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The Welcome Table

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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 searches for peace but in that moment it is interrupted by ignorance. In many stories there are several basics that will guide you in forming a true piece of literature. Inside the story “The Welcome Table” I realized that there was a plain-spoken use of the omniscient point of view. Alice Walker takes you guides you through the town, with her words she places you right behind the elderly lady so that you are somewhat part of the story, almost like a shadow, undergoing the life in the day of this lady. I felt the frustration and anger that she underwent as a result of her being tossed to the concrete like she was less than.” Under the elderly woman arms they placed their hard fists (which afterward smelled of decay and musk—the fermenting scent of onionskins and rotting greens). Under the old woman's arms they raised their fists, flexed their muscular shoulders, and out she flew through the door, back under the cold blue sky. This done, the wives folded their healthy arms across their trim middles and felt at once justified and scornful.” R.W. Clugston Journey into Literature (2010) I wanted to help her up off the ground and walk her back into the church so that she would know she wasn’t alone. Experiencing these emotions from just reading a story would only explain how Alice Walker wanted us to receive the point of view turned out to be the best suiting for this story. The main character in this story would definitely be the elderly woman. She once was a well-respected woman, who took pride in her appearance, now she wears clothing that is only a mere reminisce of what she used to be. In the description of her tattered clothes I concluded that she was a hard working woman. Life seems to have dealt her a difficult hand; this has made it obvious as to why the author goes into great detail about the rings around the woman’s eyes. Like an old tree you are able to find its age by the rings in its trunk. “There was a dazed and sleepy look in her aged blue–brown eyes. But for those who searched hastily for "reasons" in that old tight face, shut now like an ancient door, there was nothing to be read. And so they gazed nakedly upon their own fear transferred; a fear of the black and the old, a terror of the unknown as well as of the deeply known.” R.W. Clugston Journey into Literature (2010). To be the old woman described , is to be a woman who knows her end is near, though you try with all you have to avoid the brutal reality that in the present you are nothing but an old black woman, something to merely pity. Though the ambiguity of what is to come, when facing mortality, her character is placed in a subdued of indeterminate state.
These two elements play a major role in setting the pace for this story. The authors ability to be descriptive, allowing the characters to show true emotion though fictional it is what grabs you from beginning to the end.

Reference
R.W. Clugston Journey into Literature (2010).

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