International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences

Vol-8, Issue-4; Jul-Aug, 2023

Peer-Reviewed Journal

Journal Home Page Available: https://ijels.com/

Journal DOI: 10.22161/ijels

An Ecofeminist Approach to Alice Walker’s the Color

Purple
Biswajit Payra

Guest Lecturer in English, JKBK Government College, Cuttack, Odisha, India

Received: 04 Jul 2023; Received in revised form: 02 Aug 2023; Accepted: 10 Aug 2023; Available online: 17 Aug 2023
©2023 The Author(s). Published by Infogain Publication. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Abstract— Alice walker, an iconic African-American, is one of the influential feminist writers in literature.
She, in her works, has delineated how the African-American women have faced oppressions in terms of race,
class and ethnicity and has lambasted both sexist and racist hegemony in addition to promoting an ecocentric
worldview by dint of womanism. Her The Color Purple (1982) depicts how women as well nature are
subjected to continuous exploitation and draws interconnectedness between women and nature. The paper
shows how both women and nature are being exploited, subjugated and oppressed by the patriarchal world
and how Celie, Shug Sofia and Squeak have been able to develop their life through eco-friendly ways of life
by bucking against trouble-ridden situations.
Keywords— Feminism, Ecofeminism, Environmentalism, Ecocrticism.

I. INTRODUCTION their life through eco-friendly ways of life by bucking

Ecofemism as said by Peter Berry ‘’ which comes under the against trouble-ridden situations. The novel revolves around
label of ecocriticism insists to give importance to existence Celie, a naive Southern black girl who later emancipates
of Nature “as an entity which affects us”. Françoise into a strong black woman realizing her potential
d'Eaubonne was the first French feminist who coins the term physically, economically and spiritually by reconnecting
ecofeminism in her book, Feminism or Destruction (1974). with the nature. The paper gives a relatively comprehensive
It is a type of feminism that attempts to examine the and detailed look into Walker’s ecofeminist consciousness
relationship between woman’s oppression and in order to evoke more people’s environmental awareness
environmental exploitation in a male-dominated society. It and to make it easier to build a harmonious beautiful world.
also tackles the environmental problems and the factors that
lead to the destruction of nature and the exploitation of II. DISCUSSION: WOMEN AND NATURE:
woman. The Color Purple, generally considered one of her VICTIMS OF THE PATRARCHAL
best works, won her three great American literary awards SOCIETY
since its publication in 1982 and is undoubtedly regarded as
Alice Walker in her The Color Purple Alice Walker has
a great and long lasting masterpiece of American literature.
portrayed the experiences of Black-women in a sexist and
The Color Purple focuses on the physical pain, mental
racist society . She chronicles the life of Blackwomen who
agony, violence of black women and how they are
are facing verbal, mental, physical and sexual abuses at the
oppressed and tortured and depicts how women as well
hands of patriarchal world. In The Color Purple, the female
nature are subjected to continuous exploitation and draws
characters are considered to be mules, whose will is
interconnectedness between women and nature. The paper
subjugated to the will of the men. As victims of patriarchy
shows how both women and nature are being exploited,
and male chauvinism, most of them have the experience of
subjugated and oppressed by the patriarchal world and how
being raped, being deprived of basic human rights and
Celie, Shug Sofia and Squeak have been able to develop
finally become psychologically controlled by men. Celie,

IJELS-2023, 8(4), (ISSN: 2456-7620) (Int. J of Eng. Lit. and Soc. Sci.)
https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.84.28 175
Payra An Ecofeminist Approach to Alice Walker’s the Color Purple

the protagonist of the novel, is raped by her stepfather when people in Olinka have gone through the disaster caused by
she is only 14 years old and later gives birth to two children. their destroying the balance of ecology. This experience
After her stepfather’s repeated physical and sexual teaches them the lesson of the importance of keeping a
violence, Celie is sold to a widower with four children to harmonious relationship with nature and this lesson is then
tend to. It’s her industriousness and obedience as well as an passed on from generation to generation among them.
attached cow that leads to the widow’s decision of marrying However, their awareness isn’t enough to protect
her. However, this marriage doesn’t eliminate any slightest themselves and their natural world. The white people’s
oppressions she suffers but throws her into another “cage”. colonialism once again puts them in the environmental
To the widower, her so-called husband, she is nothing but a crisis. Here, Walker intends to criticize the conspiracy of
laborer in the field, a worker for domestic household and a racism and colonialism that leads to the severe ecological
sexual servant. crisis. She tries to say that people are using ,exploiting ad
Alice Walker, in addition to depicting the oppression, killing tress mercilessly to be benefitted economically.
subjugation and domination of women who are the victim Actually,
of male oppressions not only because of their colour but also Walker in her work Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A
because of their feminine gender , delineates how nature too Writer's Activism (1997) has desired to take a walk amidst
is being oppressed and annihilated by the oppressive nature and see its beauty. She has said that this brings to her
chauvinistic patriarchal society . In The Color Purple, in mind many blacks who she has known “are flexible like the
order to arouse people’s attention to the disastrous natural grass and sheltering like the trees" (111). The solacing
world, she presents before the reader the environmental quality of nature has been given importance in the text The
deterioration in Olinka. What we have learnt from o Nettie’s Color Purple. Celie imagines herself as a tree, while facing
letters, Olinka previously is a peaceful village located in domestic violence under Albert. Celie tells Harpo, her
Africa where people live in a “place without walls but with stepson: “I say to myself, Celie, you a tree” (Walker Color
a leaf roof” (Walker, 1982, p.141). And there are “trees and 22). Imagining herself as a tree, gives her the strength to
trees and then more trees on top of that. They are so big they combat oppression, offer resistance and make life a happy
look like they were built. And vines. And ferns. And little ride. Shug shelters the other women characters in the novel,
animals. Frogs. Snakes too.” The people who are the like a tree, under her ecowomanist wisdom and makes them
residents of the very place reside there peacefully living on self-reliant. Furthermore, Celie as a self-reliant
the lap of beautiful serene natural environment but entrepreneur gets firmly rooted like a tree and offers
everything was shattered when the white road builders employment to many women. Walker advocates that human
came. The serene beautiful Olinka village turns to be the suffering and devastation of nature, can be surmounted
territory of the white colonists with the fields being when the toxicity in the mind, body and the earth are
occupied, huts leveled, leaves of the trees cut away. In removed completely. Resurrection of nature, its worship
addition, the victims of this ecological disaster include not and preservation are of utmost importance to ecowomanism
only the Olinka village but also its neighbor villages. The and Walker has talked about them in The Color Purple.
white colonizers aim to turn the village into a headquarter Celie finds solace amidst the clamour of plantation life,
of the rubber industry by replacing the forest with rubber nurturing nature on the farm. Shug makes her realize that “it
trees. The biological balance is completely destroyed with pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field
the animals nowhere to stay, and local people being somewhere and don’t notice it” (Walker Color 167). Later
expelled away from their homeland and forced to buy water on, Celie becomes a self-reliant entrepreneur and builds a
from the planters. The white colonists, under the cloak of home in Memphis for herself amidst nature with many
modern civilization, succeed in conquering the peaceful artefacts of nature, symbolic of her ecowomanist awareness.
creatures there and destroying the previous ecological Celie and Shug impart this awareness to the other women
environment as well. According to Doris Baines, ‘’a sixty- characters in the novel and accentuate their ecowomanist
five-year-old woman whom Nettie and Samuel meet on awareness. Nettie’s stay in Olinka speaks about how, nature
their way back to England, signs of war are all over Africa worship and preservation be it as simple as the worship of
and India. Trees are hauled off to make ships and captain’s the roof leaf can act as a source of strength to fight
furniture, while the land is planted with something people oppression. Moreover, Walker has cleverly linked issues of
can’t eat. Animals are also victims of advanced human environmental pollution, deforestation, and global warming
society from the primitive one to modern one, with their with Nettie’s stay in Olinka. She has showcased how
meat cooked into food, fur made into clothing, bones into destruction of greenery leads to the aforesaid problems, one
ornament’. Another important point in the novel that needs after the other, even in a thickly vegetated country like
to be noted that before the aggression of the white colonists, Olinka. As pointed out by Bush “Through Netties story, the

IJELS-2023, 8(4), (ISSN: 2456-7620) (Int. J of Eng. Lit. and Soc. Sci.)
https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.84.28 176
Payra An Ecofeminist Approach to Alice Walker’s the Color Purple

theme of women’s exploitation by men is set in the larger

context of the exploitative relationship between races and
nations” (1039). Nettie gets the healing touch by making a
spiritual union with the nature after ecological destruction
of beautiful Olinka made by the chauvinistic white men.

III. CONCLUSION
Alice Walker in her famous novel The Color Purple
delineates how women and nature share the same miserable
fate under common oppressions done by the rulling
dominating chauvinistic patriarchal society. She explores
the connections between women and nature through
spiritual amendments. She has said that "In day-today life,
I worship the Earth as God-- representing everything-- and
nature as its spirit" (Walker Anything 9). She argues that an
anthropocentric, patriarchal Christian view that the universe
is only for man, will be very taxing for the ecosystem and
she recommends paganism as a way of promoting an
ecocentric worldview. However, Walker through the novel
draws the interconnectedness between women and nature.
Ruether said about women in the very novel “They must
unite the demands of the women’s movement with those
ecological movement to envision a radical reshaping of the
basic socio-economic relations”. The unity and mutual
beneficial bonds among them can help them stand up
against the oppressive chauvinistic patriarchal society who
for their own benefits exploit, torture and subjugate both
women and nature.

REFERENCES
[1] Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. London: Women's Press,
1992.
[2] Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary
and Cultural Theory. Manchester, UK: Manchester
University Press, 2009.
[3] O’Brien, John. Interview with Black Writers. New York:
Liveright, 1973.
[4] Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Integrating Ecofeminism,
Globalization and world Religions. Rowman & Littlefield
Pub, 2005.
[5] Dhivya, E. (2016). Women as Victims: An Analysis of Alice
Walker’s The Color Purple. Language in India, 16, 1930-
2940.

IJELS-2023, 8(4), (ISSN: 2456-7620) (Int. J of Eng. Lit. and Soc. Sci.)
https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.84.28 177