Alice Walker's Literature
“Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence” -Alice Walker (Lewis n.pag) Walker is considered to an African American novelist, short story writers poet, essayist, and activist. Most of her literature are mostly from her personal experiences and are morale to numbers of African American all over the world. Walker defines herself as a “womanist” which means “The prophetic voice concerned about the well-being of the entire African American community, male and female, adults and children. Womanist theology attempts to help black women see, affirm, and have confidence in the importance of their experience and faith for determining the character of the Christian religion in the African American community. Womanist theology challenges all oppressive forces impeding black women’s struggle for survival and for the development of a positive, productive quality of life conducive to women’s and the family’s freedom and well-being. Womanist theology opposes all oppression based on race, sex, class, sexual preference, physical ability, and caste” (Wikipedia n.pag) The works of Alice Walker had a great influence on the African Americans community.
Most of Walker's fiction work is suffuse by her Southern background. Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia which is considered to be a rural town where most black workers work as lessee farmer. She was the eighth and the last child of Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker and Willie Lee Walker. Her parents were poor sharecroppers. In the summer of 1952 at the age of eight, she fell into a depression when her older brother accidentally shot her with a BB gun, causing her to lost one sight of her eye. (LLC n.pag) She later started to hidden herself from the other kids in her neighborhood. She explained, "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. I retreated into solitude, and read stories and began to write poems." (Alice Walker) However later in her high school senior year in 1961, Walker got a rehabilitation scholarship to Spelman, a college for black women in Atlanta. In here, she became involved in the civil rights movement and associated in sit-ins at local business establishments. In her junior year, she transferred to another college in Bronxville, New York called Sarah Lawrence College and graduate there in 1965. In 1967, Walker married a Jewish Civil rights attorney, Melvyn Leventhal where she was an activist and teacher in Mississippi.
Between 1924 and 1938,she was the executive director of YWCA facilities in Springfield,Ohio,Jersey City,New Jersey,Harlem,Philidelphia,Pennsylvania and Brooklyn. She married Merritt A Hedgeman in 1936. In addition,she was also the excutive director of the National Committee for a Permanet Fair Employment Practices Commission,she briefly served as the assistant Deam of Women at Howard University,as public relations consultant for Fuller Products Company,as a associate editor,columnist for the New York Age. And she also worked for the Harry Truman Presidential campaign. Besides her being the first black woman to have a Bachlor`s degree in English,she was also the first black woman to serve to hold the position in the cabniet of New York Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr from 1954 to 1958. All of her success made her a well respected civic leader by the early
Booker T. Washington named her, “one of the most progressive and successful women of our race.” Walker demanded respect from men, and encouraged women not to rely on their husbands, but to become independent. She’s inspired so many people with her willingness and ambition to be successful. She encouraged black women to develop their own natural beauty and self-confidence and to love themselves. She wanted her people to pursue their dreams and to not limit themselves to what they can accomplish.
This is reflected in the literature of the African-American as a special bond of love and loyalty to the mother figure. Just as the role of motherhood in African-American culture is magnified and elevated, so is the role of the wife. The literature reflects this by showing the African-American man struggling to make a living for himself and his family with his wife either being emotionally or physically submissive. Understanding the role of women in the African-American community starts by examining the roles of women in African-American literature. Because literature is a reflection of the community from which it comes, the portrayal of women in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain (1952) is consistent with the roles mentioned above.
Walker, Alice. “The Child Who Favoured Daughter.” In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women.
Walker delves into the subconscious and ever-present spirituality that is found in African-American women and she believes that it is important to identify with this.
James H. Cone is the Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Dr. Cone probably is best known for his book, A Black Theology of Liberation, though he has authored several other books. Dr. Cone wrote that the lack of relevant and “risky” theology suggests that theologians are not able to free themselves from being oppressive structures of society and suggested an alternative. He believes it is evident that the main difficulty most whites have with Black Power and its compatible relationship to the Christian gospel stemmed from their own inability to translate non-traditional theology into the history of black people. The black man’s response to God’s act in Christ must be different from the whites because his life experiences are different, Dr. Cone believes. In the “black experience,” the author suggested that a powerful message of biblical theology is liberation from oppression.
Anna Julia Cooper’s, Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress, an excerpt from A Voice from the South, discusses the state of race and gender in America with an emphasis on African American women of the south. She contributes a number of things to the destitute state African American woman became accustom to and believe education and elevation of the black woman would change not only the state of the African American community but the nation as well. Cooper’s analysis is based around three concepts, the merging of the Barbaric with Christianity, the Feudal system, and the regeneration of the black woman.
Alice Walker's short fictional story, "Nineteen Fifty-five", revolves around the encounters among Gracie Mae Still, the narrator, and Traynor, the "Emperor of Rock and Roll." Traynor as a young prospective singer purchases a song from Mrs. Still, which becomes his "first hit record" and makes him rich and famous. Yet, he does not "even understand" the song and spends his entire life trying to figure out "what the song means." The song he sings seems as fictional as certain events in this story, but as historical as Traynor's based character, Elvis Presley.
Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston are similar to having the same concept about black women to have a voice. Both are political, controversial, and talented experiencing negative and positive reviews in their own communities. These two influential African-American female authors describe the southern hospitality roots. Hurston was an influential writer in the Harlem Renaissance, who died from mysterious death in the sixties. Walker who is an activist and author in the early seventies confronts sexually progression in the south through the Great Depression period (Howard 200). Their theories point out feminism of encountering survival through fiction stories. As a result, Walker embraced the values of Hurston’s work that allowed a larger
Alice Walker’s writings were greatly influenced by the political and societal happenings around her during the 1960s and 1970s. She not only wrote about events that were taking place, she participated in them as well. Her devoted time and energy into society is very evident in her works. The Color Purple, one of Walker’s most prized novels, sends out a social message that concerns women’s struggle for freedom in a society where they are viewed as inferior to men. The events that happened during and previous to her writing of The Color Purple had a tremendous impact on the standpoint of the novel.
• AW calls herself “a womanist “, her term for a black feminist. She is one of the female Afro-American writers founding the concept “New Black Renaissance” .
Before the Civil Rights Movement, which took place from 1955-1968, African-Americans had a difficult time establishing an identity and their rights. However, for many African-Americans, the Civil Rights Movement developed a purpose for one’s life and progressed African-Americans’ status and rights in society. Although some people may argue that the Civil Rights Movement was not productive and only caused conflict and havoc, due to the majority of African-Americans still employed in low-level jobs and many towns affected by the Civil Rights Movement being torn apart and degraded, those effects were only temporary and tangible to others. The Movement had a much more profound effect of giving one a purpose or “spark” in life, which later led to African-Americans demanding more rights and equal status in society.
Walker has written several other novels, including “The Temple of My Familiar” and “Possessing the Secret of Joy”. She has published a number of collections of short stories, poetry, and other published work. Walker expresses the struggles of black people, particularly women, and their lives in a racist, sexist, and violent society. Her writings also focus on the role of women of color in culture and history. Walker is a respected figure in the liberal political community for her support of unconventional and unpopular
In “Everyday use” The setting is the just the background in the story. In the story the setting takes place in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and is described in a yard and house owned by the Johnson family. In Paragraph 1 (exposition) it states “The yard which is hard clay swept away neatly serves as an extended living room because it has more of a breeze.” The setting gave us an idea of what kind of place and time it was in, so it described the weather and scenery of the house. They setting influenced the story’s plot because it helped bring out the true values of Mama, Maggie, and Dee. The setting reflects to mama and Dee emotional state in which they appreciate their heritage and identity. They both live the traditional life and are completely
Alice Walker was born in Eatonton on February 9, 1944. She is an African American novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, and activist. Walker has taught African American women's studies to college students at wellesley, the university of Massachusetts at Boston". She writes through various personal experiences, she described herself as "womanist" which means a woman who loves other woman and appreciate them. Walker writes through her feelings and the morals she has grown with. She writes about the black woman's struggle for spiritual wholeness and sexual, and political issues especially with black women's struggle for survival.