Moments and Time, Themes in the Narrative Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self, by Alice Walker

In Alice Walker’s Roselily, our main character (Roselily) is a mother of three residing in Mississippi. She questions her actions to marry a man of a different religion, but knows that the marriage will give her a (limited) sense of freedom, and will give her children an opportunity to lead better lives. The story’s central idea reveals that sometimes the love and concern for others can lead to the sacrifice of one’s own happiness.

Some may confine to societies expectations, rebel, or even enforce them; however, Alice Walker “dances” over the categories that society has believed she should be placed in to find something more meaningful and significant about herself. Alice Walker, known for her numerous awards and 1983 Pulitzer Prize winning work, The Color Purple, is an American novelist, poet, and activist. Her essay, Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self, is an autobiographical account of an incident that caused her to go blind in one eye when she was eight years old. Walker’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions, which were cultivated by the standards and pressures of society, are described in her story. While some may overlook its purpose, the metaphor of dance is significant because it represents her individual liberation of societal standards and categorization, which in turn influences readers to consider their oppressors and realize their self-worth.

Alice Walkers "Roselily" is a short story about a woman who is about to be married, but is having second thoughts about the marriage. She is also looking into the past and the future trying to make sense of what is happening. Roselily is being torn between choosing between her current or possible future Economic status, Societies view of her, her religion and her freedom. All these thoughts go through her mind as the wedding ceremony takes place, and she begins to wonder if she has made the right choice is marrying this man.

The short story/essay “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self” written by Alice Walker demonstrates the story of Alice accepting herself despite her flaws. As a child, Alice is a pretty, outgoing, and messy girl; but that all changes in a matter of seconds. Alice loses sight in one of her eyes, changing her perspective on life for a majority of her life. She went from the outgoing girl whom everybody seems to love, to the girl that doesn’t look up anymore in fear people will see her messed up eye. Growing up in 1947 with her family, she is not a rich child, in fact, almost dirt poor, so her parents can’t afford a car to take her to the hospital, contributing to her losing sight in her eye. Although she tells her parents a reason causing her to injure her eye, it is a lie, so that she is able to protect her siblings from becoming in trouble. Alice Walker demonstrates a theme of lying to protect siblings in her life which I can relate to because I oftenly as a child had to lie to protect my siblings as well.

Almost everyone in the world feels a need to belong. When searching for one’s own identity, the questions of where power lies and who disperses it derive. The choices to separate, conform and individualize play the most significant role in identity because those choices refer individuals to the people they associate with. Deirdre N. McCloskey’s “Yes, Ma’am” and Alice Walker’s “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self” relate in finding an identity and self-accepting oneself.

In Alice Walker's "Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, her view of beauty changes through different stages of her life. In her childhood Walker has a misunderstanding of beauty. She is concerned with superficial signs of beauty and fails to appreciate her inner beauty. A tragic mishap as a young child leaves her right eye blind and deformed. She enters a period of depression her life, living her life in shame and disappointment because she believes her beauty to be lost. Even getting surgery as an adult doesn’t help defeat her demons. She continues to struggle until she finds her inner beauty through her daughter’s love. As a child, Alice Walker got her definition of beauty from her family, in her teens she turned to her peers to define beauty, her perception finally changed again in adulthood when she discovered an inner beauty.

“The Flowers” by Alice Walker is a short story written in the 1970’s. The story focuses on Myop, a ten year old African American girl who loves to explore the land in which she lives. Carefree and naïve, Myop decides to travel further away from her ‘Sharecropper cabin’ and travels deep inside the woods to unfamiliar land where she discovers the decomposed body of an African American man. It is then Myop quickly grows up and suddenly becomes aware of the world in which she lives. The story relies on setting and symbolism to convey the theme of departing innocence.

In “Everyday Use”, Alice Walker presents an everyday average family which involves a single mother with two daughters, one who seems to have life handed to her, and the other who is shy and lacks confidence in herself due to a family tragedy. Alice Walker gives some interesting stories behind each of her main characters: Mrs. Johnson, Dee (Wangero), Maggie, and Hakim Akbar (Asalamalakim). Among the characters in the story, Mrs. Johnson stands out because she loves her daughters equally, she accepts them both, and she overcomes her conflict with Dee.

A person’s perception of anything is always influenced by their experiences. Alice Walker, the writer of “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self”, is no different in regards to her perception of beauty. Walker uses various stylistic elements throughout her writing to convey her shifting outlook toward her own beauty. She also employs various rhetorical strategies in order to deliver a clear and luring story that keeps the reader engaged as she describes her life as a flashback. Walker uses the accident that happens during her childhood to prove that one’s mindset can be altered because of a profound experience and how her attitude completely transforms from a conceited and arrogant child into a newly reborn woman who sees a new kind of

The Flowers By Alice Walker Written in the 1970's The Flowers is set in the deep south of America and is about Myop, a small 10-year old African American girl who explores the grounds in which she lives. Walker explores how Myop reacts in different situations. She writes from a third person perspective of Myop's exploration. In the first two paragraph Walker clearly emphasises Myop's purity and young innocence.

     Alice Walker is an African American essayist, novelist and poet. She is described as a “black feminist.”(Ten on Ten) Alice Walker tries to incorporate the concepts of her heritage that are absent into her essays; such things as how women should be independent and find their special talent or art to make their life better. Throughout Walker’s essay entitled “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens,” I determined there were three factors that aided Walker gain the concepts of her heritage which are through artistic ability, her foremothers and artistic models.

A form of adversity is in Alice Walker’s essay, “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, it shows how a person’s perception of everything is always greatly influenced by their past experiences. Walker uses various elements throughout her writing to show her outlook towards her appearance. Walker uses the incident that happened in her childhood to show that a persons mindset can be changed by a experience and how her attitudes changes from a sassy, conceited kid to a matured and powerful women who finally sees beauty in her life. Alice Walker’s essay is a great example of a person whose fear of adversity allowed themselves to be worn down by it. She begins the story with a cocky outlook on life where she knows she is beautiful. “I’m the prettiest!” (Alice Walker), as a young child she would use her

A person’s life can be summed up within a sentence, their childhood just a word. Time has the interesting ability of warping. At the same time, it has the ability to take away sentiment from any event.

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.

In the short yet complex work “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, readers see a woman who goes through a complete spectrum of emotions in the short span of an hour. When the main character learns that her husband is dead, like most, she is shocked and utterly filled with grief. As the story continues, a dramatic change takes place within the mind of the main character, Louise. Upon the conclusion of her natural, wifely grief, she realizes that she is finally out from under the grasp of her husband and is now a free woman in a time when men dominated life at home and the goings on of society. Through his death, Louise finds the opportunity to be born again. Many of the emotions that the main character goes through are depicted through the imagery of her constantly changing environment, and the author specifically uses the architecture of her home as a main tool. In the story, the use of visual imagery projects the rise and fall of the main character as her life transitions quickly back and forth. Through an analysis of her characterization, these changes ultimately prove too much for her to handle. In Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” a character analysis can be performed based on the changes in her environment compared to the changes in her life situation. The layout of the world around Louise is used to show her initial grief, sudden realization of freedom, and her gateway to a new life free from oppression of men.