Roselily (1973) by Alice Walker

Roselily (1973) by Alice Walker

About the Author

Alice Walker was born in 1944 in Georgia as the youngest of 8 children. She grew up under the Jim Crow laws when life was not easy for African American. Her mother enrolled her in 1st grade at the age of 4. She started writing in private at the age of 8. She was blinded in one eye in a BB gun accident. This caused her to be an outcast in school, but things eventually came around and her great intellect led to her title of valedictorian in high school. She attended Spellman College and then transferred to Sarah Lawrence College to finish her education. She went on to write many novels, short stories, and poems. One of her most famous novels was The Color Purple, for which she was the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, in 1983. Walker married a white, Jewish man in 1967. They had one daughter and eventually divorced in 1967. Walker is also a well-known political activist. In her earlier days her main focus was on the Civil Rights Movement. Many of her stories, including Roselily reflect her activism and her examination of African Americans’ lives. She has most recently been involved with political activism in Gaza. She is a big supporter of the Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance (MECA) organization which is currently involved with issues in Gaza.

Synopsis

Alice Walker’s short story Roselily is about a black woman from Mississippi getting married to a Muslim man. As the wedding is taking place adjacent to a highway, Roselily thinks about the aspects of her life that are influencing her decision to marry. She reflects on her surroundings, the plans to move, the father of her fourth child, her new husband, her mother, and her apprehension but decision to be married to this man. Walker jars the reader from the present moment to Roselily’s memories and integrates the familiar wedding rites into the parts of her life. As the priest is reciting the wedding rites, Roselily recalls distinct memories and emotions that have led to her choice to marry this man. In one aspect, Roselily wants to live better-off and not in the South. This aspiration of escaping poverty with her three children ages, three, four, and five, will be fulfilled through this marriage as they plan to move to Chicago. The story’s underlying theme is also about the treatment of African American women during the 1960’s and their desire to live better and have more opportunity to succeed.

Terms

Point of View: the narrator of the stories and what method she uses to tell it.

Third-Person Narrator: nonparticipant in the story; can be omniscient, limited omniscient, or objective.

Omniscient narrator: the narrator knows everything about the characters’ thoughts and feelings.

Tone: an author’s attitude toward the subject; includes connotation, emotion, and feeling. Tone is affected by narrator’s point of view

Stream-of-Consciousness: allows the reader to see the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of a character; free of conventional logic or transitions, sentences may not be complete.

Excerpts

“Impatient to see the South Side, where they would live and build and be respectable and respected and free. Her husband would free her. A romantic hush. Proposal. Promises. A new life! Respectable, reclaimed, renewed. Free! In robe and veil.” (p209)

“She thinks of the man who will be her husband, feels shut away from him because of the stiff severity of his plain black suit.” (p208)

“It is not her nature to blame. Still, she is not entirely thankful.” (p209)

“She feels ignorant, wrong, backward.” (p210)

Discussion Questions

Please choose 2 of the following questions and develop your answers.

1. Though Roselily’s perspective is shown the most throughout the story, which other characters viewpoints are also shown? Name these characters and describe a few aspects of their perspectives.

1. In what ways do the italicized wedding rights that are surrounding the paragraphs connect to the paragraphs and further enhance your understanding of Roselily’s perspective? Explain.

1. List 3 words that describe Roselily’s attitude toward this marriage and support each with textual evidence that includes the word. Describe how Roselily feels and what she wants and expects from the marriage.