African-American Literature -- Alice Walker
Women breaking the barriers in literature: Alice Walker, Pioneer of Womanism and Bastion of the African-American Culture (Literature)
African-American culture as American society characterizes it today contains significant elements that enrich the character of African-American society and communities. In the realm of arts, African-Americans have excelled, producing works of art that uniquely speaks for the African-American experience, but is universally crafted for people to appreciate and understand the history of one of the dominant societies in the United States at present. African-Americans excelled in the performing arts, music, visual arts, as well as literature, which has been developed with the emergence of Harlem Renaissance during the early 20th century. Alice Walker, following the great tradition of African-American literature, has been considered one of the women writers, particularly, African-American writers, who fought to 'break the barrier' that divides African-Americans from other races and women from men in a dominantly white American and patriarchal society, respectively.
Alice Walker was propelled to success during the 1980s after the publication of her novel, The Color Purple. Prior to the creation and publication of her successful novel, Walker has been known to be a staunch supporter and contributor to African-American literature, composing poems and writing prose about the lives of African-Americans,...
"(1991) Anything We Love Can be Saved: A Writer's Activism, (Walker 1997) is a collection of 33 speeches, letters and previously published pieces with the consistent theme of the political merging into the personal in her life. Michael Anderson, reviewing this book and mentioning a piece that Walker said "remains unwritten," states that "Ms. Walker's admirers can rejoice that her silence did not extend to book length." Pettis remarks that the
..] I suffered and raged inside because of this." With her beauty destroyed, the now six-year-old Walker gave up hope that the world would still prove as open and bountiful as it had for her life up to that point, and her inner sense of worth and beauty crumbled away just as her exterior beauty was eroded away by the sudden entrance of the BB and the slow buildup of
Alice Walker's 1983 publication In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose addresses the role of creativity in women's lives. Creativity is the essence of womanhood, and therefore a symbol like that of the titular mother's garden. "Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and respect for strength-in search of my mother's garden, I found my own."(Walker 675). Imagery of gardens and life contrasts sharply with imagery of
'" (Walker, 236) The making of the quilts is another symbol for the way in which the daughter and the mother differ in their views of tradition. The quilt is also strongly associated with the African-American tradition and therefore all the more significant. While the mother and Maggie are capable of actually making the quilts, Dee or Wangero is obsessed with having them and possessing them as a symbol of her
By simply concentrating on connecting with their African heritage many failed to understand that their parents and their ancestors who lived on the American continent in general created a culture of their own that entailed elements belonging both to the African continent and to the American one. Most of the short story is about how Dee struggles to find her personal identity by turning to cultural values. While Dee is
Mama and Maggie's values are simple, their goals mundane yet uplifting at the same time. Dee, on the other hand, is full of spunk and ambition. She views the quilts as if they were anthropological artifacts, remnants not of her grandmother but from some lost civilization. Dee, renamed Wangero, wanted to hang the quilts on the wall like art. Her desire parallels her creative streak and her wacky way
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