their physical well- being are their feelings. They were assumed like women and cats, to have no souls. How in such circumstances New World (Washington, DC, New York) became better than London. Life was very difficult, almost unbearable. Walker talks of the situations in which the early Africans who were forced to migrate from Africa to America, might have suffered unimaginably. Paganism versus the new God- how the belief was installed in them that everything was made by God- masters to order and slaves to carry out those orders. Slave obey your masters. She tells us about her great- great- grandmother and of the descendants of slaves and the attitude of the whites to them. World loving God- all Magical, Superior and inferior- God- All Present, All Magical- God image- How this image created by the whites was installed in the blacks who were captured, beaten and starved, shackled and branded, the day the left their homeland Africa. The Color Purple- at the time of its writing she felt the need to be surrounded by nature as she was perturbed due to various reasons. She tells us about her sufferings. After twenty- five years she is also surprised that her book is discussed as a book about God- God versus the God image. Pa is the tsunami for Celie, and Mister her hurricane. Pa and Mister are not individuals but types. They are everywhere- in various forms- war, famine, physical affliction, caste, class, race, sex, mental illness, disease etc. Celie's need to be liberated- but how? God- as Life and Love, Creativity and Joy.