Racism And Alice Walker's Short Stories

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Bryan Giemza, Director of the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and presenter of the 2014 Flannery O’Connor Lecture at Emory University, observes, “It’s no secret that the “three R’s” defining the South’s sense of difference … [are] race, rurality, and religion” (133). Although rurality and religion are present in Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge” and Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” the short stories have more to say about race than the other two topics. The two authors write about race from different perspectives; Walker does so as a Black woman, while O’Connor is White. The perspectives, however, comport well with one another. Together these stories present a picture …show more content…

The violence of racism is alluded to when Mrs. Johnson speaks of the “white folks [who] poisoned some of the herd” of some neighboring Blacks (Walker 125). The woman with red and white sandals moves the instant the large Black man seated himself on the other end of the seat on which she was perched. This action garnered the woman a look of approbation from Mrs. Chestny (O’Connor 235-36). Mrs. Chestny displays her disapproval of the Black woman having settled herself on the same seat as Julian by turning ashen faced (239). When Mrs. Chestny realizes that the large Black woman is wearing the same hat she has donned, she becomes entertained and smiles “as if the woman were a monkey that had stolen her hat (240). The most conspicuous racist action in O’Connor’s story is Mrs. Chestny’s attempt to present the Black boy (Carver) with a penny after he and his mother exit the bus. Although it was her “natural gesture” to offer a nickel, she had been unable to find a nickel in her purse and opted, instead, for the only small coin she could find. Despite Julian’s protestations against such an action, his mother proceeded to offer the penny to the young boy. The reaction from his mother was immediate and violent, resulting in Mrs. Chestny being attacked

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