Welcome Table

Alice Walker’s The Welcome Table. I chose this piece of literature because I read her novel The Color Purple when I was in high school, and I really enjoy her writing style. This story also brings back memories of things my family would tell me about how terribly black people were treated during that time period. It makes me sick to think of how people were treated so horribly simply because of the color of their skin.
This story inspires me to stand up for my faith, gives me hope, and makes me want to be a better person. In the eighth paragraph the old woman describes the way Jesus walks towards her, and the way she undoubtedly recognized him. I feel like most people envision their first meeting with Jesus to be the same way hers was. We all expect him to look as though he does in the pictures we have of him, and for him to approach us in that same manner. This story gives me hope that it will all happen the way I have envisioned it. We also want to die as peacefully, happy, and at ease as she did. This story also gives me the hope that when we do die, we have Jesus by our side and are as content and clueless as to what is happening as she was.
I chose to use the formalist approach when reviewing this story. This approach takes a look at the literary work itself and uses form and development as its’ main focus. Writers use literary tools the same way an artist would use different colors of paint. Writers use these tools to create representations of things they believe have great importance in their stories. This approach allows you to really get into the meaning of a story. You are able to begin to break-down the stories and discover what techniques the writer used, and what they were trying to express by using those literary tools.
Walker used a certain persona to tell this story; more specifically, she uses the omniscient technique. I feel like this was an extremely effective way to tell the story because it really allowed readers to get inside the heads