Essays on Alice Walker

In this article, I would like to talk about the historian Howard Zinn, without going into the details of his biography. Because you can easy found this information on the Internet. I would consider his views on history in general, why and under what circumstances its occurred. Howard found himself in history and political science since his youth. A first rally Zinn visited when he was a seventeen-year-old young man, the friends who were breathing unevenly to the communist ideology invited him. After the meeting, young Howard changed his mind about the rule government and human rights in general. ...

The law allows us to take certain decisions, so as to facilitate the accomplishment of our everyday desires. Only those who violate it have no freedom. Now just imagine that you did nothing wrong and someone put you in jail as a prisoner and treated you in an inhumane way, what would you feel? Imagine that one day, some scientists made different kinds of experiments on you, what would you feel? Every living thing in our world has feelings; they can suffer from pain, and have emotions. Mammals, as a large group of living organisms living on earth, have ...

Man’s best friend, the dog, is proof enough that human beings can be good friends with animals. Animals are born to Mother Nature like a human child and have rights to live. It is time we observed and respected animal rights. Animals have rights like humans do to live freely and enjoy the earth, at least before human beings destroy what it has to offer. Just like a man can be best friends with the dog human beings can become friends with other animals too. Human beings have God-given role to protect the earth and control other living ...

Epistolary novel The Color Purple, composed by American author Alice Walker, illuminates life of African American women in the South parts of the US during 1930-s. This novel is considered to be one of the most controversial and censored literary work of Walker due to its explicit scenes of violence. Thus, in her letters to God main heroine, Celie, reveals true horrors of her life. Being, uneducated and poor fourteen-year-old African American Southerner, Celie faces constant physical and emotional abuse first from her father, Alphonso, who beats and rapes her and later from her husband, known as Mister. (Walker) ...

There can be no denial of the fact that literature has always been the mirror of the world society. The creative artists have always delved into the intricacies and subtleties of human life and existence so as to portray them in the literary works. The quintessence of portrayal and the aesthetic as well as affective appeal go on to leave a lasting mark in the hearts of the readers who can only revel at the sheer genius of the creative works. Now, one can very well take into reckoning the works of Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Franz Kafka, and ...

Honor without sincerity in any circumstance is evident in the behavior and choices that are made by the individual who claims to have admiration and value. In the story “Everyday Use” by well-known African American author Alice Walker; evidence of insincere honor is displayed by one of the characters of the story. Dee, one of the sister’s in the story shows the lack of honor through her skewed sense of pride in the family heritage she has run from. The purpose of the following essay provides evidence of honoring one’s origin with sincerity as being more important ...

The story of Alice Walker, entitled “Everyday Use”, was published in 1973, to focus on the tradition of quilting in African American women, which was prevalent for a long time (Whitsitt 443). The quilt has become a cultural artefact for the African Americans, making it a “symbol of gossipy women’s sewing circles” (Whitsitt 143), which was evident back in the 1960s. It also became the “central metaphor of American cultural identity” (Showalter 215). In the short story of Alice Walker, the quilt represents a creative legacy that they come to inherit from their maternal ancestors, who for them carry the centermost value ...

Analyzing “Everyday Use”

The story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker has been source of inspiration for many people. It is story based on an interesting topic that would make anyone attracted to its content. The story is interesting on how it succeeds in bringing out lessons such as true inheritance. This paper will aim at evaluating the literal techniques that Alice has used to bring meaning into this story. For proper understanding of the “Everyday Use” story, it is significant to conduct an analysis on elements of theme, characterization, and symbolism. In the story, Alice Walker sides with a theme of the ...

In “The Welcome Table,” walker introduces the readers to racial and sexist themes in the modern society. Walker examines the inter-racial conflicts from a moral point of view to emphasize the need to curb the racial issues in the modern society. The plot and literary forms used in the story help the author to develop the theme in the story and build it to a clear understanding by the readers. Colorful words and prose narrations also help the author to develop a theme and increase the understanding of readers. The author demonstrates that the racial discrimination does not have a place in the ...

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The Color Purple is a novel written by Alice Walker. The story’s setting is in Georgia. It focuses on how African-American women were treated in the United States during the 90’s. It also addresses issues on racism, sexism, and incest, most especially the social culture of lower class people . In the story, most of the characters suffer many hardships especially poverty. Celie, the main character, had experienced a struggling family during her childhood. She together with her family lived in sub standard housing, separated from the Whites (litnotes.com). With this obvious division, ...

and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker In Marriage is a Private Affair, the story tells of two people who are in love but because of tradition they are being kept apart. Nene and Nnaemeka are madly in love and are planning a wedding. Nene is from the city and Nnaemeka is from the rural area. Both lovers were from a different tribe and the Ibo ancestors have passed on the tradition or their beliefs that there should never be any marriage outside of the Ibo tribe. In Everyday Use by Alice Walker, traditions and culture also are at the forefront of ...

The modern concepts in the literary world have crept into the works of various writers. The differences in the old and past ways of life have been the subject of the many modern day stories. Many of the conflicts that arise in today’s works focus on the idea of modernization and the effects of it. Two of the famous works that constitute stories of alienation in the modern day world are the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker and “The Love Song by J. Prufrock” by T.S Eliot. The tectonic shift to modernization traps people in a stultifying past while ...

Essay

Everyday use is a short story by Alice Walker, from her story collection “In love and Trouble”. The storytelling of the “Everyday use” is made by “Mama”, who is a narrator of the story. “Everyday use” by Alice Walker illustrates very well the difference between the narrator and her daughter, Maggie, both raised according to traditional black culture of their region and Dee “Wangero”, educated and successful daughter of Mrs. Johnson, which tries to scorn her roots in favor of the native African identity. Narrator’s tone, addressed to Dee shows that Mrs. Johnson still considers “Wangero” as her daughter, ...

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Review and Analysis 1980s’ was a crucial time for America. Racism was high during the Reagan presidency. . It was during this time that, in 1982, Alice Walker wrote a book titled “The Color Purple”. Written in an epistolary form, the book tackled the issues of racism, violence and sexism in the USA. Born in Georgia in 1944, Alice Walker came from a struggling family. Her father was a farmer while her mother was working as a maid to support their family. As a child, Walker was inspired by the tales her grandfather told her. Her grandfather was ...

Throughout her short story, “Everyday Use,” Walker presents the recurring theme of harmony and conflicts. The story gives an insight into the struggles of the African – American people through the characters of Mrs. Johnson, Dee and Maggie. Arguably, “Everyday Use” delves into the issue of the changes that occur when individuals in rural areas become educated. Much of the events surround the actions of the only educated Johnson. Dee gains a formal education, but when she faces her past, one sees that this formal education brings out her innate, self-centered qualities. Nancy Tuten writes of Mrs. Johnson “awakening to one ...

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Toni Cade and Alice Walker are the perfect descriptions of talented literary commentators and writers of the ancient or classical times. However, there is a cutting edge and the common denominator in all the three stories. They resonate well with the strength of the human spirit and how they strive to overcome injustices and unfair treatment. For instance, Alice Walker did an interesting and eye-opening short story which highlighted the struggles of the black community in the United States of America. The story was titled The Colour Purple. This is an interesting piece which highlights the plight of ...

English

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a novel which delves into the serious issue of discrimination on the basis of appearance and race. Delving deeply into this novel raises serious issues with respect to cleanliness, order and beauty (Baillie, 21). The author attacks the fundamental western ideas and ideologies with respect to racism by quoting the philosopher Count Joseph de Gobineau. In order to display the manner in which globalised doctrine on race has been accepted by Elihue Micah Whitcomb and her family, the author quotes “all civilizations derive from the white race, that none can exist without its ...

“The White Man will never be alone” (Chief Seattle 120). Chief Seattle is correct when he says that the White man will never be alone because there will always be other cultures in America. Throughout the ages, America has gone through a lot as a country, events which have torn the nation apart, yet in its own way sown unity within our hearts. The struggles started even as early as the colonization of the Americas, and still continue until this day. Although, there are events in time which helped shaped our country and our people. Over the course of American history, ...

Many times the writings of poets are testimony to experiences in their lives. Alice Walker was born in an era when discrimination was rampant; she uses her poem, “Women,” to express her gratitude to the women who fought and worked hard for their children’s education and place in society. Alice Walker was one of the activists who fought against discrimination during the sixties. She was born February 4, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia and experienced her people’s struggles first-hand. She is the last child of eight children; her father was a sharecropper who only earned three hundred dollars ...

Beauty in American culture is stereotyped on certain physical attributes. Absence of these attributes on an individual condemns them as ugly. Marge Piercy in the poem “Barbie Doll” singles out a girl who in spite of possessing immense intelligence, health, strong arms and back, “abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” was condemned as ugly because she had a “fat nose and thick legs”. Height and specifically being tall is perceived as part of physical beauty and a lot of importance is attached to this. Marge Piercy in the poem “a work of Artifice” focuses on the diminutive bonsai tree. She terms it as “ ...

The story “Everyday Use” as written by Alice Walker displays a picture that is compelling on the differences that exist between two daughters and their mother. The story is narrated by Mama who is endearing and down-to-earth and provides a glimpse to the reader of members of the same family who do not appreciate similar traditional values or heritage. Combine with humor and wisdom, traditional values are imparted to the daughters by Mama. These traditional values are the ones that account for the strong diversity that is seen in this family (Walker). Mama, who comes from the old south and is a strong ...

(Name of poems), are perhaps three of the most distinguishing poems of Langston Hughes, where it becomes obvious that Langston’s everyday life and everything surrounding him have been an inspiring platform for him to write. In fact, he appears to be noticing even the slightest details of what is going on around him and be particularly drawn by nature’s beauty as well as societal issues that included racism and the rights of the African Americans of that time, among others. For that reasons his poems include intense scenes that easily carry the reader away. Since the ...

Introduction to Cinema

Anneke Smelik has regarded that cinema can be considered as a cultural practice wherein there are mythologies regarding women and the female gender; as well as men and male gender, which depicted legends concerning sexual differences that have been created, fabricated and epitomized (Smelik, 1998, p. 7). Smelik has identified the sexual differences as major obstacles that have been defied by women’s rights movements. As a result, several female directors have emerged to create a better understanding on how films and movies strengthens the folklores on sexual difference, and how it was magnified by some film theorists who symbolized women as ...

In the African-American community, the topic of education has long been one of some considerable controversy. To some, access to education has been seen as the way out of some of the most endemic social problems that the community faces. To others, education has been seen as a choice to assimilate with the majority culture (DeCuir-Gunby). In defiance to that, such institutions as the hip-hop culture have arisen, showing other ways (although more harmful) that members of the African-American community can make a name for themselves. This debate is not new; in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and “Everyday Use,” ...

Introduction

“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker is a story about two quilts which were also used to symbolize and show the meaning of true inheritance. This story shows the similarity of a quilt to a person’s view of the world and where it is made up of. Mama, who acted as the narrator, used two quilts to represent two different worlds in conflict which her two daughters embodied. In this story, Mama shows how the worlds of her two daughters, who grew up from the same rich inheritance of the family, as well as the history and community be so different. This ...

- Introduction Danny Glover, prolific multitalented and multiple award holder, was born on the 22nd July 1946 and is famous actor, film producer and producer with a long career from the 1970s when there were very limited opportunities for African Americans. He is known for his roles in films like the color purple, the predator 2, witness, lethal weapon, saw, franchise and angels in the outfield. He has appeared in more than 70 films, more than 20 television appearances and won more than 15 awards in his acting career. In addition, Danny Glover has participated in theatrical productions albeit ...

Classic English Literature

Marcp8, 2013

Thesis Statement:Du Bois argued that people from African decent live through a special double consciousnesswhere there exists a psychological challenge of integration of African heritage to the European cultural background and education. Walker used the mule as the representation of black women who surpassed the abuses and oppression they went through to establish African identity, territory, class, culture and kinship with other nations. King’s letter was used as the medium to expose his sentiments against racism and human conflict where he expressed optimism in his battle despite the extreme prejudices committed against the blacks. Race is proven to ...

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the many general similarities between Alice Walker’s "The Welcome Table" and Nadine Gordimer’s "Country Lovers", and the ways in which racism is presented by both writers. Both stories condemn the hypocrisy and attack the injustices of racist societies. Both stories have a symbolic element which is examined and discussed and the fact that both stories are set in very different societies and, therefore, have very different contexts and settings is always at the heart of the paper’s argument. Each story is also discussed and explored separately in order to focus on its individual qualities. ...

In Short-Story Characters

Loneliness is a human condition that people almost universally wrestle with, at least during some point in their lives, which is why it is such a compelling subject for writers to depict with their characters. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “lonely” is defined as “being without company, cut off from others, not frequented by human beings, sad from being alone, and producing a feeling of bleakness or desolation” (n.d.). A person may feel lonely when all his friends are going away to college but he is still in his hometown working at the same job he has had through high school, when ...

When the volcano inside Mount Tambora erupted in 1815, the ash in the sky left the next summer very dreary and cold. When the eighteen-year-old Mary Godwin traveled with her lover, Percy Shelley, to Switzerland to visit Lord Byron, the weather was so miserable that the group could never take part in the outdoor activities they had planned; instead, they had to amuse themselves indoors. After spending one evening talking about the possibility of returning dead bodies to life and reading German ghost stories, Lord Byron suggested a bet for the group – that each of them would write a supernatural story. ...

“You just don’t understand your heritage.” (Walker, 1973) This line from Alice Walker’s 1944 short story “Everyday Use” pretty much sums up and perfectly depicts the conflict that arises between clashing of cultures and the factors that influences transformations of them. Culture, as Dr. Dennis O’Neil says, undergoes continuous change and “exists only in our minds” making it much easier to leave behind and get a new one. (2006) But just how much of our adopted and inherent culture can we lost? And how much change is enough? The 2011 film “From Prada to Nada”, a Mexican-American ...

Alice Walker’s short story, Everyday Use, is written from a central first-person point of view. A reader can tell this because the story is told from the “I” point of view, from Mama’s view. She is central in all that happens in the story. She is a participant and not just an observer. The story is a good example of subjective narration, because the narrator, Mama, has a definite opinion about what she describes, the people involved, and is not attempting to be objective about her thoughts or the events that happen. She shares her inner thoughts and fantasies, like ...

In Everyday Use by Alice Walker, the themes of heritage and education are explored through the conversations and interactions of the characters. This short story is narrated by “Mama,” who describes how Dee, her educated and successful daughter, is coming home to visit her mother and other daughter, Maggie. Maggie and Dee are sisters, but they do not necessarily get along well, in fact Mama says how she used to believe that Dee “hated Maggie” (PAGE # FROM TEXTBOOK). Maggie is described as having “burns and scars down her arms and legs” which came from a fire (Page #). Maggie is not ...

Alice Walker offers her own form of revival to her readers in her short story "To Hell With Dying." In this story of an old man repeatedly revived to life by the love of a neighbor's children, including the story's narrator, Walker shows how the narrator's spirit, repeatedly called by the values of another culture, is revived through her connection with the old man.

The old man, Mr. Sweet Little, frequently suffers from bouts of depression caused by the limitations that have been placed on his life and from which he must be revived. "Mr. Sweet had been ambitious as a ...

Alice Walker is an award winning American writer and activist. She has written material on racial and gender issues. Her works include poetry and fictional essays, which addressed issues, which faced African Americans at the time. Her most prolific work is The Color Purple, which won her a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award (Baker 18). Robinson characterizes Walker, “as a womanist, a black feminist, and comments on how Walker became an author partially to cope with the isolation caused by a childhood injury (294).”

Walker is a native of Georgia from an area known as Eatonton (Baker 18). She is the youngest child ...

Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is a heroic story of a female protagonist Celie, who starts her journey as being a tragic heroine to finally gaining a voice and a sense of self-worth. By being surrounded by social outcasts such as Shug Avery, and being taught how to appreciate herself and her sexuality, by taking back the identity that has been cruelly taken away from her through abuse and sexual exploitation, by the end of the novel, Celie will emerge as the victor and sole owner of her own happiness. At the very beginning, the fourteen year old Celie’s finds herself ...

Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is a heroic narrative of an African American woman, who in a social context of intense agonizing relationships, eventually reaches safe grounds in issues of feminism and racial liberation. It is a bildungsroman of a female protagonist Celie, who commences her journey as being a tragic heroine to the final attaining of a heroic status, by utilizing an empowering subjectivity that will eventually resonate with all other African American women she is surrounded by. In the end, she will finally reach the “heroic selfhood [which] is achieved when the protagonist successfully subverts those conventions of the established social order ...

African American Deracination and its Presentation in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and Gwendolyn Brooks’ “Sadie and Maud”

It could be argued that the whole experience of African Americans in the U.S.A. is one of forced and violent deracination. African Americans are doubly, triply, deracinated and without roots. Violently uprooted from Africa, they entered a system of slavery in which, at the whim of their owners, they could be uprooted again and separated from children, lovers and family. In the period following the American Civil War many African –Americans moved north to find work in the north’s industrial cities – thus becoming geographically uprooted yet again. It is no wonder that deracination – the sense of being without real ...

“Everyday Use” By Alice Walker

Introduction

On the book review of “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, different authors have expressed their views on the themes and symbolism expressed in the novel. I will discuss on the viewpoints of the different authors and compare to see whether there are any similarities and differences. The novel is written by an African American. It is set at a time in American history when the black community was trying to understand its identity.

Analysis of the Book Reviews

David White in 2001 published an article titled, “Everyday Use: Defining African-American Heritage” in the Purdue North Central Literary Journal where he discussed the theme of ...

Women – Rats in a Trap

Alice Walker’s short story ‘Roselily’ was published in 1973 as part of her first published collection of short stories – In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women. The collection was very favourably reviewed and helped bring Walker to the attention of the public. The collection also won the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of the Arts. Since then it has often been anthologized and studied in American schools, although not without controversy. According to Donnelly, “For its ‘irreligious’ stance, ‘Roselily’ was banned in California in 1994. Apparently Christian, Roselily is tied equally to folk beliefs and superstition, ...

Alice Walker’s short story ‘Everyday Use’ is about Dee seeing her heritage and the legacy of her ancestors as something that has already passed and gone, so that there is a danger of her true heritage being abandoned and lost. However, Mama’s understanding demonstrates that she and Maggie are are still linked through the way they live in rural poverty in the South to their ancestors (by the everyday use of items like the quilts).

Dee’s name change is symptomatic of the person she has become. As Christian (14) writes:

Dee/Wangero in ‘Everyday Use’ is embarrassed by ...

Alice Walker is an influential writer who expressed her passion for tradition and heritage in the compelling short story, Everyday Use. This critically acclaimed tale is set in the rural South of the 1960s, a backdrop against which Mrs. Johnson and her daughters, Dee and Maggie, play out a parable about the struggle for cultural integrity and of remaining true to one’s nature. In Everyday Use, Walker would have us understand that keeping faith with oneself is the best way to maintain a link to the past.

Background

For Walker, that past can be traced to her native Georgia. One of eight ...

The color purple by Alice Walker, it’s a novel which discusses and narrates issues concerning gender inequalities, discrimination and racism within a community based in South America, in the early 1900’s. The main character in the novel “Celie” is a young black woman abused and violated by close members of her family such as, his father and his husband. In this case the novel raised questions to readers of the novel, making them eager wanting to know why didn’t “Celie” tell her mother what his father was doing to her? Another question triggered to readers is; did Celie really ...

Introduction

‘The Color Purple’ by Alice Walker is a novel which discusses and narrates issues concerning gender inequalities, discrimination and racism within a community based in South America, in the early 1900’s. The main character in the novel Celie is a young black woman abused and violated by close members of her family such as, her father and her husband. The novel raised questions to the readers, making them eager to know why didn’t Celie tell her mother what her father had been doing to her. Another question to readers is: did Celie really wanted to protect her sister or ...