Female Individuality And Gender Role In Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady (1923) And Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982) A Comparative Study

Résumé: This dissertation is a comparative study between two literary works which are the American and African-American novels repectively, Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady(1923) and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple(1982). It examines Female Individuality and Gender Role in both works. This dissertation aims to show the issues of women in apatriarchal society and their struggle against sexism and injustice to gain their freedom. This comparative analysis is based on Bell Hooks’ Feminists Theory from Margin to Center(1984), and Alice Walker’s Womanism developed in her collection of essays In Search of Our Mothers Garden: Womanist prose(1983). The present research paper is divided into two chapters, the first chapter deals with Female individuality and studies the issue of freedom and personal autonomy of the main characters Celie and Mrs. Forrester in Walker’s and Cather’s novels, respectively. The second chapter explores gender role and sheds light on the oppression inflicted by the patriarchal system on women, black and white alike. Throughout this study, we have concluded that both writers share similar concerns as far as women are concerned. Both denounce the oppressive rules and clain equality and justice for women in society.

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