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BACKGROUND
- Georgia, sharecropper parents:
- -->
WRITING:
- blind in right eye (accidentally shot in the eye by her
brother, too poor to get it taken care of properly)
- withdrawal from people, careful observation of people
- -->
STYLE:
- Black vernacular
- slavery and oppression
- poverty
- college educated:
- scholarship to Spelman College,
- Sarah Lawrence College in NY
- pregnant & suicidal
- --> abortion
- --> poems of
Once (1968)
- deal with Africa
- civil rights in Georgia
- 1964: Uganda as exchange student
- 1966:
- graduation
- NYC welfare case worker
- Mississippi (voter registration)
- teacher (Jackson State, Wellesley, Radcliffe Institute)
- civil rights activist
- married & had daughter:
- with Mel Leventhal,
- white/Jewish civil rights lawyer
- 9 years, since divorced
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BACKGROUND
- The Color Purple,
1983
- Pulitzer Prize (1st
Black woman writer)
- epistolary convention
- vernacular speech
- 1985 movie, Steven
Spielberg, Whoopi Golderburg, Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover
- against "literary
separatism":
- black & white writers writing only for their respective
races
- influences:
- greatly influenced by
- Flannery O'Connor &
- Zora Neale Hurston
- “Womanist”:
- not the same as Feminist
- appreciation for the culture, character,
and emotions of women
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THEMES
- oppression of female sexuality
- male dominance, oppression, abuse
- universality of the human
experience:
- (not just about the experiences of Black women—but of
all humanity)
- by exploring issues of RACE and GENDER
- by exploring experiences of Black women
- journeys of self-discovery
- hope in despair
- (forgiveness, affirmation, bonding—celebration of the
human spirit)
- “literature of survival”
- outer hell (oppression, abuse, neglect, racism,
sexism)
- inner heaven (strength, beauty, perseverance)
- writes of “the social and personal drama in the lives of
familiar people who struggle for survival of self in
hostile
environments” (Dictionary of Literary Biography, qtd. By CA
database, emphasis mine)
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THEMES
- Black experience, especially Black women (Black
sisterhood)
- ordinary people
- oppression of female sexuality
- male dominance, oppression, abuse
- "womanist"
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STYLE
- vernacular, idiom
- the absurdity of grief, no tears, no weepiness
- --> stories in which grief is mixed with laughter "to
retrieve sanity"
- Black experience, especially Black women (Black
sisterhood)
- ordinary people
- oppression of female sexuality
- male dominance, oppression, abuse
- universality of the human
experience:
- (not just about the experiences of Black women—but of
all humanity)
- by exploring issues of RACE and GENDER
- by exploring experiences of Black women
- journeys of self-discovery
- hope in despair
- (forgiveness, affirmation, bonding—celebration of the
human spirit)
- “literature of survival”
- outer hell (oppression, abuse, neglect, racism,
sexism)
- vs.
- inner heaven (strength, beauty, perseverance)
- writes of “the social and personal drama in the lives of
familiar people who struggle for survival of self in hostile
environments” (Dictionary of Literary Biography, qtd. By CA
database, emphasis mine)
- activism, cultural criticism
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STYLE
(-) criticism
- sexist:
- male stereotypes (all bad men)
- racist:
- whites are stupid and incompetent
- although both may be excused, from the POV of the victim
- although some of the men are “reformed” by the end
- too socio-political:
- propaganda, not literature; stereotypes, preaching,
stiffly didactic
- “smug preachiness, the unconvincing experiences, and the
diosyncratic thinking [that] make[for] more of a
self-indulgent fantasy” (Kirkus review, qtd. by CA)
- “New Age hooey”
- recycled Color of Purple (characters, movie)
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LINKS
LINKS
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