Success and Failure in Alice Walker’s "To Hell With Dying"
Alice Walker’s "To Hell With Dying" appears on the surface to be a story of a man who has many near-death experiences. However, I believe that the story of Mr. Sweet shows the side of depression and failure that Alice Walker might have faced had she not pushed her way to success.
Mr. Sweet grew up in a time period where the life between whites and blacks was very segregated. However, Mr. Sweet "had been ambitious as a boy, wanted to be a doctor or lawyer or sailor, only to find that black men fare better if they [were] not" (Walker 1143). When he realized this defeat "he turned to fishing as his only claim to doing anything extraordinarily well" (1143). This failure seemed to overcome Mr. Sweet as he turned to the bottle as a sort of sanctuary. Mr. Sweet "was constantly on the verge of being blind drunk" (1144); however, to the kids this made him the perfect playmate. Often when Mr. Sweet was "feeling good" (1144), he would dance about and play in the yard with the children. When he was in this state he was just as vulnerable as they were. In fact, most of the time the children won the battles.
An ironic behavior that Mr. Sweet has in this story, however, is that we read about him playing with the neighbors’ children, but we never read about him playing with his own child. Maybe this is because of the second failure that occurred in Mr. Sweet’s life. When he was younger he had to marry Miss Mary, for she was pregnant with his child; "he was not sure that Joe Lee, [Miss Mary’s] baby, was also his baby" (1144). Mr. Sweet had been in love with another woman though. He had made up a song that he played on his guitar on this unhappy part of his life. When Mr. Sw...
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..., was another Mr. Sweet. However, this Mr. Sweet took her route of success. He expressed his pain through the poetry he wrote so that whoever wanted to could read it and feel the pain that he had to overcome.
Mr. Sweet, by showing Alice Walker what would happen to her if she surrendered to the racism of the outside world, helped her achieve success.
Works Cited
Walker, Alice. "To Hell With Dying." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 1143-1147.
Walker, Alice. "Remembering Mr. Sweet." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 1147-1149.
Works Consulted
Harrison, Faye. "Writing Against The Grain: Cultural Politics Of Difference In The Work Of Alice Walker." Women Writing Culture. Ed. R. Behar and D.A Gordon. University of California Press, 1195. 233-245.
Alice Walker, through her essay "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens", and Paule Marshall, in "Poets In The Kitchen", both write about the African-American women of the past and how these women have had an impact on their writing. Walker and Marshall write about an identity they have found with these women because of their exposure to the African culture. These women were searching for independence and freedom. Walker expresses independence as found in the creative spirit, and Marshall finds it through the spoken word. Walker and Marshall celebrate these women's lives and they see them as inspirations to become black women writers.
Kimmich, Allison."Alice Walker, Overview." Feminist Writers (1996). Literature Resource Center. 2003. GaleNet. Nicholls State University Library, Thibodaux, Louisiana.
Critical Essays on Alice Walker. Ed. By Ikenna Dieke. Greenwood Press, Westpoint, Connecticut, London, 1999
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 removal of prayer from public schools is a very controversial and misunderstood debate. This paper will address the history of the debate, common myths and misunderstandings, and the current trends.
• AW has had some problems of her own; she was very depressed after an abortion in senior year at college. She slept with a razor under her pillow for three nights as she wanted to commit suicide. Instead she turned to writing and in a week she wrote the story “To Hell with Dying”. She only stopped writing to eat and sleep.
For years now there has been a heated debate about whether or not prayer should be allowed in school,. Everytime the argument is rekindled, it ends in a stalemate, and is a topic that campaigning politicians tend to stay away from.
Alice Walker's Literature “Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence” -Alice Walker (Lewis n.pag) Walker is considered to be an African American novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, and activist. Most of her literature is mostly from her personal experiences and is moral to a number of African Americans 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.
Alice Walker is vital to the ideas of literary traditions because she is a writer who speaks about how she feels. She writes from what she knows, not what she has learned. Walker, in her stories expressed the problems that may have kept a group in people from achieving what they wanted in life, but still managed to show that these people still had joy in their lives. Her works should continue to be incorporated into Literature on the college level in order to maintain for those who do not understand the plot of African Americans the struggle they faced. She is a powerful force in the Literature that can stand with the likes of Shakespeare because she presents her works in a manner to make the reader think about what life and what is really important. All three of these short stories support the main thought in this essay because Walker as a writer, wrote from what she knew; she grew up in a culture where African Americans seemed to be enslaved to their race which in turn, forced them
"God help, I'm so lost!" If you listen carefully, this is a common thought that is heard throughout many schools in the nation. Is this thought appropriate? The following statement clearly shows that the law allows students and adults to practice religion, but at the same time be respective of others and their beliefs even if they do believe or if they don't. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, or to petition the government for a redress of grievances." (First Amendment, The Constitution of the United States). Prayer is not normally permitted as a scheduled part of classroom activities, because it would result in the violation of the principle of church-state separation, which has been defined by court interpretations of the 1st Amendment to the U.S, Constitution. The separation principle is extended to Public school as an arm of the government, with an exception which can be permitted if, during the school year, a mixture of prayers, statements, etc are delivered, using material derived from a number of different religions and secular sources. So far, this has never been tried in a school or ruled upon by a court (Religion in Public).
Thesis Statement: Alice Walker, a twentieth and twenty- first century novelist is known for her politically and emotionally charged works, which exposes the black culture through various narrative techniques.
This paper discusses how the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the United States government interact to allow each individual in a public school freedom to pray while not endorsing any religion.
Whitaker, Charles. "Alice Walker: 'Color Purple' author confronts her critics and talks about her provocative new book." Ebony, May 1992, p. 86+. General OneFile, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A12290929/ITOF?u=wylrc_wyomingst&sid=ITOF&xid=fadfb6f0. Accessed 28 Nov.
Realism is often portrayed by writers such as Alice Walker. Her poems, essays, short stories, and novels portray her views on feminism and civil rights while giving a realist approach that has provoked readers for many years. Her horrific and brutally honest writing style made the world see a different view of minority women and allowed her to receive the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Color Purple (“Alice Walker”). She lived a life of poverty and racial discrimination, which led her to become an opinionated feminist. Walker’s realistic writing style portrays her obscure upbringing and her feminist opinions; in her work The Color Purple, she shows the aspects of growing up as a minority woman and the frequency of racial discrimination.
School prayer is a very controversial issue in today’s society. This issue has been a problem since America was first founded, in that the country was founded on religious beliefs. The Pilgrims wanted to be able to express their beliefs freely, but in England this freedom was not found, so they decided to come to the Americas, where their beliefs could be expressed freely. As time passed they realized that having this kind of freedom caused problems between different belief systems. Many people started questioning the founding of their nation and what the foundation was made of. This questioning is still going on today and people are torn between letting prayer in to the public school system or keeping it out.