Cultural Identity on Afro-American Women Writers

Lei Qinglan,Sun Weimin

(Guizhou University of Finance and Economics,Guiyang　Guizhou　550025)

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Cultural Identity on Afro-American Women Writers

Lei Qinglan,Sun Weimin

(Guizhou University of Finance and Economics,GuiyangGuizhou550025)

Ⅰ.Introduction

Cultural identity is a common culture with same history and ancestor.It relates to a group’s or an individual’s self-definition.Cultural identity reflects the common historical experience and common cultural symbols.As a nation,this experience and cultural symbols provide us with a stable,constant and continuous reference and meaning’s framework in the great historical change and unpredictable ups and downs.Therefore,the construction of cultural identity is very important for any nations,especially for those communities positioned in the social marginalization.The importance of cultural identity relates to the following questions:Who are you? Where does he come from?What social status does he have in society,and what kind of dignity should he have?

Cultural identity implies the meaning of “identity” with a fixed characteristic.At the same time,it also reflects the deep meaning of the “identity” that the individual’s seeking for the subjective initiative.For hundreds of years,the voice and endeavors of the Afro-American black people has never been interrupted for the construction of freedom and the independence of cultural identity.Gradually,the problem of the Afro-American black cultural identity has brought more and more attention,and the consciousness of cultural identity has been gradually strengthened as a special group for the production of spiritual products.Black writers have infiltrated more cultural factors into their life experience,so as to be more conscious of the ownership of the black people.The sense of cultural identity is more easily to be realized by them.So cultural identity,undoubtedly,is of great resources for literary creation.On the construction of identity,literature provides a wealth of materials to explain those complex political and social factors.

Ⅱ.The historical reasons

The special experience of the Afro-American black people — the Liberation of Slavery — left a serious wound to the race.Although it was liberated as early as 1863,after more than a hundred years,they still suffered from racial discrimination and racial oppression from the white people.Due to American black people were from different parts of the African continent,common experiences closely connected them altogether.Therefore,from the very beginning,the American black community had a strong desire for freedom and equality in the fight against slavery from the white race.And the origin of American black literature just came from such kind of folk art,which focused on the freedom and equality.After liberation,on the one hand,the black struggled to seek the true meaning of social equality.On the other hand,they actively explored and constructed their own cultural identity.Looking for self-identity in conflicts with the mainstream culture of the white people to establish the cultural identity,African American literature had always been describing and reproducing the heartfelt wishes of freedom,equality,and construction of self-cultural identity.In 1970s,black Americans began to struggle for their characters and the independent identities.The representative works of Afro-American women writers like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker and so on,had been highly recognized in the academic circles.These black women writers were looking for ways to construct the cultural identity of Afro-American women,and endeavoring in the constant exploration to improve the status of black women’ literature so as to change the situation in the past which was excluded and ignored.

Therefore,cultural identity played an important role in the interpretation of Afro-American women’ psychology.In the process of growing stronger and stronger of their Literature,the cover and design issues are also increasingly apparent,and even to some extent,the expression of the theme of intent and thought is much higher than other races.Because Afro-American women are often marginalized and oppressed,so most of their works often involved in the race,class,gender,cultural identity and other issues.After constant development,black women writers use experiences and their summary of all kinds of social phenomena to describe the black women’ psychology and language in vivid details.And they explain them in a way of various angles.This has contributed to the rapid development of black female literature in the United States.At the same time,it also assists the maturity of black feminist literature.

Ⅲ.Works

In the description of black women’s experience and the search for black women’s self-respect,there was no lack of excellent black women writers.In the late twentieth century,the influential female writer was Alice Walker.She then began her career as a writer and a teacher of literature and writing.Most of her works are in the background of the southern countryside which she is familiar with.She took the people lived around her as the prototype for her novel’ characters.To reflect the love and hatred of the black women,especially the black women who were deeply influenced by the society and the black men and to perform their pursuit of self-liberation and the integrity of the struggle.

Alice Walker’s novels have been widely admired and praised by critics and the public.Her third novel,The Color Purple (Kranz,Rachel C,1992:155),published in 1982,won a Pulitzer Prize,an American Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award nomination.The Color Purple is a masterpiece reflected the American black women.The theme of the novel has the dual discourse of both anti-racism and anti-sex discrimination.The novel exposes the threat,the pain,and the harm of white violence and racial discrimination to the black community.The black community had collapsed,because the women abuse in their group,which brought the physical and psychological harm to them.The heroin Celie and heroin Sofia,as well as other black women suffered the double oppression of race and sex discrimination.No matter at home or outside,black women were deprived of the basic rights as a human being.The novel also showed another theme that women’ solidarity can often bring strength and joy to them in the patriarchal domination society.In past,few young girls think their abuse was unnatural.However,they finally realized that they deserved the respect through communication when they gathered together to talk about their experiences or shared their happiness.As long as they are united,they could change their plight.Meanwhile,this novel is full of feminist thought,highlight the heroine of the Celie to find herself,to find the truth in her experience.At the end the novel,she returned to Georgia and became an independent spirit woman.Walker’s novels highlight the feminist thought,the expression of women to strive for independence,and the aspirations of being themselves.

Ⅳ.Historical significance

In the late 70s,the black women writers began to study the public sphere,such as the academic research and the literature creation.Black women writers have also begun to enter the public sphere in academic research,literary creation and so on.They devoted themselves to the analysis and exploration of the creative content and achievements of the predecessor black women.Vigorously advocate the healthy and positive development of black women’ Literature.And based on the practice of black feminist literary criticism,they were planning to achieve the goal of building a positive spirit of the main body of black women.In the field of American literary criticism,black studies and feminist literary criticism,they formed the black feminist criticism.Black feminism comprehensively summarizes the critical areas of race,class,genders and identity construction.The identity construction of feminism is diverse,changing and contradictory.This identity includes social,ethnic,class,and often cross-language and cross-cultural narrative expressions.

The loss of black women’ identity mostly came from the image of black women in the traditional literature.African American women writers’ creative ideas and themes highlight the positive construction of black women’ desire for racial cultural identity and female identity,revealing the double suffering of black women from racial oppression and gender discrimination.The creative thought of black women writers is concentrated in their works,which reflect the black women’ positive construction of racial identity in the both white dominated social environment and the male dominated social environment,and their search for self-experience.The efforts by these novelists have not only promoted the development of black women’s consciousness,but have promoted the progress of the national literature.

Notes:

〔1〕Mrs.N.F.Mossell,The Work of the Afro-American Women,New York Oxford:Oxford University Press,1988.

〔2〕Kranz,Rachel C,The Biographical Dictionary of Black Americans,New York Oxford,1992.

〔3〕Barbara Christian,Black Women Novelists:The Development of a Tradition,Westport,Conn.:Greenwood Press,1980.

〔4〕Barbara Christian,Black Feminist Criticism,New York:Pergamon Press,1985.

〔5〕駱洪：《身份建構(gòu)中的雙重話語——談美國黑人女作家的創(chuàng)作思想和作品主題》，《云南師范大學學報(哲學社會科學版)》,2005年第4期，第96-101頁。

〔6〕姚春美：《少數(shù)族的身份突圍與文化探尋》，廣西師范大學，2007年。

〔7〕楊梅：《另類的吶喊：〈最藍的眼睛〉、〈紫顏色〉中女性人物的身份建構(gòu)探析》，山東大學,2014年。

〔8〕何晴：《〈他們眼望上蒼〉中的黑人女性身份問題研究》，華中師范大學,2008年。

〔9〕Morrison,Toni,The Bluest Eye.New York:Square Press,1972.

Afro-American Women were once a social minority and the weaker gender in American society.Through the endeavor of a group of Afro-American women writers,they have achieved a great success for the cultural identity by concluding their own social experience into works in recent decades.This paper reviews the cultural identity built by Afro-American black women writers and introduces its historical reasons,works,and historical significance.By doing this,we stand to gain insights into the American women writers and find their great contributions to their cultural identity in American culture.

cultural identity;Afro-American women writer;works

About the author：Lei Qinglan,Professor of Guizhou University of Finance and Economics;Sun Weimin,MTI major student of Guizhou University of Finance and Economics.