HISTORICAL AND SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN’S STRUGGLES AND SELF-DEFINITION IN SOME SELECTED WORKS BY ALICE WALKER, MAYA ANGELOU AND BERNADINE EVARISTO

The present research paper examines the social and historical context of women's search and self-definition in three classic works of Black feminist literature: Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Maya Angelou's The Heart of a Woman, and Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other.The concern is with the intersection of gender, race, and class in dominant social formations that have historically silenced Black women's voices, agency, and identities.Despite geographical and temporal differences, these texts illustrate common patterns in how Black women negotiate patriarchal structures, colonial histories, and socio-economic exclusion to forge empowered selves.The here objective is to analyze how each author represents the shifting itineraries of self-making and resistance undertaken by Black women, and how historical and social forces delimit and define these individual and collective transformations.The method of study is comparative and qualitative, involving close textual analysis of character development, narrative voice, and thematic motif across the three texts.Rooted in Black Feminist and Postcolonial Feminist theory, the analysis is centered on Black women's lives and critiques of intersecting types of racial, gendered, and colonial oppressions.