Alice Walker & Ralph Ellison

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews and discusses the literary forces that influenced the lives and work of two African-American writers, Alice Walker and Ralph Ellison. The paper further compares the similarities and differences between the work of these two authors.

Contents:
Introduction
Alice Walker, During & Post Civil Rights
Alice Walker's Literary Influences
Langston Hughes
Zora Neale Hurston
Pre-Civil Rights; Ralph Ellison's Literary Influences
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"The mutual appreciation and love between the two was made permanent when Walker wrote Langston Hughes: American Poet, and explained in the "Author's Note" that in Hughes' books, she "encountered a spirit very like my own: a spirit that loves people, enjoys variety, hungers for diversity and change." She liked his poetry, she wrote in "Author's Note," but "even more compelling for me was his autobiographical writing, especially The Big Sea and I Wonder as I Wander" (Walker 36). The literary world is full of writers who "are reluctant to write about how hard it can sometimes be to understand parents and society and the way the world is organized," Walker explained, "but not Langston." And moreover, because Hughes wrote "so honestly about his struggles with his parents, and the often-puzzling cruelties of other human beings," Walker continued in her "Author's Note," she believed she could "trust him as a writer who still remembered the world of childhood."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bellow, Saul 1995, 'Preface' in The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison, ed. John F. Callahan,The Modern Library, New York.
• Boyd, Valerie 2003, Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, Scribner, New York.
• Ellison, Ralph 1955, 'The Art of Fiction: An Interview' in The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison, ed. John F. Callahan, The Modern Library, New York.
• Fonteneau, Yvonne 1990, 'Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man: A Critical Reevaluation', WorldLiterature Today, vol. 64, no. 3, 408-413.
• Hill, Lynda Marion 1996, Social Rituals and the Verbal Art of Zora Neale, Howard UniversityPress, Washington, D.C.

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• Comparison Essay # 13694 : "An Extravagance of Laughter" ( Ralph Ellison ) &" In Search of our Mothers' Gardens" ( Alice Walker )"
• Comparison Essay # 6902 : "Beauty" and "Battle Royal"
• Analytical Essay # 88501 : "Ralph Ellison and "Battle Royal"

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