Alice Walker Research Paper

Alice Walker is a widely known African American novelist, born in Eatonton, Georgia. When Walker was an eight year old she was severely injured with a gun by her elder brother and lost the sight of one eye. The accident turned Alice into a withdrawn little girl who started to search for comfort in reading stories and writing poetry. This accident allowed her to see the core of relationships between people, particularly men and women (Walker, 244). The Southern environment, the trauma of the accident, and the ability to observe relationships between people play a major role in the themes and issues presented in Alice Walker’s novels. Walker was a high-achieving student in high school; she received a scholarship which allowed her to continue

That book is based on the authors trip to Africa in 1965, the poems in the book were published in 1968, and that book was the start of Walker’s literary career. During the periods (1965-1970) major changes happened in Walker’s personal life and academic life. She got married in 1969, moved to Mississippi and gave birth to her only daughter. In 1970, Walker published her first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, and in 1976, her second novel, Meridian, was already available for the readers. Her first novel publication along with other African American authors marked the beginning of the Golden Age of African American literature. The periods between 1970 and 2000, were the most successful years in African American literary history, because African American authors started selling more copies of their novels and winning awards (Dickson-Carr,

While some literary critics, such as Pamela A. Smith rejoice the author’s “multivocal experiment with postmodern romance and magical realism” (Bell, 2004), others provide negative responses about Walker’s style, subjective, and supposedly inaccurate point of view regarding the black community. It was her novel, The Color Purple that some critics, such as Melissa Walker, criticized for its indirect style or the lack of facts and dates, essential to a realistic novel. Others, like Laura Berlant, claim that the novel is a “critical rewrite of the historical novel” (Lauret, 2000), focusing on family problems rather than history. Furthermore, the depiction of African American men and women in The Color Purple raised the most discussion after the novel was published. Trudier Harris criticizes Walker for the stereotypical and unrealistic depiction of the African American community, both male and female characters: “Here, I felt, was a novel that had done a great disservice through its treatment of black women” (Harris, 155). Other literary critics like Calvin Hernton view, The Color Purple, as a neo-slave narrative, in which the oppression of the African American community is swapped by gender oppression, where African American women are the slaves of the African American men (Hernton,