Graphic Content in Alice Walkers Books - Research Paper Example

? No Graphic Content in Alice Walker’s Books: Necessary or Potentially Damaging? Introduction Perhaps one of the greatest things man has ever been given is the gift of using his/her words to express emotions, ideas, thoughts, and different experiences in life. Indeed, through words, man’s literature has enabled him to portray history, as well as different settings and events in a person’s life. Through literature, man has come to speak of the unspeakable, paint the unimaginable, and achieve the impossible. This is indeed the case of Alice Walker, a prominent writer and activist for the rights of black women. Through her numerous essays, short stories and other prose, she was able to open the eyes of the world to the harsh conditions experienced by African-American women, not only in the hands of a racist White society, but also in the folds of a highly-patriarchal Black society. This portrayal was most successfully achieved in Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, which gained acclaim through its brutal honesty and rawness in the depiction of the sufferings experienced by African-American women. However, Alice Walker’s books have many scenes that describe violence against women, racial beatings and lesbian sex in detail. Critical reception of the book is mixed, with some praising it for its realistic portrayal of the problems black women face. Others view its graphic content as extreme, unnecessary and potentially damaging to readers. This content has seen the book banned by several school boards. Thus, an important question that has to be addressed in reading the works of Alice Walker involves, “Is Walker’s graphic content necessary, or does it merely shock the reader yet add nothing of value to the book?” In relation, this paper will then attempt to answer the said question on the necessity of the graphic content in Alice Walker’s literary works. This will be achieved by first looking into the background of the writer, as well as an overview of her works. This will help this writer set the different arguments and discussions in the context of the author’s time period and experiences. Afterwards, specific examples of violence, abuse and graphic content in the different works of Walker will be explored. Specifically, the works The Color Purple, Everyday Use, You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, In Love & Trouble, and Possessing the Secret of Joy will be touched on in the attempt to present the degree of violence and graphic content in the literary works of Alice Walker. Afterwards, the idea that the graphic content included by Walker in her literature is unnecessary will be explored. Numerous supporting arguments will be provided to support this thought. However, after this, the other end of the continuum will be explored, wherein this paper will then provide arguments supporting the concept that graphic content of the works of Alice Walker are necessary. In this part of the paper, this writer will attempt to discuss the important role of the graphic contents in the different novels and stories of Alice Walker. Most importantly, this paper will attempt to prove, through the different arguments and discussions, that although some of the graphic contents provided in Alice Walker’s works can be deemed unnecessary, the greater majority of the violence and graphic details given by the author are important aspects of the work: without them the novels and stories would not have been as vivid, powerful, and effective. Walker: Background and Overview of Works On the 9th of February 1944, Alice Walker was born into a world just beginning to recover from the ill-effects of war, and into a society where racial stratification is so prominent it was almost a norm (Donnelly 17). As the youngest of eight siblings, Alice Walker grew up knowing a life of poverty, especially since her parents were poor sharecroppers and the family income had to be divided among the ten members of the family. Because of their race and their color, the Walker family experienced numerous forms of discrimination, and Alice grew up in an environment loaded with violent racism, especially against African Americans. This racism proved to be a greater challenge when Alice was badly disfigured by a BB gun accident while she was playing with her brothers. These events all worked to mar the young girl, and provide a darker shade to her future writings (Fish 42). Still, despite these difficulties, Alice emerged triumphant as she found her calling and talent in the field of literature. However, achieving her status as a well-known writer was not easy and she had to go through numerous disappointments and challenges before she was even able to publish her first literary work. In fact, the difficulties and traumas she has experienced in the earlier days of her life left a permanent impression on her literary works and her style of writing (Alumbaugh 55). Through the darker tones of the experiences and events revealed by Walker in her novels and essays, her works have become significant pieces in the realm of literary history, especially for women and minority races (Lazo 16). With works that are mostly fiction, Walker portrayed different characters that, in a way, reflected aspects of her personal life as well as experiences. Indeed, a vital facet of the literary works by Walker is the openness by which the author exposed her personal experiences (Lauret 4). In all, the works of Alice Walker deal with the powerful theme of the discrimination experienced by women, as well as minority races, specifically African American races. To better understand these ideas, the next section would then look into some of the specific works of Alice Walker, especially focusing on the violence or graphic content of the said novels. Violence in Numerous Specific Works Because of what Alice Walker has gone through as she was growing up, she became aware of the darkness within people, and the pain and suffering one can experience even in the hands of one’s own people. These may have then led to the degree of the graphic content and violence found in her works. Alice Walker’s most known novel, The Color Purple, is perhaps a great example of the high degree of graphic content in Walker’s literary works. Through the personal accounts of Celie, the protagonist of the story, the reader comes to know of the pain and difficulty of physical abuse, especially if the person delivering the said abuse is a person you care for, specifically your father. Even the first line of the novel, “you better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy” (1) set the reader’s mind into some sense of impending doom and a state of fear. The following accounts of the child’s molestation, of her two pregnancies and delivery, of the loss of her children and her mother, and other heart-wrenching life events are things that are not for children or for the faint-hearted. The high incidence of graphic scenes can also be observed in Walker’s other works, Everyday Use, You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, In Love & Trouble, Possessing the Secret of Joy and others, although the percentage of their graphic content vary. The first literary work, Everyday Use, involves a short story that speaks of a woman’s search of her African-American identity. In this work, graphic details of violence were used mildly, since the intended thoughts could be delivered even without much use of violence of graphic details. Indeed, through the thoughts of the main character, in her conversations with her daughter, and in the simplicity used by Walker in this story, she needed only minor violence and graphic details to make the story more. The said story is haunting in the sense that the reader is caught within the web of confusion woven around the new generation of African-Americans who have began to lose their ethnic identities. For You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, a collection of short stories, involves a series of events and characters that stimulate thought and emotions from the reader. In these stories, Walker again used a great degree of graphic descriptions, ranging from racial abuses and crimes, even up to almost pornographic descriptions of sexual encounters between the characters. What can be seen as a major issue in some of these stories is that the sexual encounters they describe are those that do not belong to the norm, or are considered taboo, especially during the time they were written. More specifically, Walker described in her stories lesbian sexual affairs, perhaps as a reflection of her inner issues regarding her sexual orientation. Such is also the case in In Love & Trouble, another collection of short stories by Walker. This batch of stories was published before You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, and involves stories of African-American women, their struggles in a racially discriminating as well as patriarchal society, and their ultimate rise to finding their true identities. In these stories, Walker was able to beautifully and realistically bind together the different women who formed the different stories compiled in the book. Finally, the last book, Possessing the Secret of Joy, involved the story of Tashi Johnson who, motivated by her misguided loyalty to the ethnic traditions of her people, goes through a traumatizing female circumcision. Graphic contents were most especially used during this tribal rite, as well as in other sections of the book. As much graphic as Walker’s other works, this novel displayed a strong portrait of violence, and the fact that violence will only lead to more violence. Walker has numerous other works which used graphic descriptions in their contents. However, the ones described in this section of the paper are the ones with the most graphic descriptions. Thus, given the degree of Walker’s usage of graphic content, the next section of the paper will then look into the idea that the said graphic contents may have been worthless or totally unnecessary. Worthlessness of Graphic Content As established earlier, one reason Walker’s works contain so much elements of violence and abuse is the context in which she wrote the stories and the books. Growing up as a black child, she experienced discrimination and abuse from white societies, and even from more dominant or superior black males. This violence she experienced early on in her life reflected and resonated into her works, especially in The Color Purple. In fact, it is this book that most brought about controversies and claims that Walker’s use of graphic content may have been too much. Some sources also claimed that the violence and negativities presented in most of her works, especially The Color Purple is very unnecessary, and that the descriptions were exaggerated or overdone. Indeed, Walkers’ works have been banned and even challenged for their violence, especially in the case of Sophia, a character in The Color Purple: “They crack her skull, they crack her ribs. They tear her nose loose on one side. They blind her in one eye. She swole from head to foot. Her tongue the size of my arm, it stick out tween her teeth,” (84) and so on. The character of Sophia, who was an epitome of kindness, was described in such a horrible way that questions were raised whether the descriptions were really significant. Indeed, Jefferson (n.p.) wrote that the descriptions were completely unnecessary. Also, another unnecessary description in the works of Walker is the degree by which she described and presented graphic sexuality, as well as lesbianism. This is especially true in the case of the rape scenes, wherein the progression of each act of intrusion is described in detail, including the threats of the father to Celie (in the Color Purple), and in several other works. Moreover, some sources also say that the description of scenes between the two females was again highly unnecessary and does not really add to the overall impact of the story. For example, the scene between Shug and Celie was described in detail in The Color Purple, “And then she haul off and kiss me on the mouth. Us kiss and kiss till us can’t hardly kiss no more. Then us touch each other” (109). The length and detail by which Walker presented this detail is somewhat taxing and irritating, since even a few sentences could actually make the reader understand already that the two women had a relationship, and that it was not really necessary to delve into much more details. However, sometimes, especially in some [arts of the book, it can be seen that the graphic content of the text was necessary. Thus, the next section of the paper will look into the necessity of the graphic content of the works by Alice Walker. Necessity of Graphic Content in the Literary Works Even though some of the graphic contents of the works of Alice Walker were highly unnecessary, especially in terms of the sexual scenes, a look into the overall impact of her works revealed that the degree of violence she portrayed may have been very much needed, not only for the protection of the rights of the black people, but also for the awakening of the awareness of the whites on what they were doing to the people they considered to be below them. In fact, the degree of violence and pain inflicted on the different characters of her works were one of the main contributing factors that created a rippling effect on the society at large. Indeed, in the review by Sue (n.p.) of The Purple Color, she was able to summarize the different reasons for the necessity of graphic content of the novels. According to the said author, first, by suing violence and abuse, Walker served as the devil’s advocate, using racism, offensive language, and graphic contents to make the reader uncomfortable, and then prodded and pokes some more sore spots to generate a reaction. Second, through the use of graphic content, Walker was able to achieve her objective of “slapping” the apathy off of the reader’s face and make them feel, or connect with the suffering of the characters. Certainly, although these different graphic aspects can at first generate revulsion from the reader, once Walker lets you into the world of the two sisters and their struggles to connect, then the reader is hooked. Because of the suffering that the sisters went through (something that the reader can only understand through Walker’s thorough and graphic descriptions), the reaction of the reader is stronger, and so is their desire to do something to assist those that could still be suffering like Celie and Nettie. Overall Analysis and Conclusion In all, this paper has presented that in some works of Walker, graphic content was needed by the story but in some others, they were unnecessary. Still, for those that required graphic content, the crudeness with which they were presented made a great impact not only for the reader but also for the work as a whole. Indeed, although some of the graphic contents provided in Alice Walker’s works can be deemed unnecessary, the greater majority of the violence and graphic details given by the author are important aspects of the work: without them the novels and stories would not have been as vivid, powerful, and effective. Works Cited Alumbaugh, Heather. "In Search of Alice Walker: An Overview." Bloom, Harold. Alice Walker. Broomal, Pa.: Chelsea House, 2002. 53-74. Donnelly, Mary. Alice Walker: The color purple and other works. New York: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2010. Fish, Becky Durost. "Biography of Alice Walker." Bloom, Harold. Alice Walker. Broomal, Pa.: Chelsea House, 2002. 5-52. Jefferson, Elana. "The Color Purple and Its Controversy." 2005. Writing.com. 28 April 2012 . Lauret, Maria. Alice Walker. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. Lazo, Caroline Evensen. Alice Walker: Freedom Fighter. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1999. Sue, Mindy. "Review: The Color Purple - Alice Walker." 2010. Reading for Sanity. 29 April 2012 . Walker, Alice. Possessing the Secret of Joy. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1997. —. The Color Purple. New York: Harcourt, 1992. Read More