Alice Walker Essay Collection: Searching for Our Mother’s Gardens

The essay collection in search of our mother’s Gardens by Alice walker is a fascinating essay informing the readers about the history of the women of color in America and how their energetic, innovative spirit survived in a world full of harsh oppressions. She utilizes her own experiences to support her contentions formed from the recollections of numerous black Americans characters and occurrences. Walker captures the attention of the audience by incorporation the experiences of several people in her writing.

The essay collection

The essay collection is gathered from speeches, statements from people, reviews, articles as well as essays. A vast majority is based on her own experiences. Apart from womanhood and creativity, walker also tackles topics such as nuclear weapons, anti-Semitism along with civil right movements. Looking into this essay collection, one learns many things about walker as well as other people who touched her life. It can be said that these essays captures the voice of uncelebrated heroines.

Our mothers and grandmothers, some of them: moving to music not yet written. And they waited. They waited for a day when the unknown thing that was in them would be made known; but guessed, somehow in their darkness, that on the day of their revelation they would be long dead.-- ----- Did you have a genius of a great-great-grandmother who died under some ignorant and depraved white overseer’s lash? P. 402

The voice here used by Walker

The voice here used by Walker is honest, straightforward and empathetic but also playful. It is personal. She tells story from the experience of such women who are long dead and indeed does reflect the meaning and the value of their experiences and the virtue of not giving up. The main themes in the essay are the search of woman freedom and role models, and as the passage states grandmothers were very hopeful in spite of the conditions they were in, they never gave up hope. In fact they channeled their creativity positively in spite of oppressions. The great-great grandmothers might have died without enjoying the freedom present today but they never gave up and that is why woman who is intelligent who makes most of what they have. The walker’s voice makes audience really put themselves in the shoes of these women.

Style

But at last, Phillis, we understand. No more snickering when your stiff, struggling, ambivalent lines are forced on us. We know now that ..... It is not so much what you sang, as that you kept alive, in so many of our ancestors, the notion of song. P. 405

Walker employs the conventional African American forms of artistic and personal expression. Walker does uphold the narrative techniques of orality. Walker additionallyl utilizes themes and techniques of blue music. This indeed does bring out the essence of black people experience. Blue music does epitomize the blue mood the suffering of people of color whose very presence is painful. The narratives of female characters can be taken as blue songs as each give personalized version of their sufferings.

Structure

I have absorbed not only the stories themselves, but something of the manner in which she spoke, something of the urgency that involves the knowledge that her stories-like her life-must be recorded. It is probably for this reason that so much of what I have written is about characters whose counterparts in real life are so much older than I am. P 407

The structure of walker writing is personalization. She writes about her own experiences, those of her family members as well as those of her family members and audience indeed empathize and some can even relate. She personalizes the experiences of older woman whom she never met and allows the audience to relate well.

Ideas

Black women are called, in the folklore that so aptly identifies one’s status in society, “the mule of the world,” because we have been handed the burdens that everyone else-everyone else-refused to carry. 405

The ideas- this passage here summarizes the suffering and perceptions of African maraca women. They are perceived as inferior and were suppressed. They are burden whom the whites want to discard. The few heroic women like Zora Hurston were never celebrated, however had she been a white woman, she would have been widely celebrated and obviously famous. So indeed the message of this essay collection is to show the creativity and endurance of black women even if they are oppressed and perceived as a burden.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this essay collection indeed manages to make the audience understand and empathize with the struggles of African American women. The current generation therefore understands they are where they are and are enjoying the freedom they have now due to the struggle and resilience of the uncelebrated ancestors.

Work Cited

Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. , 2011. Print.