ipl-logo

Beauty In Alice Walker's Gift Of Beauty

900 Words4 Pages

‘’ If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say, 'This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.'’ William Shakespeare. Yet even these words hearken images of physical beauty as they defy the convention of glorifying ideal beauty. However, Alice couldn’t accept her own physical disability and this clouded her ability to live life to its fullest. Alice saw things, but she didn’t perceive them. Until the day her husband said to her, “I thought you made peace with that,” and suddenly she started remembering the important things in life, like the gift of sight and the possibility of never seeing and perceiving the beauty of the desert. Walker's definition of beauty as a wonderful world is revealed as she shares her self-image of three steps of her life: 2½ to eight-year-old, eight to fourteen-year-old, and fourteen-year-old to adulthood. …show more content…

One day she was blown in her right eye by the little toy her brothers used to play. Walker was told not to tell anything about the gun to her parents. Only in a week, her parents and Alice went to see a doctor. By that time, she already had a glob of whitish scar tissue. She also remembered the words of her doctor, "Of one is blind, the other will likely become blind too"(3). It is amazing how childhood may influence the future. Since that time Alice Walker lost her self-confidence, she didn't feel that she is that cute little girl anymore who was able to amaze the audience with her long Easter speeches. Furthermore, she started doing poorly at school, her contact with others ended, she did not stare at anyone anymore because she stopped raising her head up, students in her new school made fun of her. Her relatives kept telling

Show More
Related

  • Black White And Jewish Rebecca Walker Summary

    884 Words  | 4 Pages

    While living in San Francisco with her mother, Walker had a situation in elementary school where she was attacked by two boys in her grade. “Dakeba comes charging out of the building. He shouts to Robert, Get her! And then Robert stands in front of me and won’t let em by and starts pushing me with big, rough ashy hands. Dakeba gets behind me and when Robert pushes me my back slams into his chest.

    Read More

  • Helen Keller Figurative Language

    495 Words  | 2 Pages

    Keller states, “I was so entranced ‘seeing’ that I did not think about sight” (p. 4). Despite not being able to understand vision, she is able to depict her awareness of her surroundings figurative language. Through her uncanny use of humor, the reader can understand that Keller shows her awareness by using the analogy of “sight” to describe her experience of blindness. The author shows awareness of her disability, but interprets it as a new perspective that can provide her with a keen imagination.

    Read More

  • Pearl Hester: The Most Transcendental Character

    230 Words  | 1 Pages

    By creating a world for herself within nature, Pearl mocks the institutionalized society surrounding her, proving how she is the most transcendental character. Nathaniel Hawthorne chooses to describe Pearl Hester as “material of [the] earth” and “a lovely and immortal flower” to show how she possesses natural qualities, something characteristic of a transcendentalist (61, 62). In addition to possessing “beautiful and brilliant…[natural] elements,” Pearl develops an individualistic relationship with nature (62). While in “seclusion from human society,” Pearl creates “her [own] inner world,” using “a stick, a bunch of rags, [and] a flower” to depict a variety of “imaginary personages” (65). By using the “black and solemn…pine-trees” to represent

    Read More

  • Point Of View In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

    983 Words  | 4 Pages

    The point of view in the story “Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker plays a big part. Throughout the story, one of Mama’s daughters came to visit. The way Mama and Maggie see her is not in a very pleasant way. In fact, they are scared to tell her no when it comes to anything. From Mama’s perspective Dee seems like this rude, stuck up, spoiled child because she had the opportunity to go out and expand her education, while Mama and Maggie continued to live their lives on the farm.

    Read More

  • The Flowers By Alice Walker Essay

    422 Words  | 2 Pages

    And the Summer was Over Summer is a universal symbol with as positive connotation filled with happiness and warm, long nights. When the temperature drops and jackets get pulled from the back of your closet, winter is approaching. Winter can be a time of snow mans and hot chocolate or a period of sadness, mystery, guilt, and regret. Alice Walker’s last sentence of her beautiful story, “The Flowers,” states, “And the summer was over,” which is a symbolic explanation that after every happy moment of euphoria comes a time of sadness and sorrow.

    Read More

  • The Flowers By Alice Walker Analysis

    1003 Words  | 5 Pages

    The story “The flowere” by Alice Walker is about a young girl named Mayop who sudden fall from innocence. Myop is happy and carefree as she skips around her family playing with the animals. She does not look beyond her free comfortable childhood. She decides to explore the woods as she had done many times with her mother in late autumn while gathering nuts. The setting of the story is in natural, outdoor surroundings, where most of the event occur.

    Read More

  • Imagery And Diction In Alice Walker's 'The Flowers'

    524 Words  | 3 Pages

    Alice Walker uses imagery and diction throughout her short story to tell the reader the meaning of “The Flowers”. The meaning of innocence lost and people growing up being changed by the harshness of reality. The author is able to use the imagery to show the difference between innocence and the loss of it. The setting is also used to show this as well.

    Read More

  • Loss Of Innocence In 'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'

    657 Words  | 3 Pages

    In one moment it’s ripped away from them: the only thing keeping them young; the only thing keeping them shielded from the world. It’s the mother watching her fatherless daughter cry over his coffin. It is the boy being slapped by his loving father for the first time. I That thing is known as “loss of innocence”, but is it really a loss? All one loses is their naivety and artlessness.

    Read More

  • Everyday Use Compare And Contrast Essay

    609 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conclusion,Alice Walker used two characters to carry out a deeper meaning of a short story. It showed similarities and differences to my family, and the family in “Everyday use”. Also it show how maggie and Dee are two very different characters. Maggie and Dee didn 't share a bond with each other throughout their,but I am glad my brothers and I

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Alice Walker's 'The Flowers'

    1002 Words  | 5 Pages

    Transitional states of maturity can be challenged or championed by unexpected discoveries which can be confronting or provocative. This is explored through Alice Walker’s 1973 prose fiction, “The Flowers”, as the protagonist’s view on the world is transformed due to the personal zemblanic discovery made. The short story explores the themes of loss of innocence and death in order to address cultural indifference and the prejudice experienced by certain groups within society, which in turn causes individuals to be effected negatively. Walker hopes to evoke sense of political and social reflection in her audience, hoping that intimate discoveries of past inequity by her readers will ensure cultural equity maintains future momentum.

    Read More

  • Theme For Lusus Naturae

    711 Words  | 3 Pages

    One day, she got to close and “too visible” (227). She saw people a boy and a girl, and she saw the things they were doing. She saw the normal things they were doing, the things that she wished she could do, but she couldn’t. They weren’t like her and she knew that.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Maggie In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

    343 Words  | 2 Pages

    Maggie in Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” plays the role of being the nervous and ugly sister of the story, however she is the child with the good heart. Maggie was nervous ashamed of her scars “Maggie was nervous… she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs”. Living in a house with a pretty sister and being the ugly sister with scars could be the reason why she picked up on a timid personality, being ‘ashamed’ of her own skin shaping her in a way that she degraded herself from everybody else. Maggie was not this way before the fire, her mother stated, as it is quoted that she had adopted to a certain walk ever since the fire.

    Read More

  • The Narcissistic Narrator In Raymond Carver's Cathedral

    910 Words  | 4 Pages

    Robert loves his wife and views her as his soulmate rather than a body to fill empty space. Robert’s physical blindness does not hold him back from feeling, while the narrator’s emotional lack of sight proves more

    Read More

  • The Flowers By Alice Walker Literary Devices

    455 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the short story “The Flowers”, Alice Walker sufficiently prepares the reader for the texts surprise ending while also displaying the gradual loss of Myop’s innocence. The author uses literary devices like imagery, setting, and diction to convey her overall theme of coming of age because of the awareness of society's behavior.     At the beguining of the story the author makes use of proper and necessary diction to create a euphoric and blissful aura. The character Myop “skipped lightly” while walker describes the harvests and how is causes “excited little tremors to run up her jaws.”. This is an introduction of the childlike innocence present in the main character.

    Read More

  • Roger Scruton Why Beauty Matters Summary

    700 Words  | 3 Pages

    The narrator claims, that beauty is essential to give us a purpose of life. It has the ability to transform our surroundings, and get us to a higher spiritual level. He explores

    Read More

More about Beauty In Alice Walker's Gift Of Beauty

Open Document