Alice Walker Research Paper
Studies in Literature
Dallas, Tx.
Alice Walker
Poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, anthologist, teacher, editor, publisher, womanist and activist, Alice Malsenior Walker was born at home on February 9, 1944, near Ward’s Chapel, a neighboring community of Eatonton, Georgia. She is the eighth and last child of Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant Walker. In 1994, Walker changed her middle name to Tallulah-Kate, in honor of her maternal great-grandmother, the African-Cherokee ancestor Tallulah Calloway, and of Kate Nelson, her paternal grandmother.As a self-described “daughter of the rural peasantry,” Walker grew up in a loving household in the years following the end of the Great Depression. Though poor, the family …show more content…
was rich in kindness and perspective. From her parents and siblings, Walker learned to value the beauty in nature. Her family also nurtured Walker’s artistic aspirations, which included painting and music along with writing. Walker was particularly close to her mother, Minnie Lou Walker, whose fearlessness, love of beauty, and legendary gardening skills are celebrated in Walker’s landmark essay, “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.” After a childhood accident blinded her in one eye, Alice became valedictorian of her local school, attended Spelman College and Sarah Lawrence College on scholarships, and graduated in 1965. Alice Walker’s works are important because her early poems, novels, and short stories dealt with themes familiar to readers of her later works: rape, violence, isolation, troubled relationships, multi-generational perspectives, sexism, and racism.
Walker, Alice. Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems, 1965-1990
Walker’s complete poems, including new and previously unpublished verse, collected for the first time-with author’s notes that provide historical perspective on spiritual and political issues of the last three decades. Alice Walker has been writing poetry since 1965, when she traveled to East Africa. Here are new and unpublished poems collected for the first time with the complete poems of Alice Walker, including all her previous volumes.
I found this in the following link: http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2010/10/her-blue-body-everything-we-know-earthling-poems/ Walker, Alice. In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women, 2003
This story is about black women who vary greatly in background yet are bound together by their vulnerability to life: Rose-lily, on her wedding day, surrounded by her four children, prays that a loveless marriage will bring her respectability; a young writer, exploited by both her lover and her husband, wreaks an ironic vengeance; a destitute, ignorant girl, unable to get a doctor for her sick child, is advised to try “strong horse tea”; a jealous wife, looking for her husband’s mistress, finds a competitor she cannot fight; an old woman, thrown out of a White church, meets God on a highway. These are some of the seekers of dignity and love whom Alice Walker portrays in an enlightening, disturbing view of life in the South.
I used the following link: http://www.luminarium.com/contemporary/lovetrouble.htm Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose, 2009
The thrust of Walker’s essay is relatively simple to understand, and is made most explicit when she states, “What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmothers’ time?
In our great-grandmothers’ day?…How was the creativity of the black woman kept alive, year after year and century after century, when for most of the years black people have been in America, it was a punishable crime for a black person to read or write? And the freedom to paint, to sculpt, to expand the mind with action did not exist.” Walker wants the readers to consider how the will to artistically create is ineluctably linked to the will to survive, especially for those in society who have historically been denied any and all expressions of freedom, including creativity. It is within this link between survival and creativity that Walker opens up a new way in which to think about artistry, specifically the artistry of African American women, by considering the smallest efforts at preserving momentary “beauties” as herculean efforts at maintaining humanity. Under her perspective, survival itself becomes an act of artistry. Alice Walker traces the umbilical thread linking women writers through history; from her discovery of Zora Neale Hurston and her collections of black folklore, to the work of Jean Toomer, Buchi Emecheta and Flannery O’Connor. She also looks back at the highs and lows of the civil rights movement, her early political development, and the place of women’s traditions in art. Coining the expression “womanist prose,” these are essays that value women’s culture and strength, the handing on of the creative spark from one generation to
another.
“Her delight in life, her exuberant love of anecdote and friendship shine through… She is uniquely herself, as a writer of moving and transforming stories.” The Observer.
I found this information on one of Alice Walker’s websites, the link is http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2010/10/in-search-of-our-mothers-garden/ Walker, Alice. Living by the Word, 1989
In meditative and passionate prose, these provocative essays explore feminist, environmental, and political issues and shed new light on racial debates, including the controversy surrounding Walker’s bestseller, The Color Purple. It’s a new collection of prose, meditating on planetary concerns as well as on feminist and political issues. Living By the Word is a memorable collection of essays, letters and journal extracts from Pulitzer Prize Winner, Alice walker. In her immaculate prose, Alice Walker opens a window to her world – whether it is her troubled relationship with her father, her upbringing amidst the poverty of rural Georgia, her feelings on the banning of The Color Purple, or her joy in the simple things of everyday life such as choosing plants for her garden. In other essays she explores the nature of dreams, justice, folklore and the role of ancestors. She details the story of Dessie Woods who was sent to jail for murdering her would-be rapist and highlights the role of racism and prejudice in the law’s treatment of black women. Finally we travel with her on her journey to China, to Bali, and a visit to Nine Mile – the birthplace of the legendary Bob Marley.
“An inspired and thoughtful collection by a woman who has not chosen to rest on her much-deserved laurels”, Los Angeles Times.
I found this information using the following link: http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2010/10/living-by-the-word/ Walker, Alice. Possessing the Secret of Joy, 1992.
A provocative novel about an African tribal woman and her battle with madness, after the trauma of a childhood genital mutilation. The acclaimed author presents a provocative story of a young tribal African woman who lives most of her adult life in America. Tashi submits to her people's custom of genital mutilation. Severely traumatized by the experience, she spends the rest of her life battling madness, trying to regain the ability to recognize her own reality.
I used the following link: http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2011/10/possessing-the-secret-of-joy-2/ Walker, Alice. The Color Purple, 1982
Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her toward an awakening of her creative and loving self. The Color Purple is foremost the story of Celie, a poor, barely literate Southern black woman who struggles to escape the brutality and degradation of her treatment by men. The tale is told primarily through her own letters, which, out of isolation and despair, she initially addresses to God. . . . during the course of the novel, which begins in the early 1900's and ends in the mid-1940's, Celie frees herself from her husband's repressive control. The New York Times.
I found this information using the following link:
http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2011/10/the-color-purple-3/
Dallas, Tx.
Alice Walker
Poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, anthologist, teacher, editor, publisher, womanist and activist, Alice Malsenior Walker was born at home on February 9, 1944, near Ward’s Chapel, a neighboring community of Eatonton, Georgia. She is the eighth and last child of Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant Walker. In 1994, Walker changed her middle name to Tallulah-Kate, in honor of her maternal great-grandmother, the African-Cherokee ancestor Tallulah Calloway, and of Kate Nelson, her paternal grandmother.As a self-described “daughter of the rural peasantry,” Walker grew up in a loving household in the years following the end of the Great Depression. Though poor, the family …show more content…
was rich in kindness and perspective. From her parents and siblings, Walker learned to value the beauty in nature. Her family also nurtured Walker’s artistic aspirations, which included painting and music along with writing. Walker was particularly close to her mother, Minnie Lou Walker, whose fearlessness, love of beauty, and legendary gardening skills are celebrated in Walker’s landmark essay, “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.” After a childhood accident blinded her in one eye, Alice became valedictorian of her local school, attended Spelman College and Sarah Lawrence College on scholarships, and graduated in 1965. Alice Walker’s works are important because her early poems, novels, and short stories dealt with themes familiar to readers of her later works: rape, violence, isolation, troubled relationships, multi-generational perspectives, sexism, and racism.
Walker, Alice. Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems, 1965-1990
Walker’s complete poems, including new and previously unpublished verse, collected for the first time-with author’s notes that provide historical perspective on spiritual and political issues of the last three decades. Alice Walker has been writing poetry since 1965, when she traveled to East Africa. Here are new and unpublished poems collected for the first time with the complete poems of Alice Walker, including all her previous volumes.
I found this in the following link: http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2010/10/her-blue-body-everything-we-know-earthling-poems/ Walker, Alice. In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women, 2003
This story is about black women who vary greatly in background yet are bound together by their vulnerability to life: Rose-lily, on her wedding day, surrounded by her four children, prays that a loveless marriage will bring her respectability; a young writer, exploited by both her lover and her husband, wreaks an ironic vengeance; a destitute, ignorant girl, unable to get a doctor for her sick child, is advised to try “strong horse tea”; a jealous wife, looking for her husband’s mistress, finds a competitor she cannot fight; an old woman, thrown out of a White church, meets God on a highway. These are some of the seekers of dignity and love whom Alice Walker portrays in an enlightening, disturbing view of life in the South.
I used the following link: http://www.luminarium.com/contemporary/lovetrouble.htm Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose, 2009
The thrust of Walker’s essay is relatively simple to understand, and is made most explicit when she states, “What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmothers’ time?
In our great-grandmothers’ day?…How was the creativity of the black woman kept alive, year after year and century after century, when for most of the years black people have been in America, it was a punishable crime for a black person to read or write? And the freedom to paint, to sculpt, to expand the mind with action did not exist.” Walker wants the readers to consider how the will to artistically create is ineluctably linked to the will to survive, especially for those in society who have historically been denied any and all expressions of freedom, including creativity. It is within this link between survival and creativity that Walker opens up a new way in which to think about artistry, specifically the artistry of African American women, by considering the smallest efforts at preserving momentary “beauties” as herculean efforts at maintaining humanity. Under her perspective, survival itself becomes an act of artistry. Alice Walker traces the umbilical thread linking women writers through history; from her discovery of Zora Neale Hurston and her collections of black folklore, to the work of Jean Toomer, Buchi Emecheta and Flannery O’Connor. She also looks back at the highs and lows of the civil rights movement, her early political development, and the place of women’s traditions in art. Coining the expression “womanist prose,” these are essays that value women’s culture and strength, the handing on of the creative spark from one generation to
another.
“Her delight in life, her exuberant love of anecdote and friendship shine through… She is uniquely herself, as a writer of moving and transforming stories.” The Observer.
I found this information on one of Alice Walker’s websites, the link is http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2010/10/in-search-of-our-mothers-garden/ Walker, Alice. Living by the Word, 1989
In meditative and passionate prose, these provocative essays explore feminist, environmental, and political issues and shed new light on racial debates, including the controversy surrounding Walker’s bestseller, The Color Purple. It’s a new collection of prose, meditating on planetary concerns as well as on feminist and political issues. Living By the Word is a memorable collection of essays, letters and journal extracts from Pulitzer Prize Winner, Alice walker. In her immaculate prose, Alice Walker opens a window to her world – whether it is her troubled relationship with her father, her upbringing amidst the poverty of rural Georgia, her feelings on the banning of The Color Purple, or her joy in the simple things of everyday life such as choosing plants for her garden. In other essays she explores the nature of dreams, justice, folklore and the role of ancestors. She details the story of Dessie Woods who was sent to jail for murdering her would-be rapist and highlights the role of racism and prejudice in the law’s treatment of black women. Finally we travel with her on her journey to China, to Bali, and a visit to Nine Mile – the birthplace of the legendary Bob Marley.
“An inspired and thoughtful collection by a woman who has not chosen to rest on her much-deserved laurels”, Los Angeles Times.
I found this information using the following link: http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2010/10/living-by-the-word/ Walker, Alice. Possessing the Secret of Joy, 1992.
A provocative novel about an African tribal woman and her battle with madness, after the trauma of a childhood genital mutilation. The acclaimed author presents a provocative story of a young tribal African woman who lives most of her adult life in America. Tashi submits to her people's custom of genital mutilation. Severely traumatized by the experience, she spends the rest of her life battling madness, trying to regain the ability to recognize her own reality.
I used the following link: http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2011/10/possessing-the-secret-of-joy-2/ Walker, Alice. The Color Purple, 1982
Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her toward an awakening of her creative and loving self. The Color Purple is foremost the story of Celie, a poor, barely literate Southern black woman who struggles to escape the brutality and degradation of her treatment by men. The tale is told primarily through her own letters, which, out of isolation and despair, she initially addresses to God. . . . during the course of the novel, which begins in the early 1900's and ends in the mid-1940's, Celie frees herself from her husband's repressive control. The New York Times.
I found this information using the following link:
http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2011/10/the-color-purple-3/