Alice Walker Notes

 Best known for The Color Purple because it was the first novel by an African
American to win a Pulitzer Prize Award
 Has published 30 books including 7 novels
 Committed to exploring the lives of black women
 In 1973 interview with Mary Helen Washington, walker described 3 types of black
women characters missing from literature
o Those exploited both physically and emotionally
o Those who were victim not so much of physical violence as of psychic
violence
o Those who despite the oppressions they suffer achieve wholeness and
create spaces for other oppressed communities
 Born on February 9, 1944 to sharecroppers and grew up in Eatonton, Georgia.
Mother made everything for Walker and her 7 siblings and was a great gardener
 Walker was 8 when her brother “accidentally” shot her with a gun causing the loss
of one eye
o Made her feel like an outcast and started her journaling and observations
 Left Eatonton in 1961 and went to Spelman—the first black women’s college in
Atlanta—at first then Sarah Lawrence two years later in New York
 Got pregnant at Sarah Lawrence when abortion was illegal and contemplated suicide
but decided to write and published her first novel Once
 Challenged the 1960s African American cultural nationalist position which idealized
“black manhood”
 From 1965 to 1968 she was actively involved in the civil rights movement
 Lived on the Lower East Side of New York City for a while where she worked for
the welfare department
 In 1967 she married Melvyn Levanthal a white civil rights lawyer at the time where
interracial marriage was illegal in Mississippi
o Had a daughter Rebecca
o Divorced in 1977 when Walker first moved to New York City
 Her recuperation of Zora Neal Hurston was a signal contribution to literary history
 Coined the term womanism early on her career from black folk expression
(“womanish”) and she prefers it to feminism because it honors a long-standing
tradition of strength among black women
 The Color Purple generated as much controversy as Richard Wright’s Native Son
o Received a Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the American Book
Award
 o Controversy of the depiction of Africa and negative portrayal of black men
in the movie
o Became a Broadway musical in 2004
 Determined to confront and embrace contradictions of her life and the paradoxes
of our time
 Women: Lists the stereotypes of women and conveys the fact that they were only
supposed to do and not talk
 Outcast:
o “Be nobody’s darling; be an outcast”
o “Qualified to live among your dead”
o Empowers people to speak out and not fall into submission nor conformity
 “Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You In The Morning”: shows how forgiveness can
heal yourself and not just the other person and brings light to the fact that
everything is not always happy
 In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens
o Talks about how black women are used sexually and physically for everything
o Does not view them as objects but as “Saints”
o Brings up the oppression of a black women to truly show her talents because
she was so busy taking care of everyone else
o Refers to the women of her mother’s time as artists who had no form of
release because they were limited in what they could do
 Would make art anonymously so they could express themselves
 Took care of the house, children, and husband with little time to
themselves
o “Gardens” refers to
 The literal garden of flowers her mother planted and sold
 The artist of her mother was expressed through gardening
 The figurative “garden” represents the evolution of black women
artists today from Walker’s mother’s era
 Also representing the strong passion inside a black woman to find a
way to express herself without breaking any “rules”
o Includes her poem “Women” which provides a greater understanding of why
she wrote the poem and what it truly means to be a woman (especially a black
woman)
o “Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and respect for strength—in
search of my mother’s garden, I found my own”
 Everyday Use (for your grandmama)
o Accounts for a full day in the life with all the disagreements, arguing, and
making up
 o Maggie gets married but soon dies before she makes it back
o Shows a realistic view of what goes on in an African American household
with grandmother playing a key role
 Advancing Luna—and Ida B. Wells
o Walker and Luna are going around to help other black people learn how to
vote with writing their name and marking the correct boxes
o Set in the time period after the death of Malcom X but before the death of
Martin Luther King Jr.