Journal Two: Identifying Conflict in Two Texts
Maria Anna Maciocia
ENG125: Introduction to Literature
Clinton Hale
7/9/2015
Journal Two: Identifying Conflict in Two Texts
The Welcome Table: Conflict of Segregation
The specific conflict in the story The Welcome Table by Alice Walker is of segregation of the old black woman. She stands alone in her fight against racism and it seems that she and society exist upon two different poles of earth. The conflict takes shape with her dressing in the very beginning of the story. She gets ready to join the Sunday Prayer; however, she is not permitted to enter the church of the Whites. Instead of getting disappointed, she stands at the outside stair steps of it and keeps her conflict alive with the rest of the people. The issue of racism is significant factor in the story as it keeps the whole story unified.
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In the shape of resolving her conflict, Alice Walker proves that God does not favor the doctrines of color, caste and creed, as human beings understand them. There is a wider context of symbolizing the old woman in the story than any audience might evaluate it. The old woman symbolizes the power of truth and standing for the right. She takes her stand firmly and never leaves hope. She never returns home but instead, keeps standing at the doorsteps of the church in hope that one day of other, her case will be heard. Thus, she justifies her situation and even Christ has to come to see her determination.
The Story of an Hour: Conflict of Personal
Throughout the novel many problems occur. Some of the main problems are racial and equality issues. Events in this book show how prejudice and intolerance can ruin numerous friendships and change lives.
The first conflict is how Ruth and her children receives a lot of displeasure from their society. Ruth is a white women living in a black neighborhood, raising 12 children of the opposite race of her. She faces a lot of discrimination towards her and her children because she is a different race from them. “I could see it in the faces of the white people who stared at
In today's societies, people avoid drastic change by staying along their morals and beliefs, and dissociating or segregating anyone inside them who does not fall into the standard. A similar philosophy on societies can be appreciated in the intriguing short story, “The Welcome Table for Sister Clara Ward”. This thought-provoking story is written by Alice Walker, an African American novelist and poet, who bases the plot on the immense segregation that once took place in the United States. In the story, Sister Clara Ward is segregated from her Christian church and her society as a result of a difference in skin color and class. Through Sister Clara Ward’s alienation from the Christian Church due to her race and social status in “The Welcome Table for Sister Clara Ward,” Alice Walker utilizes the citizen’s judgemental comments to display the society’s strongly believed but primitive assumptions of blacks as well as their indisputable superiority over lower classes.
Alice Walker used her writing to convey a message to African Americans. She used her character to show that although one might try to remove himself or herself from a race they will always be connected to it. The situation Dee is going through is generational issue for African Americans. They are always on a constant search to find their place in this world. Walker exemplifies this in
In a world that is all too often obsessed with attaining spiritual enlightenment as if it were a twelve-step program to the gates of heaven, sometimes a voice comes along that transcends the myriad of confusing and contradictory rules that numerous religions use to shuffle followers to the promised land. In The Color Purple Alice Walker rises above the confines of gender and race in relation to religion. Her voice is also Celie’s voice—the voice of a person who has grappled with ideas of God and religion in order to allow an interpretation of a higher power that inspires characters within the book as well as its readers. The author draws attention to what happens when someone is forced to live by established ideologies that exclude rather than
Alice walker, author of “Everyday use” and “The welcome table”, both depict about prejudice and racism dealing with two strong female characters from both stories that are affected by this injustice. Not only this but many attributes that are comparable such as Irony and visual images.
Equality was once a repulsive concept within America, today it seems to be a foregone conclusion. Indeed, we have made so many strides in the way that we view race that it seems a gross misstep every time that it needs to be addressed. Even our President, an African American who overcame tremendous odds to rise to the highest office does not have the answers to our issues with race, rather he calls on us all to “ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty, or attend dilapidated schools, or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career.” For most, these questions point to sources outside of themselves, but perhaps there a bit of introspection is the answer. Systematic segregation can
Alice Walker who wrote “The Welcome Table” had issues of race and gender that was the center of her literary work and her social activism. She participated in civil rights demonstrations. (Clugston 2010). This short story has a theme of life and death. It shows the plot of the story, the point of view and has symbolism used to show the death of the old woman and what the church members thought of her as a black woman. (Clugston, 2010, Section 7.1 and 7.2) Later in the story, she is walking up the road with Jesus, who came to get her and take her to The Welcome Table that she always
Although each literary piece used the same theme, the authors delivered their message of racism in different forms. In short stories “The theme is associated with an idea that lies behind the story”. (Clugston 2010) “The Welcome Table” by Alice Walker was written in short story form. Here Mrs. Walker tells a story in an omniscient third person point of view. She speaks of the main character in the story from the people seeing her approaching and then entering an all-white church. Written in eleven paragraphs, Mrs. Walker uses descriptive words to describe the old black lady and the incident from the onlookers the way they perceived her to be. Unlike the short story, the theme of a poem is rarely stated explicitly: it has to be looked for, discovered. And to identify it, you must consider the implications and representations of everything that appears in the poem”. (Clugston 2010) In the poem “What it is like to be a
The structure of the novel is significant in presenting the issues of racism from both sides of the story. The story starts with a prologue which sets the scene and
High school is often considered a microcosm of society. Beliefs, social order, and current issues present themselves through student’s interactions and the environment they learn in. One of the oldest and still prevalent issues in the United States today is race and equality. So it is no surprise when racial issues are exposed in public education. Although many believe the civil rights era fixed most discrimination, racism remains in schools. Even after court ordered integration, classroom disparities have led to harmful segregation to continue within schools.
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
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
Events in history have influenced writers’ style, and the importance in their stories. Alice Walker wrote a novel which was very much subjective by the time period of the 1940’s. There was a great deal of bigotry and tyranny during that time, particularly for Women of color. Women were mentally and physically abused and belittled by man purely because of their race and femininity. Women were considered as ignorant individuals that simply knew how to handle housework and care for the children.
In The Colour Purple, Walker cleverly uses the teachings of Christianity, a respected topic in American society, as the rose tinted lens to encase the key themes of racism and sexism throughout the novel. Furthermore, by doing so, she demonstrates the complexity of oppression at the time and provides insight into the stifling impact of traditional Christian teachings and the role this played on slowing the pace of meaningful reform. Through the common voice of Christianity, Walker portrays how black women can be both enslaved to, and liberated from, race and sex discrimination in American