Biography of Alice Walker

Alice Walker was “born in Eatonton, Georgia, on February 9, 1944, she was the youngest of the eight children…”(Source 8) Alice and her Father, Willie Grant, “… at first [had a] strong and valuable [relationship]…”(Source 10), then when she joined the Civil Rights and feminist movements their relationship became tense. “Walker attended segregated schools…”(Source 7) when she was younger and “…she recalled that she had terrific teachers who encouraged her to believe that the world she was reaching for actually existed.”(Source 7). One of Walker’s most memorable events in her childhood was when “…a BB gun accident which left her at age eight blind in one eye.”

After high School Walker went to Speleman college on a full scholarship in 1961 and later transferred to Sarah Lawerence College near new York. “In 1965, Walker met and later married Melvyn Roseman Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights lawyer.”(Source 11) They got married on March 17, 1967 in New York City. “Later that year the couple relocated to Jackson, Mississippi, becoming "the first legally married inter-racial couple in Mississippi."(Source 11) Together Alice and Melvyn had their first child, “…Rebecca, in 1969, whom she described in 2008 as, "a living, breathing, mixed-race embodiment of the new America that they were trying to forge.”(Source 11).

Walker completed her first novel a few days before she went into labor with her first child Rebecca. During the time she was writing and taking care of her newborn she was threatened by the Ku Klux Klan and became more isolated especially because she was a black writer. (Source 3, p.34) “Walker's first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, was published in 1970. In 1976, Walker's second novel, Meridian, was published. The ...

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...that pulls the reader in to feel what Celie doesn't express. If you haven't lived it or heard people describe that type of life, you can't imagine it. You can only take Walker's words and feel them instead.” (Source 12)

In my opinion, the color purple was an acceptable book because it had some good values of life, and good stories, but for the most part, it was disturbing and graphic. The good value of life that I liked in this book where keeping your loved ones as close as possible, no matter what happens. The bond between Celie and Nettie was unbreakable, and they kept it that way even when they did not see each other for decades. The good stories consisted of Nettie and her life as a missionary in Africa, when Celie was reunited with her long lost children, and when Harpo’s wife beats him up.

Warren, Nagueyalti. Alice Walker. Ipswich, MA: Salem, 2013. Print.