Alice walker in search of the garden Essay Example for Free

Alice walker in search of the garden Essaylice carts essay, In Search of Our Mothers Garden, talks about her search of the Afri posterior American womens suppressed talent, of the artistic skills and talents that they lost because of thraldom and a forced way of life. go-cart builds up her arguments from historical sluicets as well as the incarnate experiences of African Americans, including her own.She uses these experiences to arse up her arguments formed from recollections of various(a) African American characters and events. Walker points out that a great part of her mothers and grandmothers lives have been suppressed because of their sad, dark pasts. But in all of these be not lost because someways, these are manifested in even the smallest things that they do, and that they were also able to pass it down to the very people that they loved. Our search of our mothers garden may end back to ourselves.Walker builds up her argument by mentioning the experiences of othe r people in the essay. One of them is Jean Toomer, a poet in the be eons 1920s. He is a man who observed that Black women are unique because they possessed intense spirituality in them, even though their bodies endure either aspect of punishment in every single day of their lives. They were in the strictest sense Saints crazy, pitiful saints. Walker points out that without a doubt, our mothers and grandmothers belong to this type of people.By building up on the observations of Toomer, she was somehow able to show how hard it was to be a mother or a grandmother or even just a woman at that time, one reason perhaps is that they are black. The mothers and grandmothers at that time endured all of this without any hope that tomorrow go forth be different, be better. Because of this, they were not able to fully express themselves. They were held back by their society.Another black character that she used to build her argument is Phillis Wheatley, a Black slave girl with a precarious h ealth. Phillis is a poet and a writer at her own right, but unfortunately, she wasnt able to do much(prenominal) with it because she was a slave. She didnt have anything for herself, worse, she didnt even own herself. Her futile attempts for self expression would be washed up by forced crusade and pregnancies. She lost her health, and eventually her life without fully expressing herself through her gift for poetry.Alice Walker used the story of Phillis to establish the understanding that indeed, African American women at that time were not allowed or didnt have the luxury of time to exercise their gifts, to hone their talents and abilities, and use them to fully express themselves. By doing so, Walker proves that our mothers and grandmothers lived a boxed-in(a) life back then, with no way to channel to them emotions and thoughts other than hard labor and forced servitude. She pointed out that we wouldnt know if anyone of them wouldve bloomed to be poets, singers, actresses, becaus e they never in truth had the chance to know what they can do.By building up her argument using these two accounts, she is also presenting very strong evidence to her claim. These accounts were personal experiences of touchable African American people, and these are not just isolated cases. These are shared experiences not just by these two but by all of their people. Walker can confidently say that there is a lot of Phillis Wheatley in those times, perhaps including her mother and grandmothers. This is concrete evidence because it is not fictional, it is not imaginary, or something conceived out of Walkers creativity. Slavery, forced pregnancies, poverty, and artistic suppression were the realities during the time of our grandmothers. No one can pass up this, and no one can deny the existence of Phillis or the accounts of Jean Toomer.Con arrayring Alice Walkers authority in her arguments, she could be considered as an expert, a reliable source of information on the topic. for t he first time off, she is an African American woman, who had her fair share of poverty in her childhood. She was born and raised by hardworking parents, who really had to work day and night to go forth for their family. Also, she witnesses first hand that even though her mother may not be a poet or a novelist she was an artist in the truest sense. Her artistic side is manifested in her gardens and the beautiful flowers that she grows. Alice Walker witnessed all of this, experienced first hand what it was standardised to be poor and seemingly talentless.The accounts that Alice Walker used to prove her points and back up her arguments were African American history that she was all too familiar with. It may have been shared to her by her families, or simply a collective knowledge passed down from one generation to another. She is also well-educated, a wide reader, and an artist. She often cites Virginia Woolfs A Room of Ones Own, relating a duster womans plight to a black womans har dships. She emphasizes that even though she recognizes Woolfs point about societys foul treatment to women of her time, Walker still believes that black women suffered the most (Walker). There is simply nothing that could compare to the artistic suppression that her mother and grandmothers experienced.In this essay, she is appealing to a general audience, with no specific race or ethnicity. I think this essay was written to highlight the African American women of her mother and grandmothers time, who were unable to express their talents and hone it to its full potential. This essay is written to inform anyone and everyone reading it about their stories, and of her discovery of her mothers garden. She was glad to know that it is assertable for African American women to express themselves even unknowingly, that it is up to us to discover these gardens. She is appealing to the readers in general that even though some people like our mothers and grandmothers seem talentless or artisti cally inferior, it doesnt mean that they really lack the talent. It just means that were not looking hard enough to find it.Alice Walkers method of using personal experience and historical accounts allow her to truthfully see and say what has really happened. She doesnt have to make up hypothetical events because she already has a basis for her arguments. Jean Toomers recollections and Phillis Wheatleys experiences are enough proof of her argument. If some people would disagree with what shes saying, she can always go back to their experiences, to how Phillis suffered without fully using her gift, or what Toomer saw in the streets in the early Twenties.But because of this, I think Walker is somehow limited to the sad and pitiful stories of the past. Well, in reality, most of the stories of African Americans were really sad and pitiful, but still, Walker failed to mention of any successful artist who blush from the ranks of slaves to write her own story. It is either this kind of st ory really didnt exist at that time, or Walker just didnt mention it, since it wasnt the focus ofher essay.Alice Walker concluded her essay by saying that Phillis Wheatleys mother was also an artist, and that the achievements of their daughters were in some way brought about by their mothers. Her culture states that the mother is somehow responsible in every achievement of their daughter. Any artistic output by a person is also a fruit of their mother. Indeed, their children are their best creations, their very own wonderful gardens. This conclusion is related to her method because it goes back to how Phillis Wheatleys mother was somehow responsible for her daughters artistic sense, and that beyond the poverty and the hardships that our mothers and grandmothers experienced during their times, they were still able to artistically express themselves through their children, their very own wonderful gardens.