The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Alice Walker speaks of her mother and grandmothers’ dark pasts of slavery and discrimination throughout their lives. Although women through the years have had it tough, colored women have and continue to have a deeper struggle within society. Alice Walker’s essay is inspiring and heartwarming because it tells of how the women in their lives have found beauty within a dark part of history. Her mother although had little, found a sense of identity with the joy of her own vibrant garden. She speaks a lot about how many people of color continued to keep their identity and spirituality in a time where they could have been discouraged. I think that Walker’s essay is really eye opening because so many women have struggled before us to pave the way for women of all

Alice Malsenior Walker, an African American born into poverty, came into this world on February 9, 1944 in Eatonon, Georgia. She was the youngest child of eight children born to Willie Lee and Minnie Tallulah Walkers. Both of her parents were sharecroppers as well as expert story tellers. Things were not easy for the Walkers and Alice often witnessed her mother’s frustration of having the burden to take care of eight children with little means. Even though children of share croppers were usually made to work the fields, Alice’s mother made sure that her kids received an education. Alice was brilliant at writing poetry.

Alice Walker and Maya Angelou are two contemporary African-American writers. Although almost a generation apart in age, both women display a remarkable similarity in their lives. Each has written about her experiences growing up in the rural South, Ms. Walker through her essays and Ms. Angelou in her autobiographies. Though they share similar backgrounds, each has a unique style that gives the readers, the gift of their exquisite humanity, with all of its frailties and strengths, joys and sorrows.

Alice Walker's life experiences influences her writing because she thought that life in the South was unfair and her writings give a voice to black women who were often treated as second-class citizens. In the story, "Everyday Use: For Your Grandmama" Alice Walker uses the character Maggie to reveal her life experiences through. For example, Maggie did not get a chance to become educated like her sister, she stayed home with her mother and did not complain.  Furthermore, in the end of the story when she wouldn't completely speak up to Dee about the quilt Mama did it for her. It follows that, Walker was exhibiting the fact that life in the South was unfair through Maggie and that Mama was the one to give her, a black woman, her voice back.

During the civil rights movement many women and minorities were suppressed from being able to be true to themselves and what they believe in. Civil rights advocate and “womanist”, Alice Walker, in her poems, “Burial,” “Be Nobody’s Darling,” and “While Love is Unfashionable,” analyzes the importance of breaking away from the stereotypes set by society in efforts to prevent struggle. Walker uses a variety of parallelism, allusions, and metaphors to persuade readers to break free from the crowd and embrace the outcast found within the truest version of oneself.

The essay "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens" by contemporary American novelist Alice Walker is one that, like a flashbulb, burns an afterimage in my mind. It is an essay primarily written to inform the reader about the history of African American women in America and how their vibrant, creative spirit managed to survive in a dismal world filled with many oppressive hardships. This piece can be read, understood, and manage to conjure up many emotions within the hearts and minds of just about any audience that reads it. However, Walker targets African American women in today's society in an effort to make them understand their heritage and appreciate what their mothers and grandmothers endured to

     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.

The author is the brilliant intellect, Margaret Walker. Walker obtained her bachelors in English from Northwester University and her master’s and PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. While living in Chicago she worked with Federal Writer’s Project and was a member of the Southside Writers Group, along with Richard Wright. She eventually became a renowned professor in the department of English at Jackson State University and established several avenues for Black Studies on campus.

One of the most inspiring authors in American history is Alice Walker. Walker is the youngest child in a sharecropper family that found her overly ambitious and highly competitive (Walker 609). This gave her a strong fighting attitude, which allowed her to make positive changes in an extremely racist society. Unfortunately, when she was young, Walker was accidentally shot in her right eye with a BB gun while playing “Cowboys and Indians.” This accident caused Walker to lose her self-esteem and her captivating personality. As a result, she secluded herself from the outside world and began to write. During this time-the 1950’s and 1960’s- Alice Walker’s works channeled the hardship and inferiority that she realized as a black person (Whitted).

Alice Walker, born February ninth of 1944, was a child of tenant farmers in Eatonton, Georgia. As she lost sight in one eye from being shot with a BB gun, she read and wrote surrounding herself with her mother and aunts. As she witnessed the independence of these women, along with the oppression of the sharecropping system and violent racist acts, her artistic view was shaped. In 1961, she got involved with the Civil Right Movement at Spelman College, and became active after moving to Mississippi. Together with her husband, Civil Rights Lawyer Melvyn Rosenman Leventhal, married in March of 1967, she worked registering blacks to vote in Mississippi. They divorced after her daughter, Rebecca, was born.

Alice Walker’s famous works, awards, and ability to shake off criticisms shows her many

Alice Walker has been an activist for most of her life. Walker travels the world to help fight for the poor and the oppressed. She also stands for the revolutionaries who want to transform the world for the better. She is a defender of not only human rights but the rights of animals as well. In her essay “Am I Blue” she discovers the feelings of a horse named Blue. The essay is meant to show a different side of animals and show the audience the human-like traits that horses have. She compares the oppression of the African Americans and American Indians to the way we now treat animals.

The women of the late sixties, although some are older than others, in Alice Walker’s fiction that exhibit the qualities of the developing, emergent model are greatly influenced through the era of the Civil Rights Movement. Motherhood is a major theme in modern women’s literature, which examines as a sacred, powerful, and spiritual component of the woman’s life. Alice Walker does not choose Southern black women to be her major protagonists only because she is one, but because she had discovered in the tradition and history they collectively experience an understanding of oppression that has been drawn from them a willingness to reject the principle and to hold what is difficult. Walker’s most developed character, Meridian, is a person

     The essay “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” by contemporary American novelist Alice Walker is one that, like a flashbulb, burns an afterimage in my mind. It is an essay primarily written to inform the reader about the history of African American women in America and how their vibrant, creative spirit managed to survive in a dismal world filled with many oppressive hardships. This piece can be read, understood, and manage to conjure up many emotions within the hearts and minds of just about any audience that reads it. However, Walker targets African American women in today’s society in an effort to make them understand their heritage and appreciate what their mothers and

When reading Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” and “Everyday Use,” it is evident that she writes about her life through her use of allegory. Alice Walker uses the events of her childhood, her observation of the patriarchy in African American culture, and her rebellion against the society she lived in to recount her life through her stories. Alice Walker grew up in a loving household in the years towards the end of the Great Depression. Although her family was poor, they were rich in kindness and perspective and taught Walker a lot about her heritage and life.