Strong Horse Tea

Introduction
Alice Walker is one of the most significant black American woman writer in the post-1950 era.
The themes of Walker ́s novels reflect her background; she frequently writes about the
experiences of blacks, particularly black women. Sexism and racism are prominent themes in
her works, but most of her writing has an underlying theme of survival. She refuses to
“romanticize the Southern black country life.”

Alice Walker
Alice Walker, (born 1944, Georgia, U.S.), American writer whose novels, short stories, and
poems are noted for their insightful treatment of African American culture. Her novels focus
particularly on women.
Walker was the eighth child of African American sharecroppers. While growing up she was
accidentally blinded in one eye, and her mother gave her a typewriter, allowing her to write
instead of doing chores.

Culture Clash: the Struggle with Racial Identity in “strong Horse Tea”
Community is as life sustaining as food and water. It provides human connection, a sense of
identity and support. However, human nature leads individuals to seek experiences separate
from their communities. In the story, Rannie goes a step further, rejecting her community in
search of validation from the whites. She believes that a connection with white society can only
come from the rejection of her black identity. This belief leads to her mistrust of Sarah’s
medicine.
“I don’t believe in none of that swamp magic.” (Rannie)
The mailman, who gives the perspective of the white society, shows the indifference of the
white culture in Rannie’s struggle. After white society fails her, she turns to her black tradition.
But by the time she turns to her own community, it was too late. Through Rannie’s struggle
with community identity, Walker illustrates the consequences of cultural division.

Historical Background
● It is important to see the historical reliance of African Americans on folk medicine. In the past,
slaves weren’t allowed to use traditional cures to treat any illness on their own. The owners
saw it as their responsibility to cure the slaves with modern medicine. Therefore, using
traditional cures was one way of resistance to white ownership and a claim of responsibility for
and control over their own bodies.
►Sarah’s talents as a traditional healer are a legacy of her culture’s active resistance to
oppression.
● “shot syndrom”: due to the usage of penicillin during WWII, shots were generally accepted
not because of their scientific proof, but they were known to be traditionally efficient.
Walker ́s style of writing
Alice Walker often writes works in which a black protagonist, usually a woman, is caught
between black and white cultures and inevitably becoming the victim of both. At her best,
Walker neither indulges in polemics nor seeks to blame; indeed, here, as third-person narrator,
she distances herself from her characters and allows the story to tell itself.
The effect of this technique is akin to high tragedy. The reader of “Strong Horse Tea,” for
example, knows that the white doctor will not come, that either Sarah will refuse to help once
Rannie has rejected “witch’s remedies” or that Sarah’s help will probably come too late. What
comes as a surprise is the grotesque indignity to which Rannie submits in order to do what she
desperately hopes will help her child. Here, most of all, Rannie’s guileless innocence comes into
its sharpest focus.
Experiences which she consistently cites as crucial to her development as a writer:
1. Trauma of being blinded by her brother
2. Involuntarily pregnancy
3. Involvement in the Civil Rigths Movement

Influence on Walker
The work of Zora Neale Hurston has shaped and informed Walker ́s writing throughout her
career; she is a legitimating presence in the African American literary tradition.

Characters
● Rannie Toomer: Rannie is an ugly, black, uneducated and very poor woman, whose life is
comparable to Alice Walker’s childhood. As she is unmarried, her child Snooks is everything she
has. She is naïve in the beginning and hopes that the white doctor will help her child, but
realizes in the end that trusting Sarah’s black magic is the only possibility.

● Sarah: Sarah is considered to be a witch and she knows that the community is the only thing
which Rannie can rely on, whereas a white doctor will never come to help Snooks. Sarah
personifies the black community and also the fact that women have to stick together and
cannot trust men.

● Snooks: Snooks is Rannie’s child, who “is dying from double pneumonia and whooping
cough”.
● Mailman: The mailman embodies the white people. He doesn’t seem to have any have
problems, sits in his warm car, wears new clothes and is healthy and strong because he has
enough to eat. His role is ironic, because he is the connection between two different worlds: he
delivers the circulars with nice products for rich people but Rannie can neither understand the
circulars nor afford the products. The mailman deals with Rannie in a very superficial way,
doesn’t listen care for her problems. In the end, he almost escapes from her problems and
doesn’t want to be bothered any longer. He feels repelled by her. He represents the behaviour
and attitude of the whole white society.
Timeline
The short story does not include an explicit time reference. Objects such as the mailman’s car
or the circulars mentioned in the text point to a period of time after WWII.

Symbolism of the Setting

The short story is situated in a very poor area. Rannie lives in a very shabby hut: the house is
not isolated and it is very cold inside; the windows are grimy; the quilts are thin and pale. Since
the house is situated in a pasture, Rannie and Snooks are in a way living with animals.
Outside it is raining and the ground has turned into mud, what signifies that Rannie/the blacks
are stuck in their situation.

Narrator
The short story presents an overt narrator who is omniscient and omnipresent. The narrator
highly judges and comments on the figures in the narration. He has an inside view on the
characters’ feelings and thoughts. “Today he thought she looked more ignorant than usual...”
At some points the narrator’s report of what is going on seems to pass over into a free indirect
discourse giving a full and unclouded perspective on the characters’ minds. “He gave her what
he hoped was a big friendly smile. God! He didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”

Themes
White society vs. Black community
The entire story is interlaced with not only a sharp contrast of skin colours but also with the
difficult problem of a community in transition. On the one hand there is an economically
developed white society which excludes African Americans and their problems not only
mentally but geographically as well.

Culture vs. nature

Closely connected to the contrast above is the gap between culture and nature. The mailman
represents a white society that has a functioning health care system based on modern scientific
achievements which is not available for blacks. Sarah, a conjure woman, represents a tradition
of folk cure. The gap is widened by Rannie’s inability to understand the function of the circulars.
They are helpful to her in only one way, to paper the inside of her hut in order to keep the wind
out.

Illusion vs. truth

Rannie clings to a double illusion about modern medicine. First, that one shot will cure her
baby, considering the shot to be an infallible miracle and second, that this shot will be available
upon demand in this moment of crises. Sarah is fully aware of both of these illusions and of the
racial discrimination connected to the second one.
Young vs. old
Rannie’s and Sarah’s relationship can be seen as a conflict of two generations. Racism has made
blacks mistrust their own abilities and forced them into depending on the white culture of
which Rannie is a victim. For Rannie a white doctor is the only source of salvation, so she turns
away from African American culture even if this action is linked with the threat of death. She
ignores Sarah’s offer to help and treats her with intolerance. In opposition to that Sarah is
practicing her art of healing and therefore perpetuates a powerful tradition of resistance to
white racism, a cultural reality she wants Rannie to accept.

Symbolism
Horse tea
There are traditional cures that employ urine and horses as instruments of regenerative power,
not humiliation. The story is not constructed to demonstrate that the tea can actually revive
Snooks but as a symbol of her traditions.

Pasture
The pasture is a symbolic terrain where Rannie’s inability to move appropriately in her
surroundings is shown. Rannie is not merely physically isolated in the pasture; she has
separated herself from her cultural heritage as well.

Circulars
The advertisement in connection with the mailman are Rannie’s only link to a modern white
society which she doesn’t understand.

Gray mare
Seeing a gray mare is a sign of death.

Winter Storm
The winter storm, which continues in varying degrees of fury, serves as an important symbol.
Rannie cannot escape; it pours through the walls of her shack, and it drenches her on her two
errands to help Snooks.

Conclusion
"Strong Horse Tea" is a tale of monumental tragedy, made even more upsetting by the story's
absurd climax.