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Alice Walker To Hell With Dying Analysis

1330 Words6 Pages

Alice Walker, the gifted author and activist, paints a picture of what it is like to be a young African American woman living in America through her connections to feminism, Walker’s life and her experience with loss. Feminism plays a key role in many of Alice Walker’s pieces. Especially in “To Hell with Dying” the main narrator pushes the boundary of the many stereotypes of females to be dependent and not self-sufficient peoples. Walker tends to portray women as strong people who fight for what they want and will not stop until they get it. According to Louis H. Pratt, “...she has chosen to create a super abundance of kind, loving women who triumph in spite of the odds, played off against weak, self-centered, violent men” (Pratt 42). Walker …show more content…

It is important to note that Walker does not make women completely heartless, she uses their compassion and love to create that strength from within. Walker also broke men stereotypes of being aggressive and bossy which helped emphasize the strong women of her stories. For example, the narrator’s brother was very giving when it came to saving Mr. Sweet because “he let me do all the reviving- he had done it years before I was born and so he was glad to be able to pass it on to someone new” (Walker 3). There is a thoughtfulness and loving spirit behind this action that is not usually portrayed through men. The narrator being so excited to help plays into the idea that women can be very caring but not by losing any integrity or strength. Along with breaking female stereotypes, Walker also defies what the typically man should act like. Mr. Sweet, the main character, suffers from substance abuse and is often found in near death experiences. “As the female narrator grows independent and gets ahead in a traditionally masculine way, Sweet becomes more feminine…” with his health declining rapidly (Hollister 90). He needs the people in his life to care for him in order for him to not die. The narrator

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