Zina Emad, Dr. Rajabali Askarzadeh Torghabeh & Dr. Zohre Taebi
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran
Alice Walker’s The Color purple is marked by racism, violence, double consciousness, injustice, and sexual abuse. The characters of the novel are also entangled in a double consciousness state. The writers of this article have benefited from Du Bois notion of “double consciousness” to analyze the novel. Du Bois writes that the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line. The problem of the color line postulates the existence within the veil and the concept of “double consciousness”. Du Bois’ discourse on “double consciousness” exposes the condition of African Americans who have been compelled to assert their own agency and identities while enduring conflicting identities, imposed by the U.S. white supremacist community. This divided consciousness has both positive and negative aspects to it. On the positive side, as Du Bois writes the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world. On the other hand, on the negative side, this process, as Du Bois states, “yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world”. The findings of the study show that in The Color Purple, the protagonists of the novel, Celie and her sister realize that the color of their skin excludes them from any love and affection that are given to the white girls. Celie is a victim of “double consciousness”. In the novel, the woman is subordinated both in the domestic and colonial context.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Third International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 31 January-1February 2019 , Ahwaz.
