Devin Smith
ENG 102
April 21, 2015
Research Paper – Alice Walker
The work of a writer ought to be evaluated by separating the writer’s personality from the
narration within the text. This allows an unbiased and natural assessment of any given writing.
Although one must take this law of literature into account when reading a story, there are
instances when an author’s personal experience is reflected within the narration of their work;
This type of occurrence in evident within the writings of Alice Walker. Certain reoccurring
themes appear throughout Walker’s stories that are linked to her personal experiences and
influence the construct of her writing. Themes of rebirth and transformation symbolized by a
scar, child abuse, the celebration of writing, and oppression in the south all illustrate Alice
Walker’s influences that thread her story telling. Walker’s historical biography provides
evidence, which supports the idea that her writing was influenced by her life as an African
American women living in rural southern Untied States of America.
Alice Walker lived a remarkable life that influenced her works to this day. The writer
experienced a life-threating incident that scared her permanently, and would change her life
forever. “The rebirth of this ‘scar’ is a very suiting place to begin the history of Alice Walker as I
would agree that it is indeed a ‘world in her eye’. In fact, it is through this scar that Alice Walker
– the poet and writer – was born”(Robinson 294). The scar on her right eye was first a negative
self-image, but then made such an impact on her and was rejoiced in her writing. Through the
narration in her later short story “Everyday Use” Walker mentions the scar on one of the main
characters. “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in
corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a
mixture of envy and awe”(Walker 69). Walker’s illustration of the symbolic scar within the
narration of her work, including “Everyday Use”, represents a common theme of rebirth and
transformation, while simultaneously depicting an influence of her personal experiences.
“Through her scar, she began to understand and identify with others’ scars. She began to create a
voice that would share the experiences and wounds of African – American women with the
world. It is possible without that scar, she would not be the writer that she is today”(Robinson
295).
Alice Walker grew up with a large family with a father that was abusive to all of the
women in her family. “In her accounts of her father, Walker describes a man who was very
dynamic. In one respect, he was an oppressor and an abuser – she speaks of the fact that he
sometimes hit her mother, ‘In my immediate family too there was violence. Its roots seemed
always to be embedded in my father’s need to dominate my mother and their children and in her
resistance (and ours), verbal and physical, to such domination” (Robinson 299). In the theme of
the abuse of her father that Walker submitted to, she illustrates this proof through her writings in
“The Color Purple”. “Dear God, He beat me today cause he say I winked at a boy in church. I
may have got somethin in my eye but I didn’t wink”(Walker 5). In the narration of “The Color
Purple” walker speaks of countless times of her father or a man beating her and her sisters. The
unfortunate situation of Walker being beaten when she is younger is put into her writings like
“The Color Purple” and is proof that her life experience was an influence on her writing. From
growing up with her oppressive father beating her, she also had to deal with sexual abuse for
most of her life. “This desire to sexually conquer women can be described as phallocentricism
and in regard to African – American men, it is viewed as a way for them to claim power in a
patriarchal society that has allowed them the means to define themselves in the traditional
patriarchal sense, i.e., through financial avenues”(Robinson 299). Walker went through many
abuses from her father and the men in her life, and she understood, as she grew older why they
did so. “Dear God, Harpo ast his daddy why he beat me. Mr.___ say, Cause she my wife. Plus,
she stubborn. All women good for – he don’t finish. He just tuck his chin over the paper like he
do. Remind me of Pa”(Walker 22). Walker spoke a lot about how she just took the beatings and
never spoke back to the men that hit her. “Walker explores the subject through the eyes of Tashi,
a minor character in The Color Purple, who submits to this harsh rite of passage out of a sense of
cultural allegiance, and bears the deep physical and emotional scars for the rest of her
life”(Whitaker 88). Growing up with the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse walker overcome
that tragic part of her life, and wrote about it in many of her works, and especially “The Color
Purple”
Alice Walker is of course known as a famous African – American writer, but her writing
is was intended for something else. “After that experience, she became suicidal and in fact
struggled with the thought of killing herself throughout the years, but writing became a way for
Walker to heal herself. She writes, ‘Writing poems is my way of celebrating with the world that I
have not committed suicide the evening before”(Robinson 295). Walker wrote to save her life,
and all of her stories were intended to do just that. “You better not never tell nobody but God.
It’d kill your mammy. Dear God, I am fourteen years old. I am I have always been a good girl.
Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me”(Walker 1). Celie who
is one of the main characters in “The Color Purple” wrote to god to stay alive, and because she
could tell nobody else. The influence of Walkers life is threaded through her work, and is proof
that it someway her life affected her writings.
Alice Walker was born and raised in the south where many of her books take place in as
well. “Coming of age in the South provided Alice Walker with the knowledge of the racism,
oppression, and inequality that existed for blacks in America during the height of
segregation”(Robinson 295). Walker’s tone of the south came out through her work in “The
Color Purple”. “In the evening he come out on the porch in his Sunday best. She be sitting there
with me shelling peas or helping the children with they spelling”(Walker 16). Through the
narration in the “The Color Purple” there is some sort of style that is projected into the story that
is evidently coming from Walkers background in the south.