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Short introduction on the role of women in literature
Literary critique and analysis of alice walker every use
Short introduction on the role of women in literature
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Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. She worked as a social worker, teacher and lecturer, and took part in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. Walker won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her 1982 novel, The Color Purple, and is also an acclaimed poet and essayist.
Early Life
Novelist, poet and feminist Alice Malsenior Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. Alice Walker is one of the most admired African-American writers working today. The youngest daughter of sharecroppers, she grew up poor. Her mother worked as a maid to help support the family's eight children. When Walker was 8 years old, she suffered a serious injury: She was shot in the right eye with a BB pellet while playing with two of her brothers.
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Set in the early 1900s, the novel explores the female African-American experience through the life and struggles of its narrator, Celie. Celie suffers terrible abuse at the hands of her father, and later, from her husband. The compelling work won Walker both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction in 1983.
Three years later, Walker's story made it to the big screen: Steven Spielberg directed The Color Purple, which starred Whoopi Goldberg as Celie, as well as Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover. Like the novel, the movie was a critical success, receiving 11 Academy Award nominations. Walker explored her own feelings about the film in her 1996 work, The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult. In 2005, The Color Purple became a Broadway musical.
Walker incorporated characters and their relations from The Color Purple into two of her other novels: The Temple of My Familiar (1989) and Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), which earned great critical praise and caused some controversy for its exploration of the practice of female genital mutilation.
Recent
Alice Walker, through her essay "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens", and Paule Marshall, in "Poets In The Kitchen", both write about the African-American women of the past and how these women have had an impact on their writing. Walker and Marshall write about an identity they have found with these women because of their exposure to the African culture. These women were searching for independence and freedom. Walker expresses independence as found in the creative spirit, and Marshall finds it through the spoken word. Walker and Marshall celebrate these women's lives and they see them as inspirations to become black women writers.
If we read The Color Purple with 'gender on the agenda' as required we can identify how the form contributes to the impact of the narrative. The Color Purple is a story that unfolds through the writing and exchange of letters. Opening with the line 'You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy.' A warning issued by the abusive 'father' (later and importantly discovered to be step-father) of the central character Celie who indeed pours out her secret to God and later to her sister Nettie about her life and her pain.
Novelist Alice Walker the youngest of eight children; was born in an unprivileged family. At a young age, she was blinded in one eye by a BB gun misfortune; which caused her to be shy during her infantile years. A known bisexual feminist Walker has advocated rights for women since a young adult. Walker is known for her soul filled books, essays, and poems. Her past has a lot to do with the literature she writes as it is base of her life experiences and African American heritage. Some her famous writings are Prize-winning novel, “The Color Purple” which illustrates the bigotry African America women underwent, this book later became a movie that won film awards. Also in her assortments of writings is” In Love and Trouble”: Stories of Black Women
Alice Walker born in 1944 lived in a critical era of civil rights for blacks in
• Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia. She was born into a poor sharecropper family, and the last of eight children.
Wade-Gayler, Gloria. Black, Southern, Womanist: The Genius of Alice Walker // Southern Women Writers. The New Generation. Ed. By Tonette Bond Inge. The University of Alabama Press, Touscaloosa & London, 1990
Whitted, Qiana. "Alice Walker (b. 1944)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 26 November 2013. Web. 02 May .
...lie make decisions in her life. Nettie's letters embrace and strengthen Celie's own identity, by showing her the world outside of Georgia, and this opens many possibilities for Celie (Bracks 87). Although she has all of these characteristics, Nettie is very lonely, because she has no one to talk to while in Africa, and no sister to be around to listen to her stories. Nettie's letters show that the oppression of men on women is universal, even in Africa. The imperial, racial, and cultural conflict and oppression Nettie encounters in Africa parallel the smaller-scale abuses and hardships that Celie experiences in Georgia. With these many influences and characteristics to observe, it is easy to see how this one novel, The Color Purple, stirred up enough conflict and interest, to become one of the most famous novels depicting the struggles of a black women's lifestyle.
Walker has written several other novels, including “The Temple of My Familiar” and “Possessing the Secret of Joy”. She has published a number of collections of short stories, poetry, and other published work. Walker expresses the struggles of black people, particularly women, and their lives in a racist, sexist, and violent society. Her writings also focus on the role of women of color in culture and history. Walker is a respected figure in the liberal political community for her support of unconventional and unpopular
Alice Walker’s writings were greatly influenced by the political and societal happenings around her during the 1960s and 1970s. She not only wrote about events that were taking place, she participated in them as well. Her devoted time and energy into society is very evident in her works. The Color Purple, one of Walker’s most prized novels, sends out a social message that concerns women’s struggle for freedom in a society where they are viewed as inferior to men. The events that happened during and previous to her writing of The Color Purple had a tremendous impact on the standpoint of the novel.
Over the course of the novel, Celie, became a confident, independent, strong woman. The novel begins with fourteen year old, Celie, As the novel progresses
There are numerous works of literature that recount a story- a story from which inspiration flourishes, providing a source of liberating motivation to its audience, or a story that simply aspires to touch the hearts and souls of all of those who read it. One of the most prevalent themes in historical types of these kinds of literature is racism. In America specifically, African Americans endured racism heavily, especially in the South, and did not gain equal rights until the 1960s. In her renowned book The Color Purple, Alice Walker narrates the journey of an African American woman, Celie Johnson (Harris), who experiences racism, sexism, and enduring hardships throughout the course of her life; nonetheless, through the help of friends and family, she is able to overcome her obstacles and grow into a stronger, more self-assured individual. While there are numerous themes transpiring throughout the course of the novel, the symbolism is one of the strongest prospects for instigating the plot. In The Color Purple by Alice Walker, numerous symbols influence and drive the plot of the novel.
...ce of social gender departure releases her from oppression that came with emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. The significant change from her passive self to a feminine assertiveness develops out of her encounter with the people and events that goes against traditional views of social acceptance as it breaks common views on behavior and attributes. The development allows Celie to identify the people around her as the people she loves and care for, essentially becoming her people. The Color Purple becomes a contemporary text that becomes relatable to issues of identity and acceptance as well as addresses the existence of the continuing problem. Just as Celie says at the end of the novel when she narrates the conservation she shared with Mr. ____, the ability to “live her life and be herself no matter what” becomes a capability to her and the other characters.
Nettie isn’t the only one with an important story to tell though, even though Celie is uneducated, she has an important and powerful story to share as well. Walker chooses Celie as the narrator with this first person subjective point of view to show that it doesn’t matter if you’re black, uneducated, poor, etc., everyone has an important story to share. Her experience with women’s rights and discrimination influence this powerful story.
Like most of the characters in her novels, Walker is a product of her racist, rural, Southern environment in which the rural Black woman faces oppression at every turn. Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1944 at the beginning of the Civil Rights Era (Whitted). Walker faced segregation and discrimination while growing up in one of the most notoriously racist Southern states of the 19th and 20th centuries. She ...