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This study provides a feminist critique of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982) and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) by analysing their portrayals of interaction with patriarchal society as well as their representation of female resilience through nonlinear, multidimensional processes. In examining African American literature within the framework of its cultural and social histories, these writers depict patriarchy as a multidimensional phenomenon and understand its operation through cultural practices, including domesticity, sexuality, religion, slavery, and racial capitalism. By using Black feminist theory, trauma theory, and feminist narratology as theoretical frameworks for our analysis of the texts, we assert that African American women’s literature presents female resilience not simply as survival or triumph; rather, it is created through painful processes of the body (i.e., remembering and narrating) and as a result of collectivism. Walker emphasizes spiritual enlightenment, exploration of sexuality, and sisterhood; while Morrison emphasizes historical trauma, grief over motherhood, and community memory to assert ethical mandates. Using comparative analyses, we will demonstrate how African American women’s literature redefines resistance from merely surviving to continually reclaiming humanity from patriarchal and racial violence.
Ruksar Saifi. “Voices Against Silence: Patriarchal Critique and Female Resilience in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 3, June 2026, pp. 56-70. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n3.4.
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