Analysis Of The Book ' Meridian ' By Alice Walker

Annette Sanford’s “Nobody Listens When I Talk” depicts a story of how a sixteen-year-old girl named Marilyn spends her summer. Marilyn sits on a swing all summer long, reading books and reminiscing about significant events from her past and present, as she attempts to figure out who she is as a person. From her understanding of what others think of her, she is an introverted and ambivalent person who is indifferent to the outside world. She doesn’t speak much, though she is adamant that she could if she wanted, because she believes that no one would listen to her even if she did. So instead, Marilyn lives in her head, attempting to discover who she is through her

Women yearn for their voices to speak loud enough for the entire world to hear. Women crave for their voices to travel the nations in a society where they are expected to turn the volume all the way down. The world expects females to stay quiet and ignore the pain brought onto them from sexual crime. They do not dare stand up for what they believe in or discuss their experiences that bring them pain. Poets such as Ana Castillo and Lawrence Ferlinghetti describe parts of life that society often ignores. E. E. Cummings supports the ideas of Castillo and Ferlinghetti by appropriating a more disturbing mindset. These poets demonstrate the way in which women obtained a supposable to behave and react to situations that have caused them harm or have the potential to.

Conclusively, “The Case Against Women’s Suffrage”, “Are Women People?”, and “She Walketh Veiled and Sleeping” all highlight the subject of women’s rights in different perspectives. Clark Benson’s “The Case Against Women’s Suffrage” asserts the author's presumption of women’s inferiority, whereas Alice Duer Miller’s “Are Women People?” suggests how women should be wholly considered as people. Finally, Charlotte Perkins Gilman portrays the social injustice towards women. All in all, each literary composition either advocated or opposed the inclination towards women’s

According to Elizabeth Lowell, “Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.” Sometimes what every situation needs is an outsider to flip the script and create a new outlook on everything. In Shirley Jackson’s novel, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” the speaker, Merricat, is an outsider of society on many levels, such as mental health, gender, and that she is an upper class citizen in a poor area. Although Merricat is mentally unstable, her outsider’s perspective criticizes the social standard for women in the 1960s, indicating that social roles, marriage, and the patriarchy are not necessary aspects in life such as it is not necessary to have the same outlook on life as others.

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.

Shirley Jackson’s novel, The Haunting of Hill House, explores the cultural anxieties in the mid 20th century. Specifically, men use womanhood (societal norms) as purposely infantilizing women in order to confine the female mind. Jackson utilizes symbolism, metaphor, and anaphora in her novel in order to convey the message for men to stop infantilizing women. Moreover, Jackson spreads awareness that women are being confined by a system that men developed: womanhood. Hence, in effect, the novel serves as an informal protest against male repression through a medium that can be read by a wider audience —more importantly an indirect challenge to male readers. According to Krolokke, Second Wave Feminism became prominent due to cultural discontent with patriarchy during the mid 20th century. Moreover, Krolokke informs the readers that Second Wave Feminism influenced women to challenge traditional family roles and male ideologies about women not belonging in the workplace (11-12). Mid 20th century is also when Jackson published The Haunting of Hill House. So, with these historical and cultural contexts in mind, Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House ends the novel with Eleanor killing herself because she wants women to challenge the ideas of patriarchy into effect. Hence, Second Wave Feminism has a connection to Eleanor having a childlike personality (can not think for herself) because she wants women (especially young and single women) to explore their rights (their choices) and

Elizabeth Cady Stanton delivered her speech “The Solitude of Self” in 1892, which presented a definition of being a human being as well as being a woman in the time when males were dominating the society. By analyzing the historical and rhetorical context that the speech was delivered at, I argue that Stanton managed to address her purpose to the targeted audiences.

In Alice Walker’s, Nineteen Fifty-Five, a young white singer, Traynor, acquires song rights from an African American rhythm and blues singer, Gracie Mae. The song makes Traynor rich and famous. Obsessed with finding out the song’s meaning, Traynor remains in contact with Gracie Mae through letters, gifts, and visits. The conflict of the story is in Traynor’s inability to ascertain the meaning of the song. Traynor eventually passes away, without ever resolving the conflict.

The emotional focus of Alice Walker's story is rage, red-hot and isolating.  As I read this piece, I became livid, not only at the thought of her devastating

“He told me all his opinions, so I had the same ones too; or if they were different I hid them, since he wouldn’t have cared for that” (Ibsen 109). As this quote suggests Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in “The Yellow Wall-Paper” and Henrik Ibsen, in A Doll House dramatize that, for woman, silent passivity and submissiveness can lead to madness.

“The Flowers” by Alice Walker is a very well written yet short and sweet story that paints a very vivid picture of main problem the times. It expresses the reality of the lynching of the African American community in a way that is very easy to understand. Alice Walker uses vibrant details to bring to light the severity of the problem and what people of that time period went through. The story also showcases a deeper meaning that does not necessarily revolve around lynchings but represents the loss of childhood innocence. “The Flowers” explains the reality of racism and lynchings of the time while also providing an inner lying message about one’s coming of age and loss of innocence.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “If I Were a Man” she successfully shows the subconscious thinking of a young woman who wishes with her heart and soul she would become a man. The story is based on a young woman named Mollie Mathewson, who ends up becoming her husband due to her wishes to be a man. She then goes throughout the day as her husband, Gerald. “She was Gerald, walking down the path so erect and square-shouldered, in a hurry for his morning train, as usual, and, it must be confessed, in something of a temper” (Gilman 50). Gilman successfully brings this story to life by taking a third-person limited omniscient point of view, which allows us to see inside her innermost thoughts.

The setting of Alice Walkers short story” The Flowers” is important for us, the readers to obtain a perspective of how life was like growing up for a 10 year old African American girl by the name of Myop. The title of the story is “The Flowers.” When you think about flowers, you instantly compare them to being beautiful, pure, and innocent. The title of the “The Flowers” is a symbolism that correlates to Myop who is the protagonist of the story. Myop is just like a flower in the beginning of the story. She’s a pure and innocent child but that pure innocence changes when she discovers something that’ll change her life forever.

Throughout the story we see the protagonist struggle with the gender roles placed upon her by her society; specifically the role she is supposed to play as

In 1887, one year prior to Eugene O’Neill’s birth, the first vote on women’s suffrage is taken in the Senate and fails. (Scholastic). In 1955, the year following O’Neill’s death, a woman, Rosa Parks, became the symbol for the civil rights movement. While these two events can seem unrelated, they frame the time in which Eugene O’Neill lived where the structure of gender roles in society experienced radical changes. Women received voting rights, as well as more legal and workplace rights that had never existed before. Men also encountered change, given that World War I resulted in a large segment of the male population leaving country. There is no doubt that literature has always been used as an avenue of social commentary; however, O’Neill used his work in innovative ways to express his distaste at certain societal ideals. Doris M. Alexander writes, “The main trend in Eugene O'Neill’s social criticism is negative… Whatever hope he sees for man lies in individuals who may have the courage to possess their own souls” (363). A prime of example of an individuals who do possess their own souls are present in Anna Christie. Anna and Marthy, the main woman characters, are both examples of O’Neill’s experiments into writing more well-rounded and independent women, much like the women of the 1920’s. Despite Marthy only appearing in the first act, her personality reveals itself so quickly that the audience does not need much more. In fact, O’Neill’s vivid stage directions might even