Towards a new belief system: An analysis of selected short stories of Alice Walker

Abstract

This essay examines the issues of race and gender as they appear in Alice Walker’s short stories. To Alice Walker, the Afro-American woman suffers under the double jeopardy ’ of race and gender. As such, the author exposes the adverse effects of these said ills as she simultaneously searches for a 'psychological system' to combat them. Examining the notions of gender and race as well the institutionalised belief systems of Islam and Christianity from which they appear to have been derived, Walker seems to advocate the adoption of certain core tenets of Christianity as a panacea for the evils meted out to Afro-American females. Is she thereby ‘trapped’ within a psychological framework which she herself seeks to expose? Or are the tenets of Christianity which she espouses more ‘adaptable’ in relieving the plight ofthe Afro-American woman than any others? The latter position appears to be the writer’s premise, especially because it seems stripped bare of racial and gender interpretations.