The Search for Self-Identity: A Comparative Study ofKate Chopin''s The Awakening and Alice Walker''s The Color Purple

• Main Authors: Shu-Hui Hou, 侯淑惠
• Other Authors: 宋美璍
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/76631886317442915611

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 英文學系碩士班 === 93 === This study focuses on two female writers of different races and backgrounds: Kate Chopin and Alice Walker. This thesis compares and contrasts Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple by examining their different narratives and analyzing how the two authors’ social and cultural contexts influence their texts. The thesis also examines how the authors transfer their personal experiences to their texts, using the latter to convey their perspectives on women as self-reliant subjects. The thesis is divided into three chapters. Chapter One deals with Kate Chopin’s and Alice Walker’s definitions of ‘oppression’ and the similarities and dissimilarities between these two feminists’ points of view, and then uses the texts to support my argument. Chapter Two compares the two heroines from social and cultural perspectives: to some extent, both heroines are oppressed by their societies. The last chapter contrasts the heroines’ emancipations from bonds and how they maintain their selfhood at the end of the novels. After a series of efforts, Edna ends with committing suicide whereas Celie leads a happy life with a big family. Why do our protagonists have two different outcomes? To analyze the difference of Edna’s and Celie’s fates is also my focus in the last chapter. Celie’s case offers a possible solution for Edna and other women in Edna’s situation. If she would like to assert her autonomy, a woman needs to cooperate with men and other women. Besides, both men and women should understand and accept the concept of androgyny—the blending of traditional male and female characteristics, and then put it into practice in order to achieve the equality of the two sexes and a harmonious relationship.