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¶ … Nobody's Darling," Alice Walker dramatizes the conflict between the comfort of conformity and the courage it takes to be different. The speaker offers advice to the reader, in a didactic tone but one that confers wisdom. "Be nobody's darling, be an outcast," means standing up for truth and justice even if it means martyrdom (1,2). The speaker refers to the "thousands perished / for brave hurt words / they said," (23-25). It is preferable to walk alone, and even die, than it is to remain silent in the midst of injustice.
Using second person point-of-view throughout the poem, the speaker is invisible and anonymous. The reader is to take her at her word as a person in a position of authority, one who has presumably witnessed the benefits of being the "outcast." Part of her rhetorical strategy is to engender trust through the use of ethos, pathos, and logos: the authority of the speaker, the emotional content of the message, and the diction used to convey that message.
The speaker contrasts the position of the outcast with that of the "impetuous fools" that form the bulk of society (19-20). It is not that the speaker is misanthropic, but that she is actually optimistic that each person has the strength and ability to "walk alone" to promote justice (14). Yet the speaker admits that walking alone is "uncool," and that it is also painful. One unique element of "Be Nobody's Darling" is the use of parentheses around the word "uncool" to draw attention to that word and also to the concept it represents. Here, the speaker betrays the fact that she is...
The speaker also wants the reader to know that he or she will be labeled as "uncool" and as an "outcast" by standing up for truth, justice, or personal beliefs.
The speaker wants to encourage the reader to be confident and courageous by pointing out that it is not easy to be the outcast or one who is willing to stand apart from the crowd. The vocabulary and diction used in "Be Nobody's Darling" emphasizes the "contradictions" between the sense of being an "outcast" and the knowledge that it is necessary to be an outcast when everyone else around is a "fool."
The only notable instance in which Walker employs internal rhyming is through the connection between "fool" and "uncool." Interestingly, the juxtaposition of these two rhyming words highlights the central conflict of the poem. The fool is the one who is ultimately "uncool," but it is the courageous individual who is ironically labeled as being "uncool" by the foolish society. Imagery of death also permeates the Walker poem, as the speaker stresses the great risks involved in taking a political stance with other "brave" people (24). Alice Walker's "Be Nobody's Darling" is a politically-charged poem that centers on the psychological, social, and physical repercussions of activism. "Be an outcast / Qualified to live / Among your dead" refers to the glory that one attains when sacrificing the comforts of conformity for the rewards of personal integrity, courage, and conviction.
Walker uses rhetorical patterns and poetic…
"(1991) Anything We Love Can be Saved: A Writer's Activism, (Walker 1997) is a collection of 33 speeches, letters and previously published pieces with the consistent theme of the political merging into the personal in her life. Michael Anderson, reviewing this book and mentioning a piece that Walker said "remains unwritten," states that "Ms. Walker's admirers can rejoice that her silence did not extend to book length." Pettis remarks that the
..] I suffered and raged inside because of this." With her beauty destroyed, the now six-year-old Walker gave up hope that the world would still prove as open and bountiful as it had for her life up to that point, and her inner sense of worth and beauty crumbled away just as her exterior beauty was eroded away by the sudden entrance of the BB and the slow buildup of
Alice Walker's 1983 publication In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose addresses the role of creativity in women's lives. Creativity is the essence of womanhood, and therefore a symbol like that of the titular mother's garden. "Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and respect for strength-in search of my mother's garden, I found my own."(Walker 675). Imagery of gardens and life contrasts sharply with imagery of
'" (Walker, 236) The making of the quilts is another symbol for the way in which the daughter and the mother differ in their views of tradition. The quilt is also strongly associated with the African-American tradition and therefore all the more significant. While the mother and Maggie are capable of actually making the quilts, Dee or Wangero is obsessed with having them and possessing them as a symbol of her
By simply concentrating on connecting with their African heritage many failed to understand that their parents and their ancestors who lived on the American continent in general created a culture of their own that entailed elements belonging both to the African continent and to the American one. Most of the short story is about how Dee struggles to find her personal identity by turning to cultural values. While Dee is
Mama and Maggie's values are simple, their goals mundane yet uplifting at the same time. Dee, on the other hand, is full of spunk and ambition. She views the quilts as if they were anthropological artifacts, remnants not of her grandmother but from some lost civilization. Dee, renamed Wangero, wanted to hang the quilts on the wall like art. Her desire parallels her creative streak and her wacky way