FREE ESSAY ON ALICE WALKER

ALICE WALKER

Alice Walker Question
The selection from Alice Walker deals with the coming of civil rights and the different
attitudes of the old and coming generations. Walker portrays the mother figure as
supportive and tough; she fills both the masculine and feminine rolls, With fists as well
as / Hands. Images to emphasize the descriptions take up their own lines within the poem
Step, Hands, Doors, Shirts, Armies, Fields, Ditches, Desks, and ending with Themselves.
This combination of domestic and military objects emphasizes the women's self reliance
and perseverance. The military focus emphasizes their struggle through a stereo-typically
male role while the domestic objects recall the expected housewifery of the period which
one would expect. The hands that both iron and break down doors unify the two themes as
being different parts of the same people.
The theme of the American Dream echoes here; every parent wants their child to see a
future better than their past, A place for us / How they knew what we / Must know /
Without knowing a page / Of it / Themselves. The speaker sees her mother as being
supportive regarding that which she is unfamiliar with, Without knowing a page in the
interest of furthering her offspring's chances of success in the world.
The poem is unrhymed and utilizes imagery fists, battered down / Doors, Across mined /
Fields / Booby-trapped / Ditches / To discover books of a war to express the difficulties
with making progress in an oppressive society. The fact that the poem exists is a
self-supportive testament to the ideals it portrays.
Eric Walker
March 3 1997
AP English