Posessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker

The author shows the reader what she wants them to think, feel, and do with the information through the structure. In the story there is a shift of setting and time. The Flowers begins in a bright morning adventure, but as Myop continues with her adventure, she ends up in a dank part of the woods. This structure is parallel to the story of Eve in the Garden of Eden. Myop is a pure girl who wanders among the vibrant foliage, “...bouncing this way and that way, vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes” (Walker para. 4). Eve is also tempted by a strange plant, an apple, as is Myop. In The Flowers, Walker wrote that Myop was drawn by blue flowers. Such parallels to the snake and apple symbols of the Genesis story will lead the reader to sense that

“The Flowers” by Alice Walker was a very descriptive short story that used words powerfully and constructed a sinister yet elegant scene in the reader’s mind. The emotional meaning behind it’s excellent description only enhanced the details and thoughts the reader had while reading the story, which displayed Walker’s talent in describing a story . In this story, a young girl named Myop is playing near her home on a sharecropper property. She begins picking flowers around her sharecropper property, which eventually leads her to exploring the forest behind the property. As Myop is exploring the forest, she encounters a dead body that had been there for a while. Myop is briefly fazed, then continues looking for more plant life. Eventually, she spots a singular pink rose, and notices that at the base of the rose, there is a mound. She digs up the mound, only to discover a noose that was used to hang the

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.

Honesty influences the lives of many people no matter religion, race, age, and has no boundaries towards the choices we make honesty can be brutal, rather than saving face to protect the ones you love honesty can hurt but it is usually always better. One lie can affect our outcomes, and these choices we make in life could have drastic consequences that could affect us in the end and make life very difficult. Celie and Nick follow the same journey pattern to better themselves, but with different realizations that prove the only life worth having is an honest one.

her. The beginning of the story is told from the white people 's perspectives as they see an old black woman come to their church and go inside. Inside the church, the point of view switches to the usher who tells the old black lady to leave. The point of view then switches back to the white women inside the church, who take it as a personal insult and feel the most threatened about the old black lady being at their church. They rouse their husbands to throw the old lady out. The perspective then changes to the old black lady. This constant changing of point of view is useful in that it portrays the fears, thoughts, and feelings of almost everyone in the story. Firsthand, the reader is able to know what the people are thinking and why. In

“She’s asking for it.” That’s what society has to say about rape culture and demoralization of women. From the young age of eight, a young girl has begun to feel shameful of her body. She no longer feels comfortable in her own skin. She lives in fear as to wonder what consequences she shall face today. She will begin to see herself as a lesser value to the world. She must be a “lady”, thus meaning she no longer can sit how she wants nor wear what she wants. All young girls will face this same epidemic for the world’s view on women and their bodies as objects.

Lena and Ying-Ying from Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club both face injustice in their patriarchal relationships, just as Mariam and Laila from A Thousand Splendid Suns, however on very different terms. Lena, like Amir and Laila, struggles with confrontation and complete deference of others. However, under the influence of her mother, Lena realizes the problematic recurrences in relationship with her husband. Ying-Ying, aware of her daughters submissiveness, must lead Lena to intervention to confront herself and reconnect with her Chinese heritage in order to save her struggling relationships. While Ying-Ying sees the imbalance in Lena and Harold’s relationship as an embodiment of the flaws in her own marriage she reflects on her past and thinks to herself, “So this is what I will do. I will gather together my past and look. I will see a thing that has already happened. The pain that cut my spirit loose. I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughters tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose” (Tan, 153). She has sacrificed so much for her daughter, Lena, and accepts her American ways despite the fact that broadens the cultural gap between her Chinese heritage. Ying-Ying already experienced her loss of identity and self through her own marriage because she was unable to be assertive towards her husband. Here, just like Mariam and Hassan in Hosseni’s novels, Ying-Ying gives up her freedom in order for Lena to live a better life than she had. Although Ying-Ying doesn’t give up

Adversity can be seen in many different ways. Some people look at adversity as a learning experience, while others view adversity as a situation marked with misfortune. When a person is faced with adversity, rather than viewing it as something to hate, they should see it as a opportunity to grow. In the stories by Doris Lessing, W.D Wetherell and Alice Walker, they all show different types of challenges each character had to over come and their journey to do so. These stories all shared similar outcomes, they demonstrate how each character used an obstacle they were faced with, and turned it into a beneficial experience and how it shaped them into the person they are today.

A loss for words by Lou Ann Walker Is sort of like her own biography of her life With deaf parents. The book starts out with The author's feelings of being a person of hearing and And sort of feeling like an outsider because of her parents. Her maturity had to be at a certain young age because she had to interpret and handle many important situations. The readers are then introduced to Walker's parents and how they got their diagnosis. Walkers father named Gale was diagnosed deaf when he attended a funeral out in the cold at three months of age. I thought this particular part of Gale was interesting as he was outside just like everyone else. Walkers mother, on the other hand, Doris Jean, became deaf when she developed a high

(H) The life of women has drastically changed throughout the ages. (CIS) The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan portrays life in America and in China in the 1930’s for women. (GS1) When stories are true, there is more power behind them. (GS2) Novels need accuracy for the book to have feeling. (GS3) A rave-worthy novel needs truth to really draw the reader in. (thesis) Author Amy Tan accurately portrays life for Chinese women in the 1930’s and it enhances the power of the novel because the stories have true roots, the accuracy gives the book more feeling, and the truth behind the stories transports the reader into the novel.

In Everyday Use Historical Criticisms explores the disconnection that people can sometimes have depending on their education. Alice Walker successfully shows the disconnection by comparing two ends of the spectrum of generation. Taking the historical context it plays a major role in the way this short story is viewed. It was a time where people of color had a different and difficult experience getting an education. When the narrator was talking about having an education it was important because she wanted to be on a television show her success and how far she went. However Dee see’s her mother and Maggie differently as if they don’t know how to appreciate heritage as an art. For example when she wanted the quilts that were suppose to go

In Emily Yoffe’s essay entitled “Seeking”, she explores how the World Wide Web has provoked human’s brains to constantly seek information and knowledge. Yoffe opens the essay by stating her thesis, “Sometimes it feels as if the basic drives for food, sex, and sleep have been overridden by a new need for endless nuggets of electronic information, we are so insatiably curious we gather data that could get us in trouble, or we do not need to know” (“Seeking” 572). In the beginning, of the essay she highlights the research of Psychologist James Olds, who is believed to have found the brain’s pleasure center through various studies. She then moves on to explain the findings of neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp, who tries to account the reason for humans incessant need to seek information. Yoffe draws from Panksepp’s findings, “For humans, this desire to search is not just about fulfilling our physical needs, but our abstract ones as well, and in doing so we find a drug like satisfaction” (“Seeking” 573). Yoffe then explains how Psychology professor Kent Berridge tries to understand how the brain experiences pleasure. She speaks of how in Berridge’s work he has been able to distinguish how wanting is equivalent to Panksepp’s seeking system, and the liking system is believed to be linked to the brain’s reward center (Yoffe “Seeking” 574). Yoffe also explains how in Berridge’s work he has come to find that our minds are stimulated rather than satisfied, which

The social construction in most of these villages is the good woman and girls are circumcised and those who are not aren’t fit to be in their society. A circumcised women symbol will be her cut and re-sewn genitlia. Which labels them as clean, pure, and a good wife. Which basically means she has no choice, but to do what her husband wants so they turned their women into glorified sex slaves. The girl who do not have this done are called things like un-pure, slut, and other negative things. What the article leaves out is that these women defy the men of these societies and it makes them scared. They think that the women might ban together and over power them, as a result they shame them so women are scared to rebel. Their interactions with these uncircumcised women is little to none they are ostracized from their society, and will be seen by most unfit to marry. The article leave out though that even though the majority of the more traditional society does not see them as pure, their friends and some revolting newer generation males will sometimes associate them and marry them regardless of wither they are circumcised or

The self-actualization Celie achieves transforms her into a happy, successful, independent woman. Celie takes the act of sewing, which is traditionally thought of as a mere chore for women who are confined to a domestic role, and turns it into an outlet for creative self-expression and a profitable business. After being voiceless for so many years, she is finally content, fulfilled, and self-suf-ficient. The self-actualization Celie achieves transforms her into a happy, successful, independent woman. Celie takes the act of sewing, which is traditionally thought of as a mere chore for women who are confined to a domestic role, and turns it into an outlet for creative self-expression and a profitable business. After being voiceless for so many

If any woman had to answer if she ever had trouble accepting herself, the response would be yes. According to Susan David, “All healthy human beings have an inner stream of thoughts and feelings that include criticism, doubt, and fear” (125-128). Depending on the person Alice Walker has as the recipients of Celie’s and Nettie’s letters, the text alters. The Color Purple is about a girl named Celie, who grows up in the south during the early 1920’s, surrounded by racism, sexism, and abuse from her father and husband. Alice Walker wrote The Color Purple in epistolary style and it traces Celie’s journey of finding her identity and path of finally accepting herself. On her journey she encounters a couple of women including one named Shug