Ars Artium: An International Peer Reviewed-Cum-Refereed Research Journal
Dr. Yameen Khan
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Abstract
Alice Malsenior Walker, born (February 9, 1944) in Eatonton, Georgia is the youngest of eight children to sharecroppers, Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant. After an early day's misfortune which blinded her in one eye, she went on to become valedictorian of her neighboring school, and attended Spellman College and Sarah Lawrence College on scholarship. Alice Walker volunteered in the voter registration drives of the 1960s in Georgia, and went to job after college in the Welfare Department in New York City. She was married in 1967, and unfortunately divorced in 1976. Her first volume of poems was published in 1968 and her earliest novel was published just after her daughter's birth in 1970. Her poems, novels and short stories dealt with the themes of troubled relationships, violence, rape, multi-generational perspectives, isolation, sexism and racism etc. About the themes and issues Gilbert and Susan say:
Related papers
Non Fictional Narrative In The Works of Alice Walker
Literary Enigma The International Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture (Peer-reviewed and Open Access), 2025
The Harlem Renaissance is important landmark for the African-American writers who wanted to raise their voice against the practice of segregation that were prevalent and obviously the victims were the black African-American people in general and African-American women in particular. They just were not only discriminated amongst race and gender and but also by color. One of the prominent writers after this Harlem Renaissance, who came forth, is Alice Walker. Her works, be it poem, novels or essays revolves around the discrimination, violence and lives of black women. Many a time, there are instances in novels and poems taken directly from her life making it somewhat autobiographical. The incidents of her life can be seen dispersed in novel like The Color Purple, The third life of Grange Copeland and the poem like Once. In her novels the protagonist suffered on account of being black and ironically the perpetrators are not white American people, but the husbands and lovers of the same race. It shows all the frustration and the sense of patriarchy in the male leads of her novels. It seems the agony, anguish and frustration is carried forward from their male characters to the females characters, which are subjected to all this by their white masters. She celebrates her mother in her poem "Women". She talks about her blinding incident and the tryst with suicide and abortion in her poem 'Once". She talks about her fights for civil rights and mentions about Zola Neale Hurston though her character in The Color Purple. In The Third Life of Grange Copeland she revisits her father though the Copeland and herself as Ruth.
Themes of Alice Walker's Poetry
2018
Alice walker, the prominent figure in African American literature, has the Midas touch in different genres of literature. Her versatility is evident as she shines as a novelist, short-story writer, poet, essayist, critic and editor. She knitted together art with activism and never wanted to keep aloof from the sour experiences of reality. Her protest through words and deeds were for the downtrodden and the marginalized. Walker"s poetry is a marvelous composition, which unveils personal meditations on depression, isolation, pregnancy and public calls for revolution for women and people of colour. But her poetry is admired for its ability to tap into universal truths and emotions common to all people regardless of colour or gender. The simple form and diction is blended with contemporary social issues so as to maintain an organic whole for her poetry. The poems shower vehement criticism on the social evils and exhort men to act against the atrocities prevailed in the society. The...
Dealing with the Double Afflictions of Race and Gender Women in Alice Walker’s Novels.pdf
Alice Walker in "By the Light of my Father's Smile"
Alice Walkerin Renklerden Mor Ve Meridian Romanlarindaki Yoksulluk Ve Gerçekleş
Turkish Studies, 2017
Alice Walker, as a colored author, tends to portray her female characters in the context of feminist approach. Although Walker depicts the leading roles of black women in the American society and their invaluable contributions to Civil Rights, she handles touching stories of females through reflecting their poverty and unfulfilled motherhood regardless of their races. Alice Walker, being an African American writer, stresses the difficulties of being a woman in a society where colored women are exposed to more oppression. Not only does she highlight what to be a black woman is but also enlightens the poverty and the difficulties they have during their motherhood causing them to suffer in a male dominated world. Walker, on one hand, defies patriarchal dominance by reflecting female figures' capabilities to lead their own lives, on the other, tends to present hegemonized females convicted to be abused by males. In her novels, women are raped, exposed to violence and despised for their female identities. In her novels, the mentally and physically exploited female figures are not let become mothers and they are dependent on patriarchy economically. They are not given equal opportunities which results in a complete despair and their individual competences and sensitivities are never taken into consideration. As a woman, Walker deeply analyzes her figures in order to make her readers hear her voice. Since Alicw Walker portrays the hardships the women encounter, this study aims to examine poverty and unfulfilled motherhood in her novels titled The Color Purple and Meridian.
Racism, Sexism, Motherism, Womanism in Works of Alice Walker
International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Review and Studies, 2024
Afro-American Writers like Alice Walker have been spine to women liberation from Racism and sexism. Alice Walker have contributed a great deal to expand the understanding and awareness in literature regarding prevailing social vices like Racism and Sexism that African woman have continuously been subjected to. The purpose of this paper is to study how dynamics of traumatizing evils like Sexism, Racism along with Motherism, Womanism in works of Alice walker represent conditions of Black women. Moreover, racism and sexism are interconnected with Gender violence which is a theme in the two selected works The Color Purple and Possessing The Secret Of Joy. Walker urges black women to recognize their connectedness to women who historically have built bridges for them with their indomitable and independent spirit. The fact of being black mother and over that a woman in racist and sexist society is well expressed through characters in these two works by applying a womanistic approach.
Womanism and Women in Alice Walker’s The Temple of My Familiar
Shanlax International Journal of English
African-American women have been inappropriately and unduly, stereotyped in various contrasting images as slaves post-slavery, wet nurses, super women, domestic helpers, mammies, matriarchs, jezebels, hoochies, welfare recipients, and hot bodies which discloses their repression in the United States of America. They have been showcased by both black men and white women in different ways quite contrary to their being in America. Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, Gayl Jones, Paule Marshall, Sonia Sanchez, Toni Cade Bambara, to name a few writers, have put forth the condition of black women through their works. They have shown the personality of many a black women hidden behind the veils of racism, sexism, classism and systemic oppression of different sorts. Walker coined the term Womanism in her 1984 collection of essays titled In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. Womanism advocates consensus for black women starting with gender and proceeding over to race, ethn...
Continuity of Womanist Ethos: Intertextuality in Select Novels of Alice Walker
University of Bucharest Review. Literary and Cultural Studies Series, 2021
This study uses the relational content analysis method and theories of intertextuality, intersectionality, and womanism to explore the continuity of womanist ethos in select novels of the African-American novelist Alice Walker. It attempts to explore Walker’s use of womanism as an intertextual trope in The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), Meridian (1976), The Color Purple (1982), The Temple of My Familiar (1989) and Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992); Walker’s portrayal of Celie-Shug as a perfect womanist couple in Color Purple and their reappearance in Temple as mother trees; foremothers as role models in Third Life and Temple; Walker’s telling and retelling of Tashi’s life-long suffering from female genital mutilation (FGM) in Color Purple, Temple, and Possessing – the subject of this paper.
“ELETHIA” AND “A SUDDEN TRIP HOME IN SPRING”:
ALICE WALKER’S WOMANIST RESPONSE
TO THE ISSUES OF BLACK PEOPLE.pdf
“ELETHIA” AND “A SUDDEN TRIP HOME IN SPRING”: ALICE WALKER’S WOMANIST RESPONSE TO THE ISSUES OF BLACK PEOPLE, 2020
This study explores the subjective pursuit of identity in Katherine Anne Porter's urban heroines with their internalized identity of 'Other'ness and 'the Object' and their struggle of being 'the Subject' in their societies. It deals with " Theft " (1929) whose setting is America and " Flowering Judas " (1929) taking place in Mexico which reflect the aura of the early decades of the 20 th century in terms of urban women. Porter in the stories, depicts the women characters who are grown up in accordance with patriarchy but who can stand on their feet in the rapidly modernizing American society, on the other hand alone and unhappy in their spiritual lives. While telling their struggle, she does not completely blame patriarchy for the failure of the women characters' search for identity; she also finds defects in their characters. Although they are educated and have financial independence, they are squeezed between the life they dream and their realities; their gender, social status and their relationships with the opposite sex. They do not have enough courage and sense of reality to realize their dreams. Therefore, Porter displays that female protagonists undergo similar hardships in the formation of identity.
THE IMPACT OF PATRIARCHY ON THE SUPPRESSION OF WOMEN'S CHARACTERS OF ALICE WALKER'S NOVELS IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF MARXIST FEMINISM
JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS, 2020
The writer of every society is currently looking into a new way of expression than his predecessor. With this discovery, there have been many great changes in the literary environment into new dimensions, especially when Marxism is applied in literature as a background. Marxism is the key to the development for writing outcome in present days. A new society has been made clear through practice for people who are tired of the social system that is rooted in traditional society. In order to give solutions for problems of women Fredrick Engle stretched Marxism to Marxist feminism. According to Marxist feminist philosophy, one of the reasons for women's oppression is the lack of prospects for women to produce and individual useable resources. Fredrick Engle mainly highlighted three major causes for women subjugated in his Marxist feminism. They are patriarchy, economic dispossession and capitalism. I have chosen the impact of patriarchy in Alice walker"s three novels for this research paper they are "The Meridian", "The Color Purple" and "The Temple of My Familiar."
Related papers
STRUGGLE OF SUBALTERN IN BLACK LITERATURE WITH REFERENCE TO ALICE WALKER’S “THE COLOR PURPLE”
The Harlem Renaissance marked a turning point for African-American literature. Prior to this time, books by African Americans were primarily read by other Black people. With the Renaissance, though, African-American literature as well as black fine art and a performance art began to absorbed into mainstream American culture. Major Harlemite of the period are Claude Mckay, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice walker, Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones, Rasheed Clark, Ishmael Reed, Jamaica Kincaid, John Edgar Wideman, David Antony Durham, Tayari Jones, Mat Jonson and Colson Whitehead. Theoretically African literature understands the interconnectedness of race, class, sex, oppression. Consequently it realizes that there are White men and women, and definitely Black people who seek to overturn structures of their societies. Alice Malsenior Walker, African American writer, poet, feminist, and activist born on 9 February 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia. It was a tradition in those years that black people are not supposed to get their education they are supposed to work in farms with their parents. Growing up with an old tradition, listening to stories to her grandfather is a major inspiration for Alice to start writing at the age of eight. In all her work Alice Walker has expressed with graceful and devastating clarity, the degree of freedom Black Women have in her community. Alice Walker celebrates the survival of Black people. All her works confronts the pain and struggle of Black people’s history. She has found that creativity of Black Women is a measure of the health of the entire society. Alice walker’s main concept is sharpened by her use of the history of Black people in America especially in the south where they were most brutally enslaved and marginalized.
"Elethia" and "A Sudden Trip Home in Spring": Alice Walker's Womanist Response to the Issues of Black People
Adıyaman Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 13(34): 26-48, 2020
Alice Walker (1944-) has brought a new dimension to black feminism with her theory of womanism, which she explains in In Search of Our Mothers’ Garden (1983). She aims at achieving universality by extending her struggle to all people around the world, regardless of race, gender, and ethnical differences. According to Walker, it requires people to acknowledge their history, matrilineal descent, and black and non-black authors’ works inspiring them to struggle. She represents her womanist understanding in “Elethia” and “A Sudden Trip Home in Spring” in her collection entitled You Can’t Keep A Good Woman Down (1981). The title character of “Elethia” and Sarah in “A Sudden Trip Home in Spring” face their problems and realize how to struggle against them. Thus, analyzing Walker’s selected stories, the study indicates that she presents a womanist way out for black people in the racist society through Elethia and Sarah.
Alice Walker's Poetry: A Voice for the Voiceless
Isara solutions, 2023
Alice Walker, a prominent figure in the world of Afro-American literature, has some magical touch in the different genres of literature. Her multi-dimensional talent is a very well known to all literature lovers. She expressed real life experiences in her lyrics and other literary works.
Alice Walker's Womanist Maternal
Alice Walker's Womanist Maternal, 2017
"The truth telling Walker engages in in 'One Child of One's Own' reflects her bold unwillingness as a Black feminist artist and mother to silence, distort, or suppress her experiences of and ideas about motherhood and mothering. Although not without risk, this practice of truth telling is compelling, revolutionary, and a central, defining characteristic of Walker's womanist maternal."
Celebrating Black American Women's Lives: An Analysis of Alice Walker's Selected Texts
Nawa Journal of Language and Communication, 2013
From the American Revolution to the present, African American female writers have not only articulated the physical horrors of the female slave, but have also celebrated the black American women's lives through their works. For Walker, African American women have suffered a triple oppression of gender, race and class. Thus, using the selected texts, this paper will show Walker's preoccupation with the black American woman, especially the way she is marginalised and subjugated by both the colonial and slave system and her black male counterpart. As an African-American woman, Walker also celebrates the lives of the American black women by giving a voice to the oppressed and voiceless. In her narratives, she criticises both racist and sexist hegemony. This article will show how the women in the selected texts have played a myriad of roles in their search for self-definition and spiritual redemption. In The colour purple, The third life o f Grange Copeland, and also in Walker's essays, In search o f our mother's gardens, she argues that the black women have been notable for standing against oppression and have made significant contributions in the making of the American nation. Hence, this article intends to show that despite being oppressed, African-American women have never succumbed to victimhood. It seeks to examine how Alice Walker celebrates the black-American women's search for identity and fulfilment through a harmonious co existence with their men-folk. The article will conclude that Walker transcends binary oppositions to explore the oppressions, the insanities, the loyalties and triumphs of black women'. Through self-expression, her women characters undergo some form of transformation and hence celebrate a sense of wholeness embedded in a viable past.
Alice Walker's Womanism VS Feminism
Alice Walker's Womanism VS Feminism, 2019
The aim of this article is to investigate the impact of Alice Walker's concept of Womanism on Alice Childress theatre and her depiction of the Black life and the effective role of Black women in vindicating her race, via offering a critical reading to her dramas under the Womanist theoretical framework.
An End to Cosmic Loneliness: Alice Walker's Essays as Abolitionist Enchantment
Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 2008
Insights of Feminist Epistemology in Some Selected Novels of Alice Walker
Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2017
Alice Walker as a radical feminist presented the issues related to Gender feminism through articulation of protagonists highlighting the racial and gender inequality. The feminist epistemology theory is applied which believes that knowledge claims are made from nowhere and are universally valid. African women took surface knowledge of American society and gained superior knowledge of human potential. Alice Walker's various protagonists Meridian, Celie, Lissie and Tashi signify the situated knowers theory. They articulated their sufferings and attaining their own world of peace by changing the economic, political and moral status with love around them. Alice Walker deals with female consciousness through various thematic motifs. The motifs are regeneration of self, exploration of ethics by preserving African culture and last motif is to raise voice against sexual politics. Walker through her selected novels tried to document the anguish, pain and inferiority that black women were subjected. In the end of selected novels for study these protagonists explore their journey of loneliness, oppression, guilt and self-doubt towards self-acceptance, empowerment and love. Alice Walker as a situated knower advocated for equal rights and believes that freedom, education and responsibility tent to develop a woman into a noble woman. Application of feminist epistemology theory justifies Walker's optimism that the game is not lost as long as one plays it with the belief that it can be won.
Aggression with Black Female Characters in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple
Ars Artium, Vol. 1, 2013
Alice Malsenior Walker, born (February 9, 1944) in Eatonton, Georgia is the youngest of eight children to sharecroppers, Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant. After an early day's misfortune which blinded her in one eye, she went on to become valedictorian of her neighboring school, and attended Spellman College and Sarah Lawrence College on scholarship. Alice Walker volunteered in the voter registration drives of the 1960s in Georgia, and went to job after college in the Welfare Department in New York City. She was married in 1967, and unfortunately divorced in 1976. Her first volume of poems was published in 1968 and her earliest novel was published just after her daughter's birth in 1970. Her poems, novels and short stories dealt with the themes of troubled relationships, violence, rape, multi-generational perspectives, isolation, sexism and racism, etc.
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