A bibliographical sketch of Alice Walker - Research Paper Example

Though many had written her off as a one hit wonder who would briefly wallow in the public realm only to become vague later, Alice has remained relevant through her writing. This has placed her on the national and international map. Her controversial nature could perhaps be attributed to the scope of subjects she chooses to touch on, especially gender and race. This has made her attract the activist title through her written word. Born on the 9th day of February, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, Alice Walker was the last born child of eight children.

Her father, Willie Lee was according to her, proficient at mathematics but a lousy farmer, who made meager earnings from dairy farming and mixed cropping. Her mother Minnie Lou Grant was also a sharecropper, who at times worked as a maid for the well off in society to supplement the family income. Growing up as an African American child in suburbs of Eatonton was tough in itself and the due to financial hardships and the financial hardship that this family of ten endures only served to make matters worse.

The late 40s and early 50s were not the best of times to grow up in America due to the negative vices of racism and segregation that were rife in society (Bloom 2002). Despite the fact that everything around Alice was bound to work against her, Alice’s resilience and hard work saw her through these tough times of history. At the age of eight years old, Alice got involved in a domestic accident that would forever change her life. In 1952, her older brother accidentally shot her right in the eye with a BB pistol during a game of Indians and Cowboys, leaving her permanently blind.

When she eventually got taken to hospital, it was too late to save her eye. As a result, a scar tissue layer formed on her right side. This scarring made her visibly shy and so self conscious. She became reserved and kept to herself. During this period of self seclusion, her only solace was reading and writing poetry and short stories. When Alice turned 14, the scar tissue got removed, and this somewhat gave her a second chance to live life. She became valedictorian and garnered enough votes to become both queen of her class and the most popular girl in her school.

Alice later acknowledges that the traumatic accident gave her a new perspective in life as she now truly began to see things, people and relationships from a different angle (Bates 2005). Alice graduated high school with impressive grades, and in 1961, her valedictorian status and a rehabilitation scholarship earned her a place at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, an institution for African American women. However, her stay at Spelman College did not last long. Two years on, she left Spelman and went to Sarah Lawrence College in New York.

As a junior student in Sarah Lawrence College, Alice got the rare opportunity of visiting Africa due to an exchange programme. She graduated in 1965 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. After college, Walker lived in New York briefly before she moved to Tougaloo, Mississippi where she fell in love with Laventhal Melvyn, a human rights lawyer. This was the only inter racial marriage in Mississippi. In the same year of Martin Luther King jnors death, Alice got pregnant but had a miscarriage due to complications.

This inspired her book Once, which got published in 1968. She became pregnant again and gave birth to her daughter Rebecca. Rebecca’s birth coincided with the release of The Third Life of Grange Copeland, a book about several generations of domestic violence (Nelson 1999). Alice got involved in the United States civil rights movement due to the influence of her Spelman professor, Howard Zinn. She picked up her activism from where she had left off during her college years in