African-American Heritage

Paper Summary:

The paper relates that throughout Alice Walker's books and stories, she continually displays her pride and support of her African-American and female heritage. The paper examines Walker's "Everyday Use" that looks at the issue of African-Americans who try to escape prejudice and poverty and, in the process, risk losing their own heritage and the past that has made them into who they are.

From the Paper:

"Walker was born and raised in Eatonton, Georgia. Her father was a sharecropper. When she was eight years old, her brother accidentally shot her eye out with a BB gun. She was left blind in one eye, that made her shy and self-conscious. She turned to writing as a means to express her inner self. Despite her disadvantaged childhood, she won a scholarship to Spelman College and then transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. Since then, her poems, short stories and novels combine a pride for black women and the African-American heritage."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Christian, Barbara, T. Alice Walker: The Black Woman Artist as Wayward." "Everyday Use. Ed. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1994.
• Cowart, David. "Heritage and Deracination in Walker's 'Everyday Use.'"Studies in Short Fiction 33 (1996): 171-184.
• Walker, Alice. "Everyday Use. Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama and the Essay.Robert DiYanni, Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998. 408-413.
• Walker, Alice. "In Search of our Mother's Gardens." Ms. Magazine. Sept-Oct. (1997): 11-15
• Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

More papers on African-American Heritage:

• Term Paper # 120 : "African American Heritage in Literature"
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• Essay # 53019 : "Langston Hughes and African-American Writing"
• Book Review # 146139 : "African American Christian Worship" : A Book Review"

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