English 11 Literature #25 Mr. Rinka Alice Walker Sandra Cisneros

Alice Walker

Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American author, poet, and activist. She has written both fiction and essays about race and gender. She is best known for the critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple (1982) for

which she won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia, the youngest of eight children, to Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant. Growing up with an oral tradition, listening to stories from her grandfather Walker began writing,

very privately, when she was eight years old. "With my family, I had to hide things," she said. "And I had to keep a lot in my mind.” After high school, Walker went to Spelman College in Atlanta on a full scholarship in 1961, and later transferred to Sarah Lawrence College near New York City,

graduating in Walker became interested in the U.S. civil rights movement in part due to the influence of activist Howard Zinn, who was one of her professors at Spelman College. Continuing the activism that she participated in during her college years, Walker returned to the South where she

became involved with voter registration drives, campaigns for welfare rights, and children's programs in Mississippi. Alice Walker met Martin Luther King Jr. when she was a student at Spelman College in Atlanta in the early 1960s. Walker credits King for her decision to return to the

American South as an activist for the Civil Rights Movement. She marched with hundreds of thousands in August in the 1963 March on Washington. As a young adult, she volunteered to register black voters in Georgia and Mississippi. On March 8, 2003, International

Women's Day, on the eve of the Iraq War, Alice Walker, Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior, and Terry Tempest Williams, author of An Unspoken Hunger, were arrested along with 24 others for crossing a police line during an anti-war protest rally outside the White House. Walker and 5,000

Activists associated with the organizations Code Pink and Women for Peace, marched from Malcolm X Park in Washington D.C. to the White House. The activists encircled the White House. In an interview with Democracy Now, Walker said, "I was with other women who believe that the

women and children of Iraq are just as dear as the women and children in our families, and that, in fact, we are one family. And so it would have felt to me that we were going over to actually bomb ourselves." Walker wrote about the experience in her essay, "We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For."

Alice Walker

“Everyday Use” Plot

“Everyday Use” Plot The story centers around one day when the older daughter, Dee, visits from college after time away and a conflict between Dee and her mother over some heirloom family possessions. The struggle reflects the characters' contrasting ideas about

their heritage and identity. Throughout the story Dee goes back and forth on being proud and rejecting her heritage. For example, when she decides at dinner that she wants the butter churn, she shows that she respects her heritage because she knows that her uncle carved it from a tree

they used to have. However, she wants it for the wrong reason, saying that she will use it only for decoration. Another example is when she wants the quilts that Mama has. She states that she wants them because of the generations of clothing and effort put into making the quilt, showing

her appreciation for her heritage. The fact that she changes her name, though, from Dee to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo disrespects her heritage because "Dee" is a family name that can be traced back many generations. The story is narrated by the mother.

“Everyday Use” Characters Maggie The younger daughter who stays with Mama while Dee is away at school. Though described by her mother as unintelligent and unattractive, she is very innocent and humble. Maggie leads a simple, traditionally Southern life with her mother.

Mama Acts as narrator of the story. She is also known as Mrs. Johnson. She is a middle-aged or older African- American woman living with her younger daughter, Maggie. Although poor, she is strong and independent as shown by how she interacts with her children, and takes great pride

in her way of life. Her appearance is described as someone who is overweight, and someone who has a body that is more like a man's than a woman's. She has strong hands that are worn from a lifetime of work.

Dee/Wangero Eldest daughter of "Mama" and sister to Maggie. She is very "educated, worldly, and deeply determined"; she doesn't let anything get in the way of getting what she wants.

Hakim a Barber Dee/Wangero's boyfriend, or possibly husband. She brings him to dinner at her Mamas house. He is referred to as "Asalamalakim", which is a Muslim greeting, by Mama because he is Muslim. He is short and stocky and has long hair that reaches his waist and a long, bushy beard.

“Everyday Use” ilt/walker.html

Sandra Cisneros Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954) is an American writer best known for her acclaimed first novel The House on Mango Street (1984) and her subsequent short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991). Her work

experiments with literary forms and investigates emerging subject positions, which Cisneros herself attributes to growing up in a context of cultural hybridity and economic inequality that endowed her with unique stories to tell. She is the recipient of numerous awards including a National Endowment for

the Arts Fellowship, and is regarded as a key figure in Chicana literature. Cisneros's early life provided many experiences she would later draw on as a writer: she grew up as the only daughter in a family of six brothers, which often made her feel isolated, and the constant migration of her family between Mexico and

the USA instilled in her the sense of "always straddling two countries... but not belonging to either culture." Cisneros's work deals with the formation of Chicana identity, exploring the challenges of being caught between Mexican and Anglo-American cultures, facing the misogynist attitudes present in both

these cultures, and experiencing poverty. For her insightful social critique and powerful prose style, Cisneros has achieved recognition far beyond Chicano and Latino communities, to the extent that The House on Mango Street has been translated worldwide and is taught in American classrooms as a

coming-of-age novel. Cisneros has held a variety of professional positions, working as a teacher, a counselor, a college recruiter, a poet-in-the-schools, and an arts administrator, and has maintained a strong commitment to community and literary causes. In 1998, she established the Macondo

Foundation, which provides socially conscious workshops for writers, and in 2000 she founded the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation, which awards talented writers connected to Texas. Cisneros currently resides in San Antonio, Texas.

“Straw into Gold: The Metamorphosis of the Everyday.” ents_of_lit_course5/straw_gold.htm

Discussion In a Socratic Seminar explore this topic: Why is the theme of everyday life so important but so often overlooked?

Additional Assignment #1 Watch and listen to Alice Walker. TUTXdKE

Additional Assignment #2 Read this American short story classic “HARRISON BERGERON” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. arrison.html

English 11 Literature #25 Mr. Rinka Alice Walker Sandra Cisneros