Symbolism In Alice Walker's Essay 'My Mother Blue Bowl'

Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese” was a text that had a profound, illuminating, and positive impact upon me due to its use of imagery, its relevant and meaningful message, and the insightful process of preparing the poem for verbal recitation. I first read “Wild Geese” in fifth grade as part of a year-long poetry project, and although I had been exposed to poetry prior to that project, I had never before analyzed a poem in such great depth. This process of becoming intimately familiar with the poem—I can still recite most of it to this day—allowed it to have the effect it did; the more one engulfs oneself in a text, the more of an impact that text will inevitably have. “Wild Geese” was both revealing and thought-provoking: reciting it gave me

Thrust into motherhood at the age of fourteen Anney Boatwright sets out to prove she is a good caring mother. Throughout a Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison, she provides examples of Anney Boatwright as a loving mother of Reese and Bone, but then instances occur that show that might not be true. This essay will show that Anney Boatwright appears to love and care about her family, but fails as a mother because she lacks introspect, puts her daughters at risk, and abandons her family.

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.

The Characters of Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” reveals how Differing personalities can create fissures in family ties, their personal choices shaping each other and the feelings they have about one another.

We are stuck in a stable distance from each other, magnets connected by the stream of my words. I start my story in the middle and move in both directions. I tell her unimportant things, memories of little events that happened to me, clothes Mom wears and Dad’s funny mailman adventures. I tell her Aunt Ida’s favorite programs and I tell her about Father Tom and the yellow raft. I tell her, yes, Seattle, but the reservation too, and Mom somewhere with a man named Dayton and all her pills from Charlene. I tell her I wanted to trade places with Ellen. I tell her about my lifetime membership and I tell her about mom just walking off and leaving….I don’t hang for her to answer anymore. There’s a weight off me. I said it all out loud and the world didn’t come to an end. (Dorris 105-106)

Parenting is never perfect. Every parents questions whether they are raising their child correctly, and no parent ever feels like they are doing the right thing. With no clear distinction between good and bad parenting, it is usually left to personal preferences and judgements to decide which parents have adequately raised their children and which have failed. When a parent so call “fails,” often it is the children with their strong will and determination to survive that collectively raise themselves. In Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, Leonie, one of the narrators and the mother of another narrator, Jojo, is not the most caring, hands-on mother, but is loving of her children nevertheless. Leonie is not just the failed mother most make her out to be because her thoughts are in the right place, trying the best she can given her own circumstances, but her past and her own childhood haunts her too

Alice Walker’s story “Roselily” is about hardships and doing what is best for the ones you love. The story elegantly shows Roselily’s emotions and thoughts about her marriage through diction and symbolism. These literary devices portray an unsure mother about her decision to marry a religious man for the sake of her children and her future.

In the short story “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker shows the conflicts and struggles with people of the African-American culture in America. The author focuses on the members of the Johnson family, who are the main characters. In the family there are 2 daughters and a mother. The first daughter is named Maggie, who had been injured in a house fire has been living with her mom. Her older sister is Dee, who grew up with natural beauty wanted to have a better life than her mother and sister.The author used symbolism throughout the whole story to show the difference between these characters. The symbolism is there to give us a further explanation on the family and also to tell us how much heritage is important to some, but not others.

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.

Alice Walker’s Everyday Use (rpt. in Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine’s Literature Sound and Structure 11th ed [Boston: Wadsworth, 2012] 166-173) is a short story told by the mother of two daughters, Mama. The story tells the tale of the return of Mama’s oldest daughter, Dee, and the problems that Dee’s return causes for Mama and her youngest daughter, Maggie. This short story includes humor and irony, displays detailed characterization, and portrays a very effective point of view. These three literary elements contribute to this story by giving insight into the past and the true personalities of the characters, and the way the characters have changed over time.

The relationship between a mother and a daughter holds a special bond of love and care. While mothers truly care for their daughters, this act of devotion can lead to conflicts. The strength of their bond is the determining factor in overcoming and being able to tolerate periods of disagreement. The excerpts in Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club both display the reality of mother-daughter relationships. The attachment and deep affection that the mothers give to their daughters provoke arguments between the two. While Chua gives off a tone of irritation to express her relationship with her daughter, Tan displays a more harsh, resentful tone.

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.

Alice Walker creates her character’s actions relatable to their physical characteristics, which are symbolic in correspondence to their heritage. Dee’s male “friend,” decides to change his name to a Muslim name and like the Muslim culture, he refuses to eat pork. Hence, he refused to take part in the African American cultured dinner Mrs. Johnson and Maggie had prepared. Mrs. Johnson was described as “a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands” and can “kill a hog as mercilessly as a man” (Walker 486). She was a woman who did many chores and had a good work ethic, but indicates that she had a tough life. Symbolic significance is also obtained from Maggie scarred skin from the fire; the scars she has on her body in the same way, have

The story Everyday Use was written by Alice walker. Alice walker was an American author, poet and activist. She has written many novels, poems and stories. She wrote both fiction and nonfiction books. Everyday use was one of her books and it was published in 1973. This story talks about a family that consists of the mother (narrator) and her two daughters’ (Dee and Maggie). In the story they never say anything about the father because he was dead. The main things that the story is revolving around is the heritage and how it is important, the relationship between the two sisters, how education makes a differences, and finally about how generations changed by time.

For different people, comparable situations do not always reproduce the same end results or leave the same impressions. Rather, the resulting conclusion is often highly variable. As is the case of two labors featured in the poems, My Father’s Lunch” and “The life of a Digger”. While Erica Funkhouser’s speaker, Henry, experiences injustice and lack of reward for his hard labor in “The Life of a Digger,” Margarita Engle’s speaker experiences prosperity and remuneration for their father’s hard work in “My Father’s Lunch.” Each author uses the setting of a laboring man’s lunch break to demonstrate the ramifications of a hard day’s work and the rewards or lack thereof for their efforts.