A Multidisciplinary Research Journal - Devanga Arts College

Feminism in Alice Walker
E. Kumara Jothi
Assistant Professor of English,
Devanga Arts College (Autonomous), Aruppukottai.
African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by
writers of African descent. The genre traces its origins to the works of such late 18 th century
writers as Philis Wheatley and Olaudan Equiano, reaching early high points with slave narratives
and the Harlem Renaissance and continuing today with authors such as Toni Morrison, Maya
Angelou, Walter Mosley, Lorraine Hansberry and Alice Walker being ranked among the top
writers in the United States. Among the themes and issues explored in African American
Literature are the roles of African Americans within the larger American society. African
American writing has also tended to incorporate within itself oral forms such as spirituals,
sermons, gospel music, blues, and rap.
African Americans’ place in American society has changed over the centuries. Before the
American civil war, African American Literature primarily focused on the issue of slavery, as
indicated by the subgenera of slave narratives. At the turn of the 20 th century, books by authors
such as W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington debated whether to confront or appease racist
attitudes in the United States. During the American Civil right movements, such as Richard
Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about issues of racial segregation and Black Nationalism.
Today African American literature has become accepted as an integral part of American
Literature, with books as Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley, The Color
Purple by Alice Walker and Beloved by Toni Morrison achieving both best selling and award
winning status. Beginning in the 1970s, African American Literature reached the mainstream as
books by Black writers continually achieved fame. This was also the time when the work of
African American writers began to be accepted by academia as a legitimate genre of American
Literature.
12 ISSN 0976-8130
Alice Walker’s writing has been a key to naming and defining African American
women’s thought for African American women as well as for non - African American feminist