Alice Walker

By: Gabriela & Natalia

Biography
Alice Walker was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and
activist. She also, worked as a social worker, teacher and lecturer, and took
part in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. She wrote a few
popular and well known books. She was born February 9th, 1944 in Putnam
County, Georgia. She wrote the critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple
(1982) for which she won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize
for Fiction.
Imagery
In all Alice’s stories there is so much imagery. She gives many details to
help understand her point in the story. One of the stories that she uses very
descriptive language to show imagery is To Hell with Dying. The most
descriptive part I read in the story was, “Mr. Sweet was a tall, thinnish man
with thick kinky hair going dead white. He Was dark brown,his eyes were
squinty and sort of bluish, and he chewed Brown Mule tobacco.” This was
the most descriptive because you can get a clear picture of what Mr. Sweet
looked like to the main character.
Figurative Language
Another thing that Alice uses in her stories is figurative language. In the
story Use, Alice uses a lot of figurative language and metaphors. One of my
favorite similes that Alice uses is in the first line of the story. “A yard like
this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is
like an extended living room.” Alice uses this simile to describe that to the
main character the yard is like an extended living room which to me means
that the yard is a place to be yourself and relax.
Dialogue
Lastly, the last thing that we noticed while reading Alice Walker’s short
stories were dialogue. We noticed that she has dialogue, but after two little
pieces of dialogue it goes back into more details. For example, in the story
Use Alice has a very short piece of dialogue (two pieces of dialogue) and
once it’s over, more details go into the character and scene. To me, this
shows that Alice likes everything to have explicit details and she wants her
audience to know exactly what’s happening.