"My Mother's Blue Bowl" is a biographical essay by Alice Walker which parallels Walker’s strong relationship with her mother. The essay follows the life of Alice Walker and her mother, in the American South during the twentieth century, as they move into the projects. In doing so the family abandons the mother's dream of a "decent house”, in order for Alice and her siblings to go to college. The underlying theme of this essay is renouncing materialism, being happy with what one has, and building on the ability to surrender possessions without regret. This theme is shown through the poverty that Walker and her family live in, as well as the content Walker’s mother has in regards to where she lives and what little she owns. In reality, people are judged and identities are tied to the possessions one owns, as was Walker’s mother. However, in the end possessions are not what one is remembered for. It is the deeds of the heart and the impact one has on others that lives on. This societal need for opulence is brought to the reader's attention through the juxtaposition of the mother's selfless actions and few possessions. When examined from a Marxist lens, the struggle between the classes, based on wealth, authority and race, is prevalent throughout the essay. The society of the American South in the twentieth century was full of racism and poverty. Walker recalls the cold, harsh, wintry days, when my brothers and sister and I trudged home from school burdened down by the silence and frigidity of our long trek from the main road, down the hill to our shabby-looking house. More rundown than any of our classmates’ houses. In winter my mother’s riotous flowers would be absent, and the shack stood revealed for what it was. A gray, decaying... ... middle of paper ... ... real worth of a possession. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss American psychiatrist, once said that The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. This quote encompasses both the loving side of Alice's mother, as well as her refusal to define her life by the possessions she owns. In death, one cannot take their worldly possessions with them. Kubler-Ross explains that only in experiencing total poverty and adversity, like Walker’s mother, can one come to a complete understanding of what is most important in life. Money and possessions are temporary, but family is forever.
It was a village on a hill, all joyous and fun where there was a meadow full of blossomed flowers. The folks there walked with humble smiles and greeted everyone they passed. The smell of baked bread and ginger took over the market. At the playing grounds the children ran around, flipped and did tricks. Mama would sing and Alice would hum. Papa went to work but was always home just in time to grab John for dinner. But Alice’s friend by the port soon fell ill, almost like weeds of a garden that takes over, all around her went unwell. Grave yards soon became over populated and overwhelmed with corpse.
Although there were numerous efforts to attain full equality between blacks and whites during the Civil Rights Movement, many of them were in vain because of racial distinctions, white oppression, and prejudice. Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi recounts her experiences as a child growing up in Centreville, Mississippi. She describes how growing up in Mississippi in a poor black family changed her views of race and equality, and the events that took place that changed her life forever. She begins her story at the tender age of 4, and describes how her home life changed drastically with the divorce of her parents, the loss of her home, and the constant shuffle from shack to shack as her mother tried to keep food on the table with the meager pay she earned from the numerous, mostly domestic, jobs she took. On most days, life was hard for Anne, and as she got older she struggled to understand why they were living in such poverty when the white people her mother worked for had so many nice things, and could eat more than bread and beans for dinner. It was because of this excessive poverty that Anne had to go into the workforce at such an early age, and learn what it meant to have and hold a job in order to provide her family. Anne learned very young that survival was all about working hard, though she didn’t understand the imbalance between the work she was doing and the compensation she received in return.
In the early 1900s, the American South had very distinctive social classes: African Americans, poor white farmers, townspeople, and wealthy aristocrats. This class system is reflected in William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying, where the Bundrens a poor, white family, are on a quest to bury their now deceased wife and mother, Addie in the town of Jefferson. Taking a Marxist criticism approach to As I Lay Dying, readers notice how Faulkner’s use of characterization reveals how country folk are looked down upon by the wealthy, upper class townspeople.
African American women were identified as the 'Mule of the world because they have been handed burden everyone else refused to carry and never had any intention of giving up. Men saw black women as a weak soul,a housewife who are there to bear children. Black women had no moment to sit down to feed her creative spirit because she was busy been a mother, a provider and a slave in the face of the society. It was the time in America where black people were forbidden to write; many untold stories and talents was never revealed due to the fear engraves in the heart of the African American women. Alice was born in this time and she saw the emptiness and enduring faces of the women who had a lot to share in the society but they were overshadowed by the slavery of
The arrival of winter was well on its way. Colorful leaves had turned to brown and fallen from the branches of the trees. The sky opened to a new brightness with the disappearance of the leaves. As John drove down the country road he was much more aware of all his surroundings. He grew up in this small town and knew he would live there forever. He knew every landmark in this area. This place is where he grew up and experienced many adventures. The new journey of his life was exciting, but then he also had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach of something not right.
The mother gave birth to six daughters. The daughters all got jobs at a seafood restaurant ran by a man from Boston. All of the sisters “made good money on tips” (MacLeod 268) but even though they made a respectable income the mother “was angry [her daughters] should even conceive of working in such a place” (MacLeod 267). The mother does not judge the restaurant on their food or the service but simply that he is an outsider. She didn’t accept their daughter’s gifts because they get their money from that restaurant. If the mother were to accept financial help from the daughters they would have a better lifestyle. The six daughters of the mother later became wives to six young men in big cities such as New York or Montreal. There they are wealthy and “drove expensive cars” (MacLeod271), yet the mother “never accepted the young men” (MacLeod 271) because “They were not of her sea” (MacLeod271). The daughters becoming so wealthy could have been a blessing for the family. They could have had help from the d...
In ?Everyday Use?, Alice Walker chooses to develop the idea of poverty by focusing exclusively on the environment in which her protagonists live. Setting attributes, such as the ones used to describe the house in which the protagonists reside, enables us to better understand the theme. In fact, the dwelling does not even have any real windows. Instead, it has holes cut in the sides, like the portholes of a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside. Then, Walker proceeds with inside description of the house as she points out that the protagonists use benches for their table instead of chairs because they cannot financially afford any. Further, the author supports the theme by providing us with some physical description of specific objects. The use of quilts that ?Grandma Dee? sewed from the scraps of her dress and the churn that Uncle Henry whittled from the wood is not derived from the protagonists? intention to preserve ?family values? but rather from a necessity to ?survive?.
A picture of a woman with her two children shows that not every family is the stereotypical family with two parents and responsibilities are spilt with gender roles. The tired eyes, wrinkled skin, and aging face illustrates the struggles that a woman has to face, physically and emotionally, for her family. It shows the individual worth of being a woman, as she is not only the caretaker for her children but also the provider for their needs, which is a generally a man’s responsibility that she is executing, even though many men couldn’t provide for their families as they lost everything they had. A woman during this era is expected to stay with the children and make their home a haven, and she was stripped of the ability to do that by the necessity to become a migrant. The image cues for emotional responses with economy, as there were a few families during the Depression that hadn’t been severely affected and at least had a solid roof over their heads, food to eat and clothing to keep them covered. This image portrays a clear distinction of social class issues in the United States during the time, and “Migrant Mother” shows people what the life if a migrant worker from a poor family is really like during times of crisis. It proves that the Depression was a systematic failure in the political, economic, and social spheres, and the poor pea pickers are suffering an outcome for something they hadn’t caused. Their living government in the image show that there has been no political or economic help extended to them by a failing government. The pea crop had frozen; there was no work. There was no opportunity for prosperity and success, no possibility for an upward social mobility for the children, there was no land in which life was better and richer for everyone. This wasn’t the American Dream that everyone grows up thinking because this was about a crisis that left the entire
Alice Walker combines the importance of time and place in Everyday Use. The story occurs in 1960’s during the African-American Civil Rights Movement. This was the time when African-Americans struggle with prejudice and poverty. They desire to maintain their minimal gain during the World War II and to define their personal identities as well as their heritage. The argument over family quilts takes place at the Deep South, where there are many African Americans, which match perfectly with the lifestyle the characters have in the story.
Alice Walkers “Everyday Use”, is a story about a family of African Americans that are faced with moral issues involving what true inheritance is and who deserves it. Two sisters and two hand stitched quilts become the center of focus for this short story. Walker paints for us the most vivid representation through a third person perspective of family values and how people from the same environment and upbringing can become different types of people.
The drops of water tickled my nose for the first time as the golden sun threatened to tear into the gloomy, pillow-like clouds. Why would the government keep us from this? The weather control prevented rain, snow, or any weather without fail for one hundred years. For some reason, the rain help me feel at peace. I marched downstairs and out the door in my government issued night clothes toward my best friend, Wren’s, house. On the way there I heard a muffled cry near the bushes, behind her house. The leaves cracked and rattled as Wren threw a ball of paper at me.
In her essay "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens," Alice Walker speaks first about the untouchable faith of the black women of the post-Reconstruction South. She speaks highly of the faith and undying hope of these women and their families. She even comes to recognize them as saints as she describes their faith as "so intense, deep, unconscious, the they themselves were unaware of the richness they held" (Walker 694). In a passage in which she speaks about the treatment and social status of the women of the sixteenth century, Woolf explains that a woman who might have had a truly great gift in this time "would have surely gone crazy, shot herself, or ended up in some lonely cottage on the outside of town, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked" (Woolf 749). Her use of some of these powerful nominative shows that she feels strongly about what she is writing. Also for her, life growing up and stories she may have heard may have influenced this passage greatly.
Standing on the balcony, I gazed at the darkened and starry sky above. Silence surrounded me as I took a glimpse at the deserted park before me. Memories bombarded my mind. As a young girl, the park was my favourite place to go. One cold winter’s night just like tonight as I looked upon the dark sky, I had decided to go for a walk. Wrapped up in my elegant scarlet red winter coat with gleaming black buttons descending down the front keeping away the winter chill. Wearing thick leggings as black as coal, leather boots lined with fur which kept my feet cozy.
Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944. She grew up in Eatonton as the youngest child out of eight. Her parents, Minnie Grant and Willie Walker, were poor sharecroppers. Alice was raised with in a family of poverty and a life of violent racism. Her environment left a permanent impression on her writing (“Alice Walker”). When she was eight, Alice and her brother were playing a game of “Cowboys and Indians” when she was blinded in her right eye. This incident occurred by a BB gun pallet. She was teased by her classmates and misunderstood by her family and became shy. She isolated herself from her classmates, and she explains, “ I no longer felt like the little girl I was. I felt old, and because I felt I was unpleasant to look at, filled with shame.” She had the amazing opportunity to have the cataract removed when she was fourteen. She had it removed, yet her sight in her right eye never returned.
It was a winter day in late November. There was a few inches of snow on the ground, the icicles were hanging from the roof, and there was Christmas decorations being set out here and there. In fifth grade, that day was not one of the best days I would like to remember,until I knew what was going. I threw off my camouflage patterned snowboots, and they landed by the old tan couch with the sunken cushions. I didn’t know my dad was home, but I knew when he yelled my name when the door shut.