Alice Walker "Our mothers gardens"

Question 1

Why is this text significant?

Answer 1

It provides an intersectional analysis of “Thinking About Shakespeare’s Sister”

• It shows that women from that time searched for inspiration through their mothers and grandmothers. The women that they looked up to had endured a lot through their lives (slavery) and still found a way to have hope & creativity.
• Shows that creativity of the black woman was kept alive at times where their desire to live may have been low.

Question 2

For a woman to be a Fiction Writer she has to have which 2 things? Why were black women unable to have these things?

Answer 2

1. A room of her own
2. The means to support herself
   - A black woman does not have a room of her own, at the time she wasn’t even the owner of her own body
   - Obvi didn’t have the means to support herself either

Question 3

“How was the creativity of the black woman kept alive, year after year and century after century, when for most of the years black people have been in America, it was a punishable crime for a black person to read or write?” Explain the significance of this.

Answer 3

• Provides an intersectional analysis to women’s history in text.
• While the white woman could read and write only to be ignored for it, the black woman didn’t have the opportunity to even that.