THE AWAKENING OF BLACK WOMAN’S MOVEMENT IN ALICE WALKER’S MERIDIAN

Literary works have long been one of the sources of enjoyment, which serve \nto refine our minds and expand our sense of life. Through literary works, human can \nfind understanding, because they provide “the depiction of imagined experience \n[which] can provide authentic insights” (Perrine: 3). However, gaining an \nunderstanding from literary works requires a particular mode of thinking, such as \nliterary theory and literary criticism. \nSince literary works depict human experiences, both imagined and real, they \nalso portray the social phenomenon of woman’s discrimination in the society. Since \nthe early phase of human civilization, women are always given the second position in \nthe society. Women are always treated under the oppression and control of men. \nFemale are stereotyped as a weak creative, less intellectual and hence should act as \nthe inferior party before their male counterparts. However, as the time goes by, \nwomen gradually realize that they are actually equal to men. Thus, women take \naction to gain equal rights and roles in the society. Some women criticize men’s \nworks that underestimate women, and also they write their own literary works to make the society aware about women’s ideas and feelings. This movement is later on \nlead to the emergence of Feminist Criticism. \nThe phenomenon of unequal treatment toward women happens to both white \nand colored women. In fact, it is even harder for colored women because they also \nhave to face racial discrimination. For example, in America, black people are \nunderestimated and black women have to deal with black men’s sexism, and white \nwomen’s racism. Consequently, black women are on the lowest position among the \nAmerican society. In this case, black women encounter such condition through a \nmovement known as Black Feminist. \nThe Black Feminist movement, as Collins stated in Defining Black Feminist \nThought, “was formed to address the ways sexism, racism, and classism influence the \nlives of black women whose needs were ignored by the black men of the Black \nLiberation Movement and white women in the Women’s Movement” (20). The \npassage strengthens the goal of Black Feminist movement; that is, to free black \nwomen from sexism and racism. The fact that African-American women are regarded \nas the lowest people in America has become the main issue of Black Feminist \nthinkers and activists in the United States. This phenomenon can also be seen in black \nwomen’s literary works. One of them is in the novel entitled Meridian by Alice \nWalker. \nMeridian (1976) is one of Walker’s best-known works. The setting is in the \n1960’s and 70’s, Southern America. This novel tells about a black female student in Saxon College, who became an activist in the Atlanta Movement for black people’s \ncivil rights. However, despite of the complicated personal problem that Meridian \ndealt with, she moved on to live independently and devoted her life to conduct \ncampaign on human rights movement for black women and children. She dedicates \nherself to join Civil Rights worker because as black woman she got discrimination \nfrom white. She fights discrimination not only for herself but also for black women. \nBlack women at that time were suffering for discrimination and oppression, both \nfrom white and black men. \nThe novel itself deals with activist workers in the South during the civil rights \nmovement, and closely paralleled to some of Walker's own experiences. According to \nTorfs in Alice Walker’s Womanism: Theory and Practice, Alice Walker “…often \nincorporates autobiographical elements in her work and depicts the political, social \nand moral conditions of the South in it” (2008). It suggests that to some extents, Alice \nWalker manifests her feelings and thoughts about black woman in the South America \nbased on her own experience into her works, including Meridian. \nBased on the elaboration above, the writer decides to analyze Alice Walker’s \nMeridian by using Black Feminist theory. Black Feminist theory is considered to be a \nsuitable theory for this novel because the novel highlights the issue of black women \ndiscrimination in American society, in which the main character had to struggle, both \nfor herself and also for the sake of her fellows in black women society. Therefore the writer entitles her research as "THE AWAKENING OF BLACK WOMAN’S MOVEMENT IN ALICE WALKER’S MERIDIAN"