الفهرس 
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Abstract
1-Introduction:
Black women were destined to face and to struggle against oppression. Oppression was and has always been part of black history and of black women’s history. The Black woman was always exposed to all forms of slavery and abuse. Throughout history, she was subjected to sexual and physical abuse either from the white master or the black man. Hence, black women have repeatedly been marginalized, exploited, abused and dominated. In brief, black women suffered and faced oppression much more than black men, but maybe more, yet they were and are always active to achieve independence and resist their own oppression. If black men were marginalized, then black women were doubly marginalized, yet black women worked to end this double oppression.
This study is a comparative one that examines the protagonists’ emancipation process in Alice Walker‘s epistolary novel The Color Purple, and Sapphire’s cult novel Push. Walker and Sapphire did not limit themselves to describing the sufferings of African American women only but suggested to all women a path to follow in order to free themselves from the dominance of patriarchy and sexism.
2-Purpose of the study:
The purpose of this study is to critically compare selected texts by African American authors; Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Sapphire’s Push, which depict the political and social struggles within African American society in the early 1980s and late 1990s. Walker’s and Sapphire’s works present incidents of women life experiences deemed acceptable and unacceptable, behaviorally and ideologically. The thesis argues that celebrating the concept of womanism allows African American women characters in the novels resistance and emancipation from different forms of oppression inflicted on them.
3- Chapterization:
This thesis comprises an introductory chapter, three chapters, and a conclusion.
3.1. Introduction:
This introduction paves the way to the main topic of the thesis. It gives an account of the African American history and its relation to the American history. It also refers to the African American writers and how they were under-represented in the literary history of the United States. Hence, the introduction sheds light on the African American literature as resistance literature.
3.2. Chapter 1: Womanism:
This chapter refers to feminism as a liberating movement for women in general. Moreover, the chapter refers to womanism as a revolutionary notion that seeks to liberate black women, in specific, not through comparing them to others, but through looking at and appreciating themselves.
3.3. Chapter Two: Violence in The Color Purple and Push:
This chapter takes a serious look at a wide variety of forms of violence against women including domestic violence, rape, cultural violence, and incest. The chapter also traces forms of violence that the female characters in the two novels are subjected to highlighting the oppressive outcomes of these violent acts.
3.4. Chapter Three: Survival and Resistance and Emancipation:
This chapter reads the two texts, The Color Purple and Push, identifying features that make them womanist texts to show how embracing womanism enables their resistance and eventually their emancipation. . Hence, it discusses black women’s victimization in abusive relationships and what they do to survive and break themselves free of the abusive relationships in Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple and Sapphire’s novel Push.
The chapter refers to the essential tenet of emancipation; namely writing the body. It also highlights the narrative technique used in each of the two novels. As for writing the body, this chapter verifies that writing frees women as it is one of the vital traits of women. Moreover, this chapter investigates the role of the letters in the novel, and finds that they not only serve to solidify the voice of an initially voiceless person, but that the main character’s style of writing challenges the conventions of the traditional epistolary novel.
4. Conclusion
The thesis analyses the representation of the black women and how they witnessed different forms of violence in the selected works. It also presents their resistance to achieve emancipation and to enjoy justice as well as equity. Appreciating one self, as a black woman, was one of the tools used to reach that goal. Moreover, by adopting the position of a womanist, those African American women, Celie and Precious, managed to get their autonomy and to assert their self-identity; two important steps towards emancipation.