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Context of the Essay
This essay focuses on an essay that was written by Alice Walker. The essay focuses on the early part of her life as a child, a teenager and a young adult. During this time, she comes across a lot of challenges that affect her self-esteem, behaviour and relationship with herself and other members of the society.
As a result, her life changes drastically with the changes in her self-consciousness and the manner in which she deals with these encounters. The main aim of this essay therefore is to critically analyze the essay with the help of supporting evidences and apply the lessons learned on real life situation.
Presentation
With the help of her essay, Walker is able to write her own autobiography of her early years of life. She begins the essay by presenting her early years of life. The year is 1947 and she is two and a half years old. Her mother is busy preparing them for the county fair that her father only wants to take three of his eight children. This is because the car that he will use to take the children to the fair only has room for three.
Therefore, the one who look best or impress their father will get the chance. It is therefore the work of Alices mother to prepare all the eight children for her husband to pick the three. As they line up, Alice says, “Take me Daddy…I am the prettiest” (Walker 442). Being the last-born and the prettiest girl, Alice is chosen together with two other children.
As she continues with her essay, Alice also states that she was a bright child in both academic and performing arts. In 1950, she is picked again to give the Easter speech. Unlike the other children who stammer or forget their lines, Alice is fluent and eloquent. She also dresses magnificently and looks beautiful.
People therefore cannot help but comment that, “That girl is a little mess” (Walker 442). As she grows older, she gets to be a tomboy and dress on a cowboy outfit just like her brothers. The go to watch western films together and play cowboy games with his brothers. Here, they pretend as if they are cowboys who are hunting down Indian cattle rustlers.
However, things took a different turn when Alice reached 8 years of age. First, her father buys his brothers BB guns. Since she is a girl, her father cannot buy a gun for her. She therefore had to stick with the bow and arrow. This reduces her ranks in their playing games from a cowboy to an Indian.
Her brothers now shoot at her since she is an outlaw. From the tone of her voice, it is evident that she is not happy with her new character in the games (Walker 443). This is as a result of gender equality where females have always been viewed as a weaker sex in the society.
Alices fate then becomes worse when one of his brothers shoot him with his BB gun. She is shot on the eye and develops a serious injury. Her brothers come up with a lie to cover up the story of the real incident. However, her parents soon find out the truth and by the time that she is taken to the doctor (almost a week later), it is too late to save her eye.
She had developed a glob of white scar tissue on the spot where she was shot by her brothers BB gun. In addition, the eye cannot see at all. She becomes even more terrified when she hears the doctor saying, “If one is blind, the other will likely become blind too” (Walker 443).
The white globe and being blind on one eye seems to affect the character and self-esteem of Alice. All through her life, Alice had used her beauty to gain her happiness. It is due to the fact that she was pretty that she was chosen by her father to go to the fair. It is also due to her beauty that she was the best student in class and recited the Easter Sunday speech at ease.
Now that she only has one eye and a white globe, she cannot stare at people. She separates herself from her other siblings and children. This is because, whenever she wants to interact with them, they normally comment on her eye. This really hurts her feelings. To make the matters worse, they have to move into a new county.
The school that she goes to was once a prison and had an electric chair; this affects her thoughts and gives her nightmares. She is however forced to go back to her old church school where other children still make fun of her. One of them calls her, “…the one eyed bitch” (Walker 443). At school, she begins to perform poorly. It is only one teacher who understands her and treats her with respect.
During this time, her mother becomes very ill and she is afraid that she might die. In addition, her cousin comes to visit but since she has a low self-esteem, she hides. During all this time, Alice keeps on asking her family members if she had changed. They always tell her that she has not changed (Walker 443).
However, when she is 14 years old, the white globe is removed from her eye. She is therefore able to stare at people again. She becomes a bright student in class and manages to get the love of his dreams. Towards the end of her essay, it is evident that she is a successful woman in life. She is even able to see the beauty of the desert before she completely goes blind.
Her main fear is that her daughter, Rebecca will recent her for her disability but to her surprise, she stares at her on night and tell her, “Mommy, there is a world in your eye” (Walker 443). At this point, she realises that she has been resenting herself for all the wrong reasons. She is however glad that her daughter is not embarrassed by her physical disability.
Analysis and significance of the Essay
This essay presents how a small factor occurrence can change the life of an individual. There are many people who have been living normal lives but as a result of an injury, sickness or accidents, their lives have changed and their dreams have been shattered. This comes about as a result of a change in their lifestyles, character, self-esteem and relationship with other individuals.
Alices life changed once she got an injury on her eye. Her beauty, which was her advantage in life, was shattered. When she used to pray at night, she did not pray for sight but for beauty (Walker 443). This therefore shows how much she valued her beauty. The same theory applies to individuals who value a specific part of their life and lose it. A good example is Magic Johnson of the LA Lakers.
He was diagnosed with the HIV virus at the peak of his career. As a result, he had a difficult time accepting this fact. This made him retire from professional basketball. However, when he accepted his status and publicly announced it, he gained public support. He came back to the game and was chosen as an All Star player in 1996. It is therefore essential to believe in yourself no matter what.
Work Cited
Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. Michigan: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983. Print
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