Non Fictional Narrative In The Works of Alice Walker

AbstractThe Harlem Renaissance is important landmark for the African-American writers who wanted to raise their voice against the practice ofsegregation that were prevalent and obviously the victims were the blackAfrican-American people in general and African-American women inparticular. They just were not only discriminated amongst race andgender and but also by color. One of the prominent writers after thisHarlem Renaissance, who came forth, is Alice Walker. Her works, be itpoem, novels or essays revolves around the discrimination, violence andlives of black women. Many a time, there are instances in novels andpoems taken directly from her life making it somewhat autobiographical.The incidents of her life can be seen dispersed in novel like The ColorPurple, The third life of Grange Copeland and the poem like Once. Inher novels the protagonist suffered on account of being black andironically the perpetrators are not white American people, but thehusbands and lovers of the same race. It shows all the frustration and thesense of patriarchy in the male leads of her novels. It seems the agony,anguish and frustration is carried forward from their male characters tothe females characters, which are subjected to all this by their whitemasters.She celebrates her mother in her poem "Women". She talksabout her blinding incident and the tryst with suicide and abortion in herpoem 'Once". She talks about her fights for civil rights and mentionsabout Zola Neale Hurston though her character in The Color Purple. InThe Third Life of Grange Copeland she revisits her father though theCopeland and herself as Ruth.Key words: Discrimination, violence, patriarchy, autobiographical