Southern American Literature: the Role of the Women in the Era of Alice Walker - Book Report/Review Example

There are numerous authors in the world of literature, having different types of styles of writing and have different ways to conceive ideas. There are authors of romance, horror, suspense and the other types in which Alice Walker writes through her personal experiences. Although different critics categorize her writings as feminist, she describes herself as a "womanist", Walker defines this as "a woman who loves other woman. She prefers and appreciates women culture, women's flexibility and emotions and their strength based on love and love to the spirit. Her feelings and thoughts can be seen in her writing of novels and poetry. She writes through her morals and feelings that she has grown with, she writes about the struggle of black woman for spiritual wholeness, political, racial equality. Much of her fiction is informed by Southern background that she had. Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia; it was a rural town where blacks worked as tenant farmers in general. When she was eight she was accidently blinded in the right eye due to a BB gun shot by her elder brother, which somehow made her a little depressive person. She isolated herself from the other children, and as she justified, "I no longer felt like the little girl I was. I felt old, and because I felt I was unpleasant to look at, filled with shame. She is one of the intellectually productive black women writers in America. Walker work consistently reflects her pertain with racial, political and sexual issues with black woman's struggle for survival in particular. The first novel of Alice Walker was written "The Third Life of Grange Copeland" (1970), again carries many of her prevalent themes, particularly the domination of powerless women by equally powerless men. In this novel, which spans the years between the Depression and the beginnings of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, walker showed three generations of a black sharecropping family and explored the effects of poverty and racism on their lives. Because of his sense of failure, Grange Copeland leads his wife to suicide and abandons his children to seek a better life in the North. His traits are passed on to his son, Browns-field, who in time murders his wife. In the end of the novel, Grange returns to his family a broken yet compassionate man and attempts to make up for all the hurt he has caused in the past with the help of his granddaughter, Ruth. While some people accused Walker of reviving stereotypes about the dysfunctional black family, others praised her use of intensive, descriptive language in creating believable characters. If we talk about the role of the women in the era of Alice Walker it could be characterized by gender inequality. At the beginning of the century, women enjoyed few of the legal, social, or political rights that are now taken for granted in western countries: they could not vote, could not sue or be sued, could not testify in court, had extremely limited control over personal property after marriage, were rarely granted legal custody of their children in cases of divorce, and were barred from institutions of higher education. Women were expected to remain subservient to their fathers and husbands. Their occupational choices were also extremely limited. Middle- and upper-class women generally remained home, caring for their children and running the household. Lower-class women often did work outside the home, but usually as poorly-paid domestic servants or laborers in factories and mills. Scholarly analysis of nineteenth-century women has included examination of gender roles and resistance on either side of the Atlantic, most often focusing on differences and similarities between the lives of women in the United States, England, and France. While the majority of these studies have concentrated on how white, middle-class women reacted to their assigned domestic or private sphere in the nineteenth century; there has also been interest in the dynamics of gender roles and societal expectations in minority and lower-class communities. Although these studies can be complementary, they also highlight the difficulty of making generalizations about the lives of women from different cultural, racial, economic, and religious backgrounds in a century of steady change. Where generalizations can be made, however, "the woman question," as it was called in debates of the time, has been seen as a tendency to define the role of women in terms of private domesticity. Most often, depictions of the lives of nineteenth-century women, whether European or American, rich or poor, are portrayed in negative terms, concentrating on their limited sphere of influence compared to that of men from similar backgrounds. In some cases, however, the private sphere of nineteenth-century women had arguably more positive images, defining woman as the more morally refined of the two sexes and therefore the guardian of morality and social cohesion. Women were able to use this more positive image as a means for demanding access to public arenas long denied them, by publicly emphasizing and asserting the need for and benefits of a more "civilized" and "genteel" influence in politics, art, and education. The Awakening by Kate Chopin was considered very shocking when it was first published because of the "sexual awakening" of the main character, Edna Pontellier, and her unconventional behavior. Chopin moved to New Orleans after her marriage and lived there for twelve years until the death of her husband. She returned to St. Louis where she began writing. She used her knowledge of Louisiana and Creole culture to create wonderful descriptions of local color, and she incorporated French phrases used by the Creoles. The Awakening begins at Grade Isle, a vacation spot of wealthy Creoles from New Orleans. Edna is there with her two sons and her husband Leonce who comes and goes because of business. Edna is not Creole, but her husband is. She has never felt like she fits in with their lifestyle. Edna has always done what is expected of a woman, including marrying a man she did not love. He regards her as a possession rather than an individual. While on vacation, Edna falls in love with Robert Lebrun. She often goes to the beach with him. She begins to realize for the first time, at age 28, that she is an individual. Edna feels like one who awakens gradually from a dream to the reality of life. After this discovery, Edna changes. She disregards her husband's wishes and often ignores her children. She learns to swim which also makes her begin to feel more independent. Edna befriends two women, Mademoiselle Reisz, a pianist, and Madame Ratignolle, a motherly lady. Distressed when Robert leaves for Mexico, Edna often visits Mademoiseel Reisz to whom Robert often writes. Edna continues to disregard the customs of society. Her husband becomes very upset and insists that they must observe les convenances if they want to keep up with society. He tries to get her to attend her sister's wedding, but she refuses. Leonce goes to New York on business, but Edna refuses to go with him. The children are with their grandparents so Edna enjoys her time alone. She starts an affair with Alcee Arobin. He introduces her to the importance of sex which she did not enjoy with her husband. She closes up her house and moves to a smaller one. Upset, her husband puts a notice in the newspaper which says that their house is being remodeled. He tries to hide Edna's strange behavior from his friends. Edna, however, loves her new pigeon-house. "Every step she took toward relieving herself of obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual." One day Robert returns. Edna runs into him at Mademoiselle Reisz's home. Edna is upset to find he had been in the city for two days and had not contacted her. Even though she was having an affair, she is still in love with Robert. The two meet again a few days later, and Robert walks her home. She kisses him, and he returns her passion. He confesses that he went to Mexico because he was in love with her. He knew there was no hope for them because she was married. They are interrupted by a message for Edna to go to the bedside of Madame Ratignolle who is ill. She asks Robert to wait for her. When she returns, he is gone. This is an appropriate book for high school students to read. Girls will enjoy it more than boys. It is a beautifully written book which can be used in English as well as social studies classes. The novel will support discussion of the changing role of women and the importance of the Women's Movement in the early 1900's. Talking about the role of woman in the era of Kate Chopin, married women’s lives revolved to a large extent around managing the household, a role which in many cases included partnership in running farms or home businesses. The defiance of English rule and the onset of the war disrupted the usual patterns of life in many ways including impacting how women responded to events surrounding them. While the essential role of most women continued to be managing all aspects of their households, doing so took on political overtones: the commitment of the women was critical to maintaining the tea boycott and the decision to boycott British goods caused home manufacturing to become both a statement of defiance and a necessity. Even those women whose social standing afforded increased leisure took up spinning and other activities to replace imported goods. In the early days leading up to Lexington and Concord, they prepared food for militia musters and made cartridges. War, when it came, touched everyone: resources were scarce leading to high inflation; invading troops destroyed farms and homes; and the absence of husbands and fathers left some in danger of starvation. Some women were able to continue to manage homes, farms and shops but others were unable to survive on their own and forced to abandon their homes and follow their husbands with the army. The role of campfollowers with the French army varies somewhat in that the men were rarely accompanied by their wives (in fact, marriage was essentially forbidden) and there were very few women who traveled with the army, in sharp contrast to the British and Continental units. However, the French were immensely popular and period accounts indicate that there was frequent social and commercial interchange with townspeople along the route from Newport to Yorktown. Read More