Comparison Essay



Comparison Essay

Introduction

There are many different types of authors in the world of literature, authors of horror, romance, suspense, and the type that Alice Walker writes, through personal experiences. Although most critics categorize her writings as feminist, Walker describes herself as a "womanist", she defines this as "a woman who loves other woman...

Alice Walker Vs Jane Martin

Appreciates and prefers woman culture, woman's emotional flexibility... and woman's strength... Loves the spirit... Loves herself, Regardless". Walker's thoughts and feelings show through in her writing of poetry and novels. Alice Walker writes through her feelings and the morals that she has grown with, she writes about the black woman's struggle for spiritual wholeness and sexual, political, and racial equality.

Mrs. Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia, the eight and youngest child of Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker and Willie Lee Walker. Her parents were poor share- croppers but wealthy in spirit and love. Her father's great-great-great grandmother, Mary Poole, was a slave forced to walk from Virginia to Georgia with a baby in each arm. Her mother 's grandmother, Tallluhah, was mostly Cherokee Indian. Mrs. Walker was always deeply proud of her cultural in heritances. In the sumer of 1952 while playing "cowboys and indian" with her brothers ( Mrs. Walker was the Indian with bow and arrow in hand), she was blinded in her right eye by a BB gun pellet. She was always self concious of the large white scar tissue left in her eye. It goes without saying that Mrs. Walker was not an outgoing person . Most of her time was spent in seclusion and in reading every thing that she could get her hands on. Mrs. Walker lived vicariously through the characters in the books that she read. At the age of fourteen years old, her brother Bill had the "cataract" removed from her eye by a doctor in Boston, but her vision never returned.

After graduating from high school in 1961, (she was her school's valedictorian and prom queen that year), Mrs. Walker then left home to attend Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, on a scholarship. Before leaving , her mother gave her three special gifts: a sewing machine for self-sufficiency, a suitcase for independence and a typewriter for creativity.

While at Spelman, Mrs Walker participated in Civil Rights demonstrations. She was invited to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s home in 1962, at the end of her freshman year in recognition of her invitation to attend the Youth World Peace Festival in Helsinki, Finland.

After attending the conference, she traveled in Europe for the summer. This began her love for travel and encountering the many peoples and cultures of the world. In August, 1963, Mrs.

Walker traveled to Washington D. C. to take part in the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom". Perched in a tree limb to try to get a view, she could not see much of the main podium, but was able to hear Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" ...