We meet in the Writing Center Wednesday and Thursday this week. Bring your essays for peer comments tomorrow. We also want to complete the Womanism vs. Feminism collaborative essay we started yesterday in the second class (9-10). I have been meeting with students about their writing; we'll continue this tomorrow also and Thursday. Make sure I speak to you about your work. We'll try to keep the comments to 10 minutes so I can see more of you this first go round.
posted by Professor Wanda's Posse at 12:25 PM
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Rudy Gonzales
8-9am Mon-Thurs
Alice Walker Essay
Rough draft. Still working on it.
Writing From Within
Did you always know what you wanted to be when you grew up? Many have a quick answer to this question; most people saying, “I wanted to be a doctor, teacher, cop, etc.” There are also others, like myself, who were unsure about their future career path. Regardless, I believe there is something inside us that guides us toward what we should be doing, if we listen closely. For Alice Walker, she did listen closely and discovered that she had talent as a writer. Although Alice had many great teachers and mentors to help enhance her writing, Alice mastered her craft by being left alone with her books.
Alice’s family and background would solidify her craft for writing at an early age. Alice grew up an inquisitive child, the youngest of eight in the Walker home, and everyone adored her. Alice’s mother put Alice into school with her sister Ruth at the age of four in which Alice excelled exponentially. Mrs. Walker knew that Alice loved to read books and Alice remembers that she “could go into [her] room and shut the door and lie on the bed and read, knowing [she] would never be interrupted” (White 58). At that moment, Alice’s mother gave a similar statement as the one given by Toni Cade Bambara’s mother, “What you’re doing is important” ( Campbell 32). Alice felt validated in the choices she was making to read books. Not to mention, that Alice was confident in telling her good friend Doris Reid, “The more you read, the more you know” (White 31). Alice did not mind being alone as a child as long as she could transpose herself to the inverse of her yeoman way of life.
Coming from a sharecropper family meant they could not afford much but the Walkers always gave their children as much as they could. Alice takes pride today in the stories that reclaim her disappearing acts of going “behind the house with a Sears Roebuck catalog and twig; I was “writing” in the margins” (Campbell 32). The family may not have had enough to buy many books but Alice’s healthy imagination would blossom with the little she was given. After all, Evelyn would recount the harsh times when Alice was growing up and thought, “writing was also a matter of practicality; paper and pencil were cheap and plentiful in her circumscribed landscape” (White 59). Alice would take her passion for knowledge and run with it or rather disappear with it and hone her writing.
After the BB gun incident, Alice would only dive further into her world of aloneness and loneliness. Before the incident Alice felt beautiful and wanted to share and explore God’s green earth. Afterward she would see herself only as the monstrous scar on her face; “For six years [she] does not stare at anyone, because [she does] not raise [her] head” (White 38). An eclipse would fall over Alice’s world but unbeknownst to her would help her with her writing; for Alice now spent a lot more time with her books. While Alice coped with her face marred by the small silver bullet she would gain a vast perspective on humanity. “[Alice] developed an empathy and sense of kinship with other people she perceived to be “afflicted,” including ailing and feeble whites who, before her injury, she had not been inclined to consider charitably” (White 42). Alice’s view on life and people may have not been brought to her writing in such a poignant manner if she had not had this silver lining, literally.
On one hand, it can be said that Alice took the steps to becoming a great writer by moving from Spelman to Sarah Lawrence for better teachers. Here she had great teachers like Jane Cooper and Muriel Rukeyser who were very impressed and involved in her writing. Evelyn C. White would write in her book Alice Walker: A Life that Cooper “worked primarily in conference with Alice on fiction” (White 104). Jane Cooper already an accomplished writer could find Alice’s strengths and weaknesses and how to best mold this Southern girl. Unfortunately, Alice was pretty much concrete in her thoughts and she knew where she was going. Alice was quite capable of standing up for her ideas not only on paper but in person. Cooper recalls when she told Alice “she had colored the earth wrong…Alice looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘No you’ve got it wrong. The land is red where I come from. And that’s the way it’s going to be in this story. Period’” (White 104). Thereafter, Cooper understood the dynamics of Alice Walker and left her alone to wait until Alice would become a peer in the professional literary world.
Similarly, Muriel Rukeyser sparked Alice’s poetry side by “[showing Alice] that for real people, poetry is as necessary as bread” (White 109). For Alice this struck a cord and probably helped enhance her poetry skills. Once again, these great teachers of Alice did not help her with her craft, but instead opened the gates of writing styles that Alice could use to construct grandeur works as she sees fit. Moreover, Alice has always looked within herself to go above and beyond for something that she wants. When she was writing back at Spelman, her work was read aloud in class so she herself wrote essays over at least once to make them the best she could (White 70). Another example would be when Alice enrolled in Zinn’s Russian course. She read works of Turgenev, Gorky, and Gogul which were not in the course syllabus. Alice would later say “[The Russian writers] made [her] think that Russia must have something in the air that writers breathe from the time they are born” (White 73). Alice apparently wanted to breathe some of that air and take command in her life as a writer and no one was going to hold her back.
No matter Alice’s living circumstance she always had a place for her writing. When Alice got married to Mel Leventhal she made sure to get a room of her own. Alice needed that place where she could be alone to surround herself with the writing that she would be doing, so “the couple had hired a carpenter to convert one of their bedrooms into a writing studio for Alice” (White 158). Mel willing to let Alice have her space gave her the support she needed to perfect her craft. Alice felt her groove as a writer after winning the essay contest in American Scholar in which her popularity began to snow ball.
Unfortunately, Alice was feeling enclosed by the Mississippi small-mind mentality that she needed to move away. Alice applied and received the Radcliffe fellowship to go back to Boston to focus on her novel. Here, Alice would leave a very young Rebecca at Barbara Cornelius’s nursery to forge new ground on her writing. Alice was thankful to have the school there for Rebecca so that she could hammer away with the characters of her new novel. As Rebecca grew older and could stay with Mel in Mississippi, Alice took on many more hats of teacher, editor, reviver, and of course she always stuck to her writing. After realizing her marriage was checking out, Alice then moved to San Francisco and up the Bay to construct her well known controversial piece The Color Purple.
The Color Purple in large part was written to give her ancestors a voice. Alice dealt with much criticism over this novel but always stayed true the voice inside. Alice goes by her own code of conduct which is to keep to herself and not let anyone, especially editors, know what she is working on. Alice has a strong belief in what she is writing and through her words the characters can live. Alice said it best in an interview with Bebe Moore Campbell, “Part of what [I] do is heal the ancestors. If you can heal the ancestors, you bring peace to the present. This though has really kept me going through a lot of turmoil that has accompanied my life as a writer. I feel like I know what my job is, even if nobody else has a clue” (Campbell 34). Giving her characters authenticity was important to Alice to know that she did not jeopardize their story for her glory as a credible writer.
In the end, Alice was a great writer because she listened to herself when she knew she had to go somewhere alone to gather her ideas and breathe life into her work. After listening to why Alice writes, we understand that she was never alone. Her ancestors were always with her giving her guidance when needed. I am inspired by Alice and her sense of self. I am not sure whether she gained that after her tragic incident or if her strength came from within. Either way Alice has taught me that no career path is an easy road, especially one in the arts.
Cited Works
1. Campbell, Bebe Moore. “Heal the Ancestors, Recover the Earth.” Black Issues Book Review March/April 1999: 32-34.
2. Edemariam, Aida. “Review: A life in writing: Free spirit: Twenty-five years ago, Alice Walkers Pulitzer prizewinning The Color Purple transformed African-American literature. It also changed her life – for better and worse” The Guardian Review (London) 23 June. 2007: 20.
3. White, Evelyn C. Alice Walker: A Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
2004.
Melissa Tinkelenberg
English 1A
Alice Walker: Feminism/Womanism
While reading Alice Walker: A Life by Evelyn C. White, I’ve come to realize that Alice Walker considered herself a “Womanist” not a “Feminist.” A “feminist” is a “person who has a belief in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes” (thefreeonlinedictionary.com). While this sounds great, Alice didn’t feel that this related to her. Womanism is a term that was created by Alice Walker that she felt was more broad and encompassing. A womanist is “a person who has or expresses a belief in or respect for women and their talents and abilities beyond the boundaries of race and class” (thefreeonlinedictionary.com).
Alice Walker defines the element of Womanism as,
Womanish. (Opp. of “girlish,” frivolous, irresponsible, not serious.) A
black feminist or feminist of color…..A woman who loves other women,
sexually and/or non-sexually. Appreciates and prefers woman’s culture
women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of
laughter)…….Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or non-sexually.
Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female…. (377)
Alice Walker created the term “womanism” because she didn’t feel that “feminism” encompassed the perspective of black women.
Feminist was a term used for middle class white women who wanted more from life than to just be housewives. Suburban women wanted to be able to join the work force and be equal to white men. They wanted to be liberated, free. These were very different issues and concerns than black women had. Black women never experienced the luxury of being financially supported by there husbands. They never enjoyed a privileged existence to be “liberated” from. Betty Friedman, the white feminist who wrote “The Feminist Mystique” said about feminism, “We can no longer ignore the voice within women that says: ‘I want more than my husband and my children and my home’” (215). These were not issues that most (if any) black women could relate to. The white feminist movement therefore was alienating to black women. Alice Walker didn’t feel that she, as a black woman could relate to this movement, or even want any part of it. Thus womanism was born.
The word womanism freed black women and gave them the opportunity to open up about issues that were important to them. Black women or women of color had different issues that affected them. Black women suffered differently and had harsher problems than white women. Black women never had the opportunity to enjoy a privileged existence in fact most black women had to work hard for their families to survive, they were raped and abused more often and they had to deal with society seeing them as being black and being women both which were looked at as unequal and lesser. Barbra Christian said about womanism in the essay “Alice Walker: The Black Woman Artist as Wayward,” “The word had monumental impact in shaping a consciousness that allowed black women to dialogue and organize separate from the white feminist who had proven themselves to be insensitive to our concerns…..many black women felt more comfortable speaking about their experiences as survivors of rape, child abuse or domestic violence. Gone was the fear of being labeled “man-hater” or lesbian the routine “slurs” directed at women identified as feminists, regardless of their sexuality” (378).
There is another reasons Alice Walker preferred the word “Womanism” to the word “Feminism.” Alice didn’t want a word that needed an adjective before it to truly describe her, such as black feminist. Alice Walker says, “Womanist needs no qualification” (379). The word “womanist” comes directly from black women’s culture. In other words, womanism is black feminism. Alice Walker hoped that the word womanism would help black women embrace their heritage.
Alice’s love of women was reflected in her romantic life. Alice Walker is bi-sexual not a lesbian. She loves people for their inner beauty. Jean Weisinger, a San Francisco photographer, who dated Alice said, “We were both most attracted to the spirit of people. Sometimes that spirit is housed in a male, other times in a woman” (443). Alice Walker is not only bi-sexual, but seems to have had many lovers, both male and female, and has had many in the same time period. This was never an act that was dishonest or spiteful or had any bad intentions; this was about spreading love, having people to love and people who loved her in return. This was about surrounding herself with like minded individuals. Alice Walker seems to be a person who just is so full of love and passion to share. Even though Alice will still have relationships with men, she seems to be more attracted to women. I see this as being directly related to her definition of womanism. She has a true love and respect for everything about women. She prefers women’s culture and emotional flexibility.
For Alice Walker, womanism was much more than feminism. It wasn’t just looking for equal rights for women and men in the workforce and politically, it was about loving and respecting women. Appreciating everything about women and being proud to be a woman. Alice said, “womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender” (377). Purple is a strong bold color that represents strength, lavender is a kind of washed down version of purple. Lavender is a color that is weak and soft, it doesn’t live up to its full potential. I think that’s what Alice Walker meant with that quote. Womanism is a stronger and bolder word than feminism and can include many more people. Womanism doesn’t discriminate in its goals. Womanism is to love women.
Cited Works
1. White, Evelyn C. Alice Walker: A Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004
2. thefreeonlinedictonary.com/womanism
3. thefreeonlinedictionary.com/feminism
Dung Le
9-10am
Racism, the Effects
Racism is the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others. Racism comes with attachments, these attachments are segregation and poverty and within “Alice Walker: A Life written by Evelyn C. White,” it is dispersed throughout the whole book. The book takes you on a journey switching between many viewpoints, mainly Alice Walker’s. Alice Walker is a beautiful black American woman who embarks on a journey filled with many difficulties, with racism being the most difficult. A French philosopher named Fredrich Neitzche once said “What does not destroy me, makes me strong, [Or, What doesn't kill you makes you stronger],” this expression is greatly emphasized within the book. Throughout Alice’s journey, she accumulated many hardships and pain produced by racism. The accumulation of racism was the result of her evolvement into a black activist and one of the better-known and respected black writers. Racism is like tobacco in the time of war when it was used to stop bleeding; though generally considered bad, there is good use for it.
In the time of the Civil Rights Movement, for most black Americans, racism was unavoidable. Alice and her family were also affected by it, but the effect was never directly towards Alice, that is until she was around eight years old. In the summer of 1952, a BB gun pellet damaged her right eye, but the prelude impaction of racism that’ll change her life wasn’t the damage, it was the response that her dad, Willie Lee Walker got when he asked a white man for a ride to the hospital for his daughter. Because he was black, his request for help was rejected (Alice Walker: A Life, page 7) and because of this racist occurrence, it changed and transformed Alice’s mentality along with her writing (Alice Walker: A Life, page 43). This was the introduction to the effects that racism will have on Alice’s life,
The Jim Crow system played a big part in racism; it restricted the blacks from using the same facilities as the whites, forcing them to use separate and always unequal ones. Courts within Georgia would use different bibles for blacks and white to swear to. Like everything else, there’s always a good and bad side, even within Jim Crow law. Though the cause of many racist acts, it did produce positive effects, it showed that there is good in people, that humanity is not doomed by their own greed and that realization of the greater good is possible. Lucy Montgomery a white woman raised under Jim Crow said, “White were so fixated on maintaining two of everything, that we didn’t have one good anything. The result has been the affliction of ignorance, mediocrity and backwardness that is still crippling the South today (Alice Walker: A Life, page 10).
It is sad to say, but most people do not want to cooperate and work together unless they have a common goal and this was proven by the 9/11 incident, all of America was finally united for a common goal to stop terrorism. However, only of a brief duration, it showed that the unification of different races is possible. The association of terrorism and racism is undeniable, both have similar effects; terrorism brought America together as racism brought the black communities together. As in “Alice Walker: A Life by Evelyn C. White,” the result of racism strengthened the bond of the communities. This bond was the result of donations and charitable events, becoming the salvation for poor families and even Alice herself (Alice Walker: A Life, page 14 & 17).
Alice Walker is a great example of the effect of racism, she’s like a tree with racism being the dried up ground; she sucks up whatever nutrients her roots can reach, making the best of what her environment can provide, growing and spreading further roots. The dried up ground made it hard for her growth, but it was the reason why she is such a beautiful mature tree now.
Though considered bad and the cause of slavery, segregation and poverty, racism can be use in positive ways. It plays important roles in our lives, not just for us, but also for humanity. It helps us understand our difference, so we can learn from it and improve our society. As Christopher A Luse stated, “Nineteenth-century ethnologists celebrated their insights into racial differences as a crucial advance in comprehending the natural world” (Slavery’s Champions stood at odds: Polygenesis and the Defense of Slavery page 385).
Thanks Melissa, Rudy and Dung for putting your drafts out there for critique.
Yolanda Gil
English 1A 9-10
Wanda Sabir
Alice Walker (racism)
Draft
Alice Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia on February 9, 1944. She was born in a family of eight children; she was the youngest child. Alice Walker was born into a system where racial oppression and exclusion of people based on their race, was the norm. In the biography of Alice Walker, entitled, Alice Walker: A Life, by Evelyn C. White, shows how Alice’s life has been a continuous struggle due to racism. Alice experience the way white people mistreated her and her family in a way that made them feel inferior humans. Alice Walker used her writing to resist racism and other form of oppression.
Alice walker and her family suffered from various forms of racism such as oppression, oppression, and racial discrimination. One of the examples of economic oppression and racial discrimination is Alice’s great-grand father, Albert Walker, lost his land he inherited from his father. At that time, local whites long envious and resentful of black man like Albert Walker “rising above his place,” had not been sorry to see him on hard times (Walker 17). As a result, the socioeconomic status for Alice’s great grand father, grand father, and her father’s family has been an economic oppression that had limited them from having their own property.
Alice Walker’s economic oppression through her early years shows the limitations from having a decent education compare to white children. The grammar school she attended was built by her father and the black community. They assisted with materials as well as labor in order to give the black children a location for their education. The reason for the community to build the school was because the all-white Board of education refused to provide funding to replace the leaky, dilapidated buildings where black children were being schooled (White 16). The concept “separate but equal” that the whites made to keep segregation active was only a deception to keep blacks away from having the same opportunities that the whites had.
Alice’s and her parents lived in an environment that shows how racism can darken their spirits of people that are face with racial discrimination. During Alice childhood, her family had to live in a rustic shack, in a rural isolated stretch of Milledgeville, Georgia. Even though, her parents worked hard form dawn to night their income wasn’t enough to have the basics to have a decent life. Whites got paid more from the same work a black person did. In the summer of 1952, Alice’s right eye was injured with a BB gun pellet. Alice was in great pain; consequently, her father and brother walked up the hill to ask for a ride. A white man stopped but refused to help them. The white man disregard towards Alice’s pain proofs how inhumane a person becomes because of feeling superior from other race. Alice mother, Minnie Tallulah Grant, mentioned to Alice how “horribly scarred and damaged” by the racial humiliations she suffered as a child (White 61). Although, Alice was a victim of racism, still that didn’t stop her from to reaching her dream of writing. Unfortunately, her parents didn’t get the chance to fulfill their dreams because of living in a decade of hatred and unfairness towards blacks.
Alice resistance to segregation began when she saw Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the television screen. Alice was sixteen when for the first time she knew that something needed to be done to finish with discrimination, segregation, and oppression. Before she knew about Rev. King, Alice thought that the only way out from living under segregation and racism was to migrate to the north where the racism wasn’t as strong and the employment opportunities for blacks were more amply. Dr. King was the symbol that gave Alice optimism to fight for justice and freedom. Alice decided, that instant, to remain in Georgia and join the Black Freedom Movement (White 60). For the first time, Alice felt alive and full of hope to fight for what it is fair. Alice was involved in the Civil Right Movement in Mississippi helping black people to have the right to vote. Alice was assigned to take depositions from poor blacks who had been evicted-thereby losing their “homes”-for attempting to register to vote (walker 138). In this case, Alice was able to help black people because of her writing skills.
Alice desire to writing became stronger when she came to understand how Southern racism had restricted her from pursuing other careers. Alice had an artistic interest; she was interested in writing as well as painting and piano. She could not seek education in piano or painting because her family couldn’t afford it. Her family paid for piano classes for a couple of months but Alice realized that her parents were having a hard time paying for those classes. As a consequence she had to withdraw and focus only in writing because it was the cheapest form of education she could attain. Alice acceptance to Spelman College was a great deal to her and her family. In late August 1961, Alice was on Greyhound bus on her way to College. She decided to sit in the front of the bus which had a sign “reserved” for white passengers. The driver of the bus asked her to move and to sit in the back because a white woman complained. As Alice remembers “In those seconds of moving, everything changed. I was eager to bring an end to the South that permitted my humiliation” (Walker 65). Alice was more eager than ever to become a writer to let the world know that she is somebody not an invisible figure that can be treated as an insignificant object on earth.
Alice protested against white and blacks not been able to unite because of the existence of racism. She dated white men as a political form of objection to an old fashion taboo. While she was a student at Spelman College, she dated a white man, David DeMoss. Alice’s siblings stated about their younger sister “Alice, romance with David DeMoss forced them to see that the free-spirited independence their baby sister had always exhibited knew no bounds” (walker 81). Even though, Alice knew that interracial relationships weren’t view as positive by white and black folks; she didn’t care to be seen in public with a white man. On March 17, 1967, Mel and Alice got married. One of the reasons she married a white man as she explains it “politics influenced her decision to join in matrimony” (Walker 154).
Though out the years, Alice has demonstrated that with persuasion and passion to do what is important in her life anything can be accomplished and nothing can stop her not even racism that she grow up with. Alice is not scared of writing about real issues from the past and the present. She has been a talented person ever since she was born and her experience has made her stronger as she states “Southern black writer have enormous richness and beauty to draw from” (In search 21) Also she states “No one could whish for a more advantageous heritage that that bequeathed to the black writer in the south….” (In search 21) Thanks to her ability to get through obstacles that life presents we can enjoy her poems, stories, and essays.
Angelica N. Watson
March 17, 2008
English 1a M-Th 8-9
Fiction or Nonfiction Writing
“Alice Walker A Life” is a well-written biography by Evelyn C. White. She put great anecdotes into the novel, then she explained where they came from, without saying she was explaining it. White did an impeccable job of telling Walker’s life story. I was amazed at how many personal interviews she got, and how far back in the Walkers lineage history she went. It was very informative how White pieced together all of Alice’s ancestors, going all the way back to her great-great-great grandmother. The most important aspect of the book was she highlighted Walker’s writing. Walker spent most of her life writing short stories, essays, and novels. Though, many of her books were not acknowledged for being great when they were first written they were still a big part of history. Most people thought that Walker’s writing was fictional, but they weren’t.
Throughout the novel Walker has commented various times that she writes for her ancestors (p.237). “The Color Purple” is a great example of her writing for her ancestors. She based this particular book on her grandfather Henry Walker whom in the book is supposed to be Mr._____. She wrote this novel from all of the stories that her family had told her throughout her younger years. After Willie Lee’s mother died his father needed someone to clean his house and take care of his children.
As a widower with five children, the oldest of whom was eleven years old Willie Lee, Henry Walker was eager to find another woman to manage his household… According to Ruth her grandfather approached a neighbor who had several daughters, hoping that he could hire one of them to cook, clean, and take care of the children. Concerned about the propriety of a young girl keeping house for “a good-looking widower who rode horses” the man suggested that walker marry the daughter he was willing to lend out (p.19)
Mr._____ was the same way, his wife had died and he needed a new wife to take care of his five children. Mr._____ married a neighboring girl named Celie. Mr.____ abused Celie like Pa-Pa (Henry Walker) abused Rachel. Mr.____ would have Shug Avery come to stay for a while and they would be intimate. Pa-Pa would have Estella Perry come to stay for a while and they would be intimate. Celie and Rachel both started to accept the women coming over to stay because the men were much nicer when they were around. The fictional part of the “The Color Purple” is that Celie and Shug got intimate with one another. Walker also named some of the characters after people she had heard stories about, like her grandmother, Nettie. There is a character named Shug Avery, who is depicted from the woman Pa-Pa’s loved, Estella Perry, whom most people called Shug. Estella Perry “Nicknamed ‘Shug’ (short for ‘sugar’), she loved to dance and carouse with him in the jook joints, rowdy taverns set deep in the backwoods” (p.18). In the novel Shug Avery would sing and dance in the jook joints. “The Color Purple” was written from history with a few added details.
The novel “The Third Life of Grange Copeland” is about the three generations of men that treated women poorly. One of the men was jealous and thought that his wife was cheating on him, so one day when she was coming home with Christmas presents he shot her.
Convinced (wrongly) that Mem is having an affair with the kindly white man for whom she now toils as a maid, Brownfield lies in wait as his wife, laden with holiday groceries and gifts, returns from work on Christmas Eve. Despising her for ‘flaunting’ his impotence as a provider, Brownfield fires a shotgun blast that rips off his wife’s face. And thus did Alice create a history for the brutalized corpse Ruth had beckoned her to witness when she was age thirteen (p.186).
That part of her novel was taken from an incident that happened to a mother of Alice’s classmate. Her sister Ruth was working part-time at the mortuary as a cosmetician and wanted Alice to see the corpse of the woman. “Alice would later remember gazing quietly at the cadaver, her eyes taking in the gaping gunshot wound in the woman’s head” (p.172). The comparison she made was they both used shotguns and they both shot their wives in the head, because they thought they were cheating. This was significant because this was an event that Alice had never let go of. What Alice put in her novel most people would think was unrealistic but it was an event that actually happened.
Alice’s sister Mamie left for college because she couldn’t take the South and its brutality any longer. When Mamie came back she was a different person. “Alice writes that the sister, home during college breaks, eventually begins to chide her poor, black family for their ‘sloppishness’ no longer comfortable in her own skin, the sister”(p.62) Mamie criticized her family for continuing to live the way they had always lived. Not having a toilet that flushed on the inside of the house, and their little wooden house. Alice felt that her sister was being unfair in how she treated her family. If it weren’t for her mother making education the first priority in their home Mamie probably would not have had the chance to go off to college to better herself. There is another story that Alice wrote that depicts what she felt about Mamie leaving home, and the way she felt when she came back. The daughter left home, and when she came back she had changed her name. The daughter was criticizing the mother and the sister for the way they were speaking. She basically put them down and made them feel bad. The mother loved her anyway and would not give up on her, the same way Mrs. Walker (Alice’s mother) would not give up on her own child. Alice thought that these women, Mamie and the daughter in the story, had no right to come home and try to change their families who were content in their own skin. Some of the other stories Alice wrote could be related to her life or an event that Alice heard of. An example like “Strong Horse Tea” when the mother is trying to get a doctor for her sick child, relates to Alice trying to get a doctor for Rebecca. Also the poems that Alice wrote while she was pregnant the first time. She put in her feelings, how she really felt, and what she was thinking about. Meridian was about an interracial couple and the complications that most of them go through. Alice was going through some of those types of things herself. A white woman confessed that she thought Alice had told her life’s story. “She’d stopped wearing such jewelry (dangling earrings) after the release of “Meridian” because Lynne wore, them too. At the time there was already so much venom going around with people making white women the scapegoat for stealing black men that the book just kind of pushed me over the edge”(p.294). Alice may have not gotten this story from this woman, but there were so many stories that were similar, that Alice could have used for her base for the story.
Walker had a way of making true life stories sound fictional. Parts of the stories were fictional, with added pieces to make it longer, or sound better, but in each of her stories and poems you can find that there is something in them that is not fictional. If you read any of Alice’s novels, poems, essays, or short stories, and you didn’t know any information about the author, you would think that she just has a very expansive imagination. They are all stories that Alice has heard or experienced for herself. She writes about things that made a big impression on her that she will never be able to forget. Instead of explaining to people what she thinks about a situation she writes about them. Truth be told everything that Alice writes has a little truth.
Professor Wanda Sabir
Kenton Low, 1A – MTWR – 8 – 9AM
Struggles of Alice Walker
The beauty of Alice walker lies in her ability to rise above the difficulties that she faced in life while growing up in the south. When Alice was four years, she started school and advanced quickly to the first grade. Alice was out going and had a lot of self-confidence. Alice was injured by a BB pellet that was accidently shot by one of her brothers. This accident is the reason why Alice Walker is blind in her right eye. “ After her accident, Alice's grades plummeted. Because of the noticeable scar in her right eye, she became an easy target for the other children in her school who teased her mercilessly. After having an eye injury, which caused her to become blind in the right eye, Alice learns the meaning of beauty, and deals with the problems in her self – confidence. SELF-CONFIDENCE.
Alice went though pain when she had the eye injury as she went in front of the BB gun and shot hit with the BB bullet. “Walker was a confident girl until 1952, when a freak accident involving a BB gun left her blinded her in one eye. Although her older brother, who shot her during a heated game of Cowboys and Indians, offered to pay an operation to correct the impairment, Walker would never fully recover the sight of her right eye. From then on, she became secluded and reserved, she dreamed of suicide, but at the same time found solace in writing – poetry, short stories – and became an observer rather than a participator in everyday life.”
When she says pain she talks about the on how bad it was for her to see with one eye. When Alice’s right eye was hit, her parents could not pay for the repair because her parents were only farmers.
Alice's personality changed significantly. “The once out-going girl, who loved to speak in front of crowds, became withdrawn and introverted.” This was a part of her childhood that was very difficult; she needed to rebuild her self – confidence. She began to read books and write poetry. Alice saw beauty in another form, in a spiritual form that included imperfection. NICE
In times of difficulty, Alice Walker found a way to grow, learn, and achieve her goals in life. Her challenges made her stronger and allowed her see things in a different way. “The tragedy of losing her eye also enabled Alice to see that her body was merely a covering, hiding the person she truly was inside.” She changed, from not being able to hold her head up high and looking someone in the eye, to a woman of great pride. Alice continues her education by attending Spellman College in Atlanta GA.
“Born in Eatonton Georgia, on February the 9th, 1944, just before the end of World War Two, Alice Malsenior Walker was the eighth of eight children to Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker and Winnie Lee Walker.”
“Despite the damage to her eye, and the life she led as a hermit in the years that followed, Walker graduated high school and left for Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia in 1961. On leaving, her mother gave her three special gifts: a suitcase for travelling the world, a typewriter for creativity, and a sewing machine for self-sufficiency.”
“In 1963, Walker left Spelman for Sarah Lawrence College, a place housing only a handful of African American people, most of them men. This was not before participating in many civil rights demonstrations and meeting Martin Luther King at his home in recognition of her invitation to the Youth World Peace Festival in Finland.”
“1964 was the turning point for Ms. Alice Walker. Realizing that she was pregnant, she contemplated suicide and slept with her razor under her pillow for three nights. During the same week, Walker again turned to writing as a natural outlet for her distress. She stopped writing only to eat and sleep. Thankfully, through the help of a friend, Walker was able to attain a safe abortion. The end product of weeks of anguish was, among other things, a story entitled To Hell with Dying and with the help of teacher Muriel Ruykeyser this was published in 1965.”
“Moving to New York City in November of the same year Walker worked for the welfare system. She soon moved back however and in 1966 fell in love with civil rights lawyer Melvyn Laventhal. They married the following year, despite pressure from neighbouring citizens over their inter-racial marriage, the only one in Mississippi, where Mel and Alice Laventhal were to live.” “In the same year that Martin Luther King died for the civil rights movement Alice Laventhal became pregnant but lost it due to complications. In her desperation, she wrote and published once, her first book, in 1968. The poet again became pregnant and in the same week as The Third Life of Grange Copeland was published – her novel about three generations of domestic violence – daughter Rebecca was born.”
“From there, she took a position as writer-in-residence at Tougaloo College and then in 1972 became a teacher at Wellesley College, and began one of the first "Gender Studies" classes in the nation. In searching for course material Walker came across the work of Zora Neale Hurston and the inspired Alice Laventhal began writing and has never stopped since.”
“In 1973 she published In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women and her second book of poetry Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems. She then wrote and published a children’s book Langston Hughes; American Poet and briefly became editor of Feminist publication Ms. Magazine.”
“Soon after Walker was to split with her husband. She retained her maiden name, falling in love with fellow editor Robert Allen – of Black Scholar – and published Meridian to universal acclaim. Walker’s next project was another book of short stories: YouCan’t Keep a Good Woman Down, which only received a lukewarm response.”
“Nothing however prepared the critics for Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Color Purple. The story chronicles the life of a black African American girl called Celia, growing up in the Deep South. The novel was later made into a feature-length motion picture, directed by Steven Spielberg, and in turn shot Alice Walker to overnight literary success. The novel was severely criticized however, mostly for its representation of the character of Mr. Celia’s husband, who some saw to symbolise the whole of the black male race – wife beating, stubborn and by the end foolish and incompetent.”
“In response Walker published her autobiography In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens in 1983 and her attitudes towards the female circumcision rituals in Africa led her to co-produce the shocking documentary Warrior Marks with Pratibha Parmar.
It was not until Walker’s fifth novel Possessing the Secret of Joy was published in 1992 did Walker regain perhaps some of the credibility she had lost after the annexing of The Color Purple ten years earlier. Possessing . . . is "not a sequel" as Walker would have us believe but follows on from her third novel featuring the characters Tashi and Adam, both of which made brief appearances in The Color Purple.”
“During her battle with Lymes Disease, Walker wrote The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult and a collection of political essays named Anything We Love Can Be Saved: a Writer’s Activism. Within three years she has written a further three books, By the Light of My Father’s Smile [1998], The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart [2000] and A Long Walk of Freedom [2001]. In light of the recent tragedy at the World Trade Centre in New York City, her newest work is called, Sent by Earth: a Message from the Grandmother Spirit after the Bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.”
Works Cited
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matt_kane/biography.htm
Bibliography
White, Evelyn C… “A Life.” Walker, Alice
Faraj Fayad
9-10am
English 1a
Poverty in the life of Alice Walker
Though many might not have lived in it or had to worry about it in their life time, most poverty is the denial of access to things which make a life of happiness possible. To live in poverty is to lack the means of proper existence and have no necessities in life. "poverty is the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor." According to (Dictionary.com). It is the main cause of barely getting by in life, and in the South living with the Jim Crow laws ever since the end of slavery, the Walker family struggled living in scarcity of money. While reading Alice Walker; a life written by Evelyn C. White, I noticed how Alice and her seven brothers and sisters were raised through troublesome times full of racism and segregation. Living below the poverty line, Mr. and Mrs. Walker go through many ups and downs trying to raise their children through "meagerness" (Dictionary.com). The Walkers might have been low on money but the love and caring they offered for Alice was richer than gold itself.
No matter what the situation was blacks in the south got paid a lot less than whites did. In 1993, living in Eatonton Georgia, Willie Lee Walker and Mannie Tallulah Grant both worked as farmers whom struggled to earn each and every penny to raise their kids Bill and the new born Mamie. After a year worth of work for a white land owner Willie Lee was eighteen dollars in debt, so he quit and the family moved to a beaten shack owned by a matron named May Montgomery. He started working for he as a dairy man and general laborer at a salary of six dollars a month, this was a job previously held by a white man named Ed Little whom was getting ten dollars a month. Times got hard and conditions worsened for blacks throughout Georgia, so Willie Lee asked May if she could raise his money to twelve dollars a month. But she refused, and replied "I was only paying Ed Little ten dollars and I would never pay a nigger more than I would pay a white man. Before I'd pay a nigger twelve dollars a month, I'd milk the cows myself." (White 7). He had no choice but to keep working for her. She later raised it to the twelve dollars he requested but he had six kids by then.
Even though Mr. and Mrs. Walker worked endless hours, they kept some time on their hands to keep the family growing. Years passed and Alice the eighth child of the family was born and her parents were so happy, that they didn't care a bit about money. "Although her parents still endured grinding poverty as exploiting tenant farmers, Alice's birth marked the first time that Mr. and Mrs. Walker were able to pay the midwife for her assistance" (page number). This showed that money meant nothing to them when happiness is in the situation even though money was probably their main concern at all times. With Mrs. Walker unable to keep close watch on Alice because of the endless hours she and her husband toiled to support the family, Alice was put into the first grade at the age of four. But her mother also knew her daughter was aware enough to start school at that age.
One of the main reasons the Walkers were in poverty was because of oppression and segregation everywhere, especially in public schools. The "State paid one dollar and forty-three cents for schooling of a black child, compared ten dollars and twenty-three cents for a white one" (White 15). Alice was interested in research science as a career but there were no microscopes, chemistry sets, or any of the other tools needed in a science class for black students in Georgia. Alice was also interested in reading books. Pencils and paper were cheap and plentiful so she started thinking of becoming a writer. Alice also participated in both painting and playing the piano, but her parents' income couldn't afford the art supplies or the piano lessons, so she chose to stop taking lessons because fifty cents per piano lesson was too much to spare.
The Walker's lack of money affected their healthcare also, because at the age eight, Alice got shot in the eye by a BB gun bullet. The family only had one car and Bill took it to work, so when Mr. Walker needed to take Alice to the hospital, he had no choice but to go to a freeway near their house and try to get a ride from someone passing by. They had no luck on the freeway instead they witnessed pure racism when a white man stopped, looked at them, and drove off with out saying a word. They returned hom and waited until Bill came back from work. Alice was taken to a hospital in the nearby town Macon, Georgia, and the doctor told them he would repair her eye for two-hundred and fifty dollars. But they didn't have that kind of money, so Bill borrowed the money from the white guy whom he worked for named Dickie Stribling. They now had the money the doctor requested, but racism took part in the hospital. “I got the money for my parents and they took her to Macon. At that Point, we didn’t know that she’d been blinded and we were hoping that maybe after the doctor cleaned her eye, she’d be able to see out of it again. But he hardly examined her at all. In his eyes, Alice was just another poor, ignorant, black sharecropper’s daughter. She came home in the same condition as when she left. The only thing different was that the doctor had $250 more in his pocket.” (White 38). Bill had borrowed the money from Dickie in the summer of 1952, and it took him until late 1955 to pay back every penny he owed him (38).
During the depression things got harder for sharecroppers than it did for any other workers, so Mrs. Walker cultivated fruits and vegetables in her garden. "My mother canned ever thing." Ruth, the middle daughter recalled. "Peaches, black berries, okra, green beans, even fried chicken, if it grew, she could put it in a jar." (White 27, 28).When the family would run out of flour, Mrs. Walker would trade their surplus cornmeal with friends and relatives who had an abundance of flour. Other than problems with food shortage the family dealt with so much discrimination in Eatonton that Alice's brothers and sisters left their birth place for Boston, Newark, Cleveland, and Detroit, to find a better place where they can find descent jobs and more equality. Unlike her brothers and sisters, Alice didn't want to leave her birthplace, unless it was for educational purposes.
Shortly after graduating from high school, Alice planned to go to Savannah State University. A university was too expensive for her to attend, so instead she chose to go to an all female black institute, Spelman college in Atlanta. She was also granted a "rehabilitation" scholarship, due to her impaired vision and this influenced her decision to attend. Alice Walker decision and scholarship award made front page nuews in the local paper: Butler-Baker News, May 23, 1961 issue (White 64). With Mrs. Walker working as a maid and earning less than twenty dollars a week, all of the neighbors understood the struggle the Walkers were in, so shortly before Alice was driven to the depot by her father to leave Eatonton for Spelman on a Greyhound bus, late August, 1961, the elders in the community showed their support for her achievements by collecting seventy-five dollars and giving it to her for college expenses.
Shortly after Alice started attending Spelman, she began to attract attention from many students and teachers for her great ability in writing. Besides being able to type up a good story, Alice loved the French language and the role of France in African politics, but refused a school fellowship that would have let her study in Paris and a two-thousand dollar award underwritten by the brokerage firm Merrill Lynch. Referring to Alice, Merrill said, “she’s honest,” after receiving a poem sent by Alice. “If I had carried a gun I would have shot him” was one of the lines from her poem.(white 91).
Alice knew she needed the money and a better college but refused to take the offer and declined the honor for the simple that they offered no support what so ever for the black students who were putting their lives on the line trying to bring down the Jim Crow.
Alice withdrew from Spelman and now was looking forward to transferring to finish her goal of becoming a writer and poet, but the annual tuition at Sarah Lawrence at that time was about three-thousand dollars ( today the cost is forty-thousand dollars), making Sarah Lawrence one of the most expensive colleges in the United States. Luckily, Alice's former classmate, Stoughton Lynd, vowed to assist her before he left Spelman, by writing to his mother and asking her if she could secure a place for Alice at Sarah Lawrence college. “Helen Lynd had been a member of the Sarah Lawrence faculty for nearly forty years. Impressed by Alice’s academic record and political activism, and confident that that she’d flourish at an institution that linked to education to ‘the experience, interests and capacities of the individual student,’ Helen Lynd hellped to arrange Alice’s transfer (on full scholarship) to the elite, then all-women’s college, in early 1964 (White 99). Alice lived her first year at the college, in room 27 of the dormitories. She began to feel more comfortable at Sarah Lawrence than she did at Spelman, because at Spelman wealthy students were on top, but at Sarah Lawrence, classmates looked for the education one has to offer and didn't bother to look at another's income, which made Alice feel better knowing she was nowhere close to wealthy at the time. Alice Walker noticed the cultural differences between the AA elite and the white elite in the two institutions. The black elite were more showy and cliquish with their wealth, while her white classmates took it for granted, probably because they had been wealthy a lot longer—in fact, the black people at Spelman, students at Spelman probably made the Merrill Lynches and their daughters wealthy during the 400 year period of slavery. In the summer of 1965, Alice visited Africa with a Vermont based foreign study group. The Experiment in International Living, visited
Kenya, and helped cultivate pineapple and other fruits, and build schools out of sisal stalk. After doing her part of the work, Alice later visited Uganda, and was in a small village outside of Kampala, when her boyfriend David Demoss whom she was very much in love with, unexpectedly gave her a visit. Demoss was also working with another group to help villages. They spent time together and had sex. Alice didn't bring birth control pills with her to Africa, so unfortunately she got pregnant. Alice knew she couldn't afford to raise a baby at the time. Confused, Alice didn't know what to do. The pregnancy affected her very much and thoughts of suicide began to cloud her mind. "Feeling she had no other resource, Alice had resolved to commit suicide if she could not obtain an abortion. It appeared she had placed a razor blade under her pillow, which she used to 'mime' the slashing of her wrist so she [could be] swift and proficient when the faithful moment arrived" (White 114).
Seconds away from giving up on life, one of Alice's classmates Brook Newman, found a doctor on the upper East side of Manhattan whom performed abortions for a fee of two-thousand dollars in cash, the equivalent of about twelve thousand dollars today. Now Alice needed to get the money, and there was no way she could turn to her parents for help. She said "It was more money than I actually ever held in my hand." (white 116). Alice's classmates helped her out by collect funds for her abortion out of worry that her future as a writer would collapse. David Demoss sent her two-hundred dollars, even though he didn't mind becoming the father of Alice's baby. The biggest share of the money came from Creole Darden, whom like Alice was one of the few black students attending Sarah Lawrence at the time. Darden discusses her critical role in keeping Alice alive: "My father was in real estate, and had given me five crisp $100 dollar bills before I left to Sarah Lawrence…, finally at the eleventh hour I gave Alice the money." (White 117). She collected all the money she needed and the abortion was safely over.
Alice finished schooling at Sarah Lawrence and was ready to start working on writing. She later moved to Manhattan's lower east side and before starting a welfare job, she used part of the seventy dollars Muriel Rukeyser had given her as a graduation present to rent an apartment on East 12th street, between Avenue A, and Avenue B. Even though Alice needed the job to pay her rent she quit, because it was affecting on her poetry. She then started thinking of going back to Africa. Before packing up her belongings she realized the segregation and racism that was still going on in the south. So she changed her mind and instead went to Mississippi to help fight the Jim Crow laws. "She had survived Jim Crow Georgia, a traumatic childhood injury, political strife at Spelman, a transfer to Sarah Lawrence, suicidal depression, and an illegal abortion that might well have ended her days. Driven nearly insane by the racial violence in Mississippi… comes Alice by her own volition, into the belly of the beast." (White 134). She made it to Jackson and was met by Marian Write, a student activist at Spelman. They went to eat at a soul food restaurant and Alice was introduced to Melvyn Leventhal. Mel and Alice later got to know each other and lived together while working for the NAACP. They became close friends and soon lovers. Alice proposed to Mel and he agreed, so they got married on March 17, 1967. Alice started publishing her poetry and novels and pretty soon money wasn't a problem in her life.
Alice's parents struggled very much to put her on the road she followed, and through the. Not able to offer Alice the money she needed growing up, Her parents offered her their love for education knowing that, that was the only way of getting her out of poverty and live without worrying about money. After Alice went on to her first year in college, she pretty much got most of the help with money from supporters, such as her classmates, friends, and teachers, and not to mention awards. The morrow of life in particular is, one can have all the money in the world, but they don’t have the support and love they need from those around them, they might as well throw all that money away. Because the only thing that makes us rich is the soul within.
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