...A “Welcome” Read Martie Brooks ENG 125: Introduction to Literature Instructor: Wanda Deffenbaugh October 8, 2012 A “Welcome” Read The Welcome Table, by Alice Walker is an image-filled short story that restores the past and reveals human nature. As an avid reader, I look for a story to capture me in the first several paragraphs. This story did just that. Immediately, Alice Walker establishes a graphic picture of a scenario that takes place during the racial segregation period. She creates a sympathetic mood that captivates the reader throughout the story. She truly illustrates the ideas of hope and change. Literature must hold up to a plethora of standards to be considered a successful piece of work. A formalist approach focuses on the actual form of the literature. It takes note of the development of the storyline and analyses the very features of the story itself. Our text points out “Every writer chooses particular literary tools to create a representation of something that exists in his or her imagination.” (as cited in Clugston, 2010. section 16.2, para 3.) A formalist approach can identify these literary tools. Alice Walker used a plethora of these literary tools to express her imagination and form her touching literary tale. The Setting The setting for a story to denote such magnitude must be clearly defined. The story is set in the South during the Civil Rights movement. This was a time when public places (including restrooms and churches) were...
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...Analyzing Alice 11/18/2013 Analyzing Alice In Alice Walker's "The Welcome Table", she uses an omniscient voice and plenty of word imagery, which elicited an emotional reader response from me. Everything from the description of the old woman's appearance to the old woman being thrown out of church made me feel sad for this woman, followed by happy at the way it ended for her. With the aid of Walker's use of vivid descriptions, I was able to envision the story as it unfolded in my mind. From the beginning, this short story really captured my imagination. Alice Walker was blessed with a way of taking words and weaving them into what I can only describe as a movie only I can see. The vast descriptions of the old woman made me feel as if I were standing right next to her. Walker doesn't go too in depth describing the other church goers, but what little she does provide gives one the impression that these were well-to-do people and it was obvious they felt she didn't belong in "their" church. As Walker laid out the events taking place, I found myself having an emotional response. Comparing the time I live in, the way I was raised, and how I treat people on am every day basis, the neglect and horrible treatment of the old woman made me empathetic toward her. It made me question where her family was and why weren't they taking care of her? When the husbands picked her up and placed her outside, it made me feel...
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...Both of these short stories achieved this goal. Each story was able to captivate you. The authors made you fall in love with the characters. You wanted to read more. “The Welcome Table” and “Country Lovers” showed sides of racism that took place in completely different parts of the world. Each author used their literary and keen writing skills in order to get the reader to completely understand the point each one of them was trying to make. In the short stories, “The Welcome Table” by Alice Walker and “Country Lovers by Nadine Gordimer, Racism is the theme and highlight of each one. Both stories are discussing racial issues but they are two completely different stories and the authors begin each one in a completely opposite fashion. '”The Welcome Table” was written by Margaret Walker. Walker was published under her maiden name. She was best known for her poem "For My People," published in 1942, and her best-selling novel, Jubilee, based on her what her family went through during slavery and immediately after the Civil War, it was published in 1966. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama., Walker was a resident of Jackson, Miss., and was a professor emeritus at Jackson State College. She taught English and was also a director of the Institute for the Study of History, Life and Culture of Black Peoples. Walker, began her career in writing in the 1930s. She,still was writing in the 1990s. Walker's last book of essays, On Being Female, Black and Free: Essays, 1932-1992, was published...
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...Comparison Essay 1 Thesis: The literary works The Welcome Table by Alice Walker / what it's like to be a black girl by Patricia Smith represent African American women who have faced challenges of sexism, racism and stereotypes in American life. Racism and Sexism are questions that I will discuss and examine. I will compare tand contrast similarities of both poems. I will explain and give examples to show how these two poems exhibit different scenarios but similar views about how race and ethnicity can affect women of color based on prejudice and stereotypes. The main character is a nearly blind, old black woman with a lean build and a grayish tone to her skin. She wears a mildewed black dress with missing buttons and a grease-stained head rag covering her pigtails. She has blue-brown eyes, is ashen in appearance and much wrinkled. She is perspiring from her walk and is shivering from the cold. She enters the white Church and sits, singing in her head. She is physically thrown out of the church. After the woman is turned away she begins to feel a sense of loneliness, and an outcast. “She sees Jesus walking down the highway and is giddy with joy. Jesus tells her to follow him and she does, walking alongside him. He looks just like she thought he would, and he listens to her sing and talk to him. She feels great beside him and can walk as long as he wants. (Smith,).The women in my opinion feel that God...
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...The Welcome Table Tameeka Smith-Ashby ENG 125: Introduction to Literature Instructor: Sarah MacDonald In every story characters pose drama, and excitement to capture the readers attention. What may be deceptively hidden behind the words of the author is the heart of the story, which is considered to be the theme. The theme is what stays in your mind, it’s what makes you wonder how and why. This literary element is a must, when constructing any style of literature. There is a need to captivate the reader while allowing their mind to roam, seeking message is direct. In Alice Walker’s short story “The Welcome Table” I found the theme to be that of sorrow. She sets the ambience with a portrayal of an elderly poor black lady. In my opinion this woman is walking with sorrow, she doesn’t have much and is looked down on as nothing though the people in her community. Even though, Alice Walker demonstrates this premise as she places the elderly lady in a church that is restricted for whites only. When most people think a church is a place we’re many can go to worship the elderly woman shown very early that it wouldn’t be as easy. “The young usher, never having turned anyone out of his church before, but not even considering this job as that (after all, she had no right to be there, certainly), went up to her and whispered that she should leave.” R.W. Clugston Journey into Literature (2010). The elderly woman cannot seem to escape the sorrow that has become her life, she...
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...give excellent detail to create images inside the reader’s heads while they read. I consider myself a visual reader, and when the text is dull or boring, it is like the words are going in one ear, and out of the other. So, I particularly enjoyed Alice Walkers “The Welcome Table”, because of the authors vivid use of words and comparisons that helped me to envision what I am reading as if it were a movie in my mind. In Alice Walkers “The Welcome Table” she uses a great number of literary terms. The terms that were used engaged me in the story and helped to keep me interested while reading about the elderly woman in the story. The way she described certain things kept me wanting to read more. The author uses such great comparisons to describe how the old lady looks, and walks. One literary term that the author utilized is imagery. Imagery is “a distinct representation of something that can be experienced and understood through the senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste), or the representation of an idea” (Clugston, R.W, 2014). For example the author uses imagery when saying, “On her face centuries were folded in the circles around one eye, while around the other, etched and mapped as if for print, ages more threatened to live.” (Walker, 1970). This quote from the stories tells us how her face was aged and...
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...The theme in a story is associated with an idea that lies behind the story. Every story narrows a broad underlying idea, shapes it in a unique way, and makes the underlying idea concrete. That's how theme is created. In other words, the theme in a story is a representation of the idea behind the story. (Clugston, 2010) This paper will compare and contrast the theme of the stories Country Lovers by Nadine Gordimer and The Welcome Table by Alice Walker. The first story which is Country Lovers which is about a boy named Paulus Eysendyck, who is a white farmer’s son, and Thebedi, the black daughter of one of the farm workers. As children, Paulus and Thebedi played together, but when they are teenagers they began a sexual relationship. They have tender feelings for each other, even though their relationship is ultimately doomed. They continue a relationship throughout the years when Paul comes home on visits. Thebedi later marries Njabulo, a kind young black man who has loved her for years. Two months later, Thebedi gives birth to a light-skinned child. Although Thebedi is pregnant when she marries it is not considered scandalous because men in this culture often insist on finding out before marriage if their women are barren. The child’s light skin, however, reveals who the father really is. Although Njabulo knows the baby is not his, he treats the child as his own and buys things that the baby needs. When Paulus comes to visit he learns that Thebedi has married and has a light-skinned...
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...Home Page » English and Literature The Welcome Table In: English and Literature The Welcome Table I read “The Welcome Table by Alice Walker. The Welcome Table is told in the third person and shifts the point of view from which the story is told. The theme of this story is a simple, but good one. The theme of this is about an old, rundown black woman who staggers the necessary distance in the freezing cold to attend an all-white people church. What captured my interest about this short story is the religious symbolism. Per R. Wayne Clugston “a symbol is an object, person, or action that conveys two meaning: its own literal meaning and something it stands for as well” (Clugston, 2010, p.480). It is filled with symbolism of life and death; good and evil; love and hatred; and peace and anger. Throughout this paper, Alice will demonstrate the significance of how the application of point of view, setting, and symbolism plays a role contributing the theme of a story. In the story, a black woman enters a “white” church. She is a woman of faith; “there was a dazed and sleepy look in her aged blue–brown eyes” (Clugston, 2010) blue symbolizes a peacefulness that this woman has because of her faith. She is not a welcomed visitor to this congregation, though. The parishioners feel “a fear of the black and the old” (Clugston, 2010), the use of the word black is not just to tell us the color of her skin, but to symbolize evil. This is further supported in the words...
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...Running Head: LITERARY WORK ENG 125 January 9, 2011 “The Welcome Table” by Alice Walker and “Country Lovers” by Nadine Gordimer are two literary poems that have similarities and differences. They are very different in their style, character and format. I think the most common thing that these two literary poems share is they both have a strong and excellent characterization. “Country Lovers” has events and circumstances of behavior and situations that “The Welcome Table does not have. Emphasizing the similarities in an essay defines its comparison and when you emphasize the differences in an essay you are defining the contrast. As I discuss these essays in my writing, you will note that there are some similarities but they are totally different. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast two literary stories, “The Welcome Table” by Alice Walker and “Country Lovers” by Nadine Gordimer. These two stories overall message is “engages the reader in inter-racial issues from a sociological and moral perspective” in “The Welcome Table”. When we look at the “Country Lovers” I think the message “engages the reader in the same inter-racial issues from a sociological but the perspective is psychological.” (p.69) These two pieces are similar in that they are both written in third person and they both have an effect of social and racial discrimination involved in them. As the author of both pieces intentions are to show...
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...Compare and Contrast the Literary Work “The Welcome Table” VS “ Country Lovers” “The Racial Conflicts And Discrimination In The Welcome Table And Country Lovers” Katie McWilliams Instructor: Heather Peerboom 10/30/2014 Introduction I chosen to compare and contrast the literary works, “country Lovers” by Nadine Gordimer and “The Welcome Table” by Alice Walker, the theme being race / ethnicity. Theme: “The Racial Conflict and Discrimination In The Welcome Table And Country Lovers.” I want to explore the difference lives’ of these two woman was face with, and the way the narrator made me feel while I was reading the story of two black woman. Two strong black women that face all types of problems life had to offer them. These two stories shows feeling, pain, hate, and disappointments in Country Lovers and The Welcome Table. Both of these women had to struggled with their emotions and all they had to go through. Both stories are told in third person omniscient point of view, you can tell by the way the narrator describe the characters and how they’re feeling in both story. “The Welcome Table,” the old woman had her faith to guide her. To carrier her through the hard times. All she wanted was just to attend church. There is a rascal tension centered on both of these stories, in “Country Lovers” the black woman in this story was a pretty black woman fell in love with someone she grow up with a white man, she had a baby for him...
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...I read “The Welcome Table by Alice Walker. The Welcome Table is told in the third person and shifts the point of view from which the story is told. The theme of this story is a simple, but good one. The theme of this is about an old, rundown black woman who staggers the necessary distance in the freezing cold to attend an all-white people church. What captured my interest about this short story is the religious symbolism. Per R. Wayne Clugston “a symbol is an object, person, or action that conveys two meaning: its own literal meaning and something it stands for as well” (Clugston, 2010, p.480). It is filled with symbolism of life and death; good and evil; love and hatred; and peace and anger. Throughout this paper, Alice will demonstrate the significance of how the application of point of view, setting, and symbolism plays a role contributing the theme of a story. In the story, a black woman enters a “white” church. She is a woman of faith; “there was a dazed and sleepy look in her aged blue–brown eyes” (Clugston, 2010) blue symbolizes a peacefulness that this woman has because of her faith. She is not a welcomed visitor to this congregation, though. The parishioners feel “a fear of the black and the old” (Clugston, 2010), the use of the word black is not just to tell us the color of her skin, but to symbolize evil. This is further supported in the words, “many of them saw jungle orgies in an evil place” (Clugston, 2010). The interesting thing about evil here is that...
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...Comparative essay on race/ethnicity ENG 125 – Introduction to Literature Instructor Benjamin Daw May 15, 2011 Comparative essay on race/ethnicity In this comparative essay, I will talk over the role and ethnicity in “The Welcome Table”, written by Alice Walker and “What it’s like to be a black girl”, written by Patricia Smith by exploring the difficulties that black women face, no matter of age or where they may live. When it comes to these two stories and poem both written by black women, the one thing both writers have in common is their main character is a black women or girl. Both have dealt with some form of discrimination because of the color of their skin is black. In Alice Walker, “The Welcome Table”, she writes in third-person omniscient trying to explain to the audience how this old black lady just wanted to worship inside of a church, any church. This older black woman has finally found a church, once she was inside she did not even realize that this church was for the white folks – all she wanted was to worship the lord. The older woman in this story was not afraid of the fact that all the members were white, this is the first sign of discrimination against her based off her race no one wanted her to stay there but she was determined to worship the lord inside of this church. Everyone in the church wanted her to leave the church, telling her this is not your church and she did not belong there. For some unknown reason...
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...Reading Reflection 1 Reading Reflection Holly Schultz Eng 125 Sherita Smedley November 3, 2014 Reading Reflection 2 From the two pieces of work that were presented were The Story of a Hour by Kate Chopin and The Welcoming Table by Alice Walker. The piece of work that is going to be discussed is The Welcoming Table by Alice Walker. This piece of literature captured my interest to a personal level. The piece of literature kind of hits home with what I see and how I feel that the woman that was presented in the literature was treated by the other people. The key terms that are going to be use to describe this literature piece will be tone, symbol, and figurative language. The main reason that this literature work captured my interest is because I can place myself in her shoes. I have been in positions and also have been in places that people did not want me there, or that I did not feel welcome in their circle. There was one incident that I remember; I was trying to find a church that could feel comfortable going to, some place that I can look for answers if I had questions. I believe that is what the little old woman was doing in the literature work in The Welcoming Table. It seems like the woman wanted to do was pray and be able to speak to Jesus in his own house. The people of the church did not want her to be there because she was not wearing the right clothes, and she was not like them, that is what I got from the reading. The people that were in the church were not happy...
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...Reading Reflection: The Welcome Table Yvette Young McLean Introduction to Literature Instructor Lyndsey Lefebvre September 2, 2013 Reading Reflection: The Welcome Table This short story captured my attention because the woman described in the opening of this story and throughout this story, reminded me of my grandmother and some of the stories she shared with me telling of the prejudices she suffered as a child that carried over into her adulthood. As I began to read, The Welcome Table, I began to visualize or imagine a “grandmotherly” type woman preparing to get ready for church. As she put on her “Sunday’s best”, it was apparent that her clothes were old and worn. Not only were her clothes old and worn, the features of her face told the story of her life. As the woman approached the steps of the church, she is met with people who whispered unspeakable things about her and stares from those same people. There were stares filled with fear; fear of her color, fear of the known and the unknown. This woman was not welcomed in the church as she soon found out when she was asked to leave and when she didn’t leave, she was physically removed. Alice Walker was born during an era long before the Civil Rights Movement. Though not clearly stated, one can deduce from her writings in this story and in her book, The Color Purple, that she was met with prejudicial whispers and stares. “Issues of race and gender form the center of her literary work and her social activism...
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...Understanding Racism and Discrimination Being a white female I could never fully understand racism and the feelings that come from discrimination based on my looks or the color of my skin. Through literary works like Alice Walker’s “The Welcome Table” I get a glimpse into what it might be like. It is also through this type of writing that I am reminded of issues from the past that still exist in the present. Through the reader response analysis approach I will discuss how “The Welcome Table” has inspired me to evaluate how I treat others and if my actions are conducive to a progressive society. In regards to the reader response approach Clugston (2010, section 16.2) states “you must account for your feelings by finding specific aspects of the literary work that make you feel as you do.” (P. 413). What grabbed my attention to this story was the imagery “She was angular and lean and the color of poor gray Georgia earth, beaten by king cotton and the extreme weather.” (as cited in Clugston, 2010, Section 3.1) that made me wonder about the old woman’s story. The metaphor Alice Walker uses to describe the old woman’s face “on her face centuries were folded into the circles around one eye, while around the other, etched and mapped as if for print, ages more threatened again to live.” (as cited in Clugston, 2010, Section 3.1) leads me to believe she has lived a difficult life. Her age and appearance don’t come from her hard work alone but from something much...
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