What are Alice Walker's values, and how have they been impacted by living in the South?Alice Walker is widely known for her novel "The Color...

In her novels (The Color Purple),
short fiction ("Everyday Use"), and poetry ("Women"), Alice Walker shows the values of
black women who were victimized in the Jim Crow South.  A Baby Boomer born in Georgia,
Alice Walker focuses on her mother's generation (two generations born after the freed
slaves) who were often ugly, illiterate, and abandoned by their husbands.  She champions
them as self-sufficient domestics who sacrifice their dreams in order to educate their
children, who would later reap the benefits of integration, civil rights, and
feminism.

More than a Southern writer, Alice Walker calls
herself a "womanist," one who is concerned with the plight of females.  As such,
Walker's fiction is romantic and comedic in nature, focusing on how society victimizes
women in the home.  Her women are usually uneducated, unappreciated, and victimized not
only by whites, but also by black men and even other black women.  The Color
Purple and "Everyday Use," for example, feature a parody of the Cinderella
fairy tale in which one sister (Celie in The Color Purple and
Maggie in "Everyday Use") are the ugly domestics who suffer without complaint until
their fairy godmothers (Shug in The Color Purple and Mama in
"Everyday Use") bestow them with womanism.  They use this womanist strength to achieve a
boon (treasure), a house for Celie and heirlooms for Maggie.  Through female community,
Walker's humble protagonists achieve matriarchal status and the American
Dream.

The rural South in Walker's fiction is a place of
promise and cruelty.  The plantation rural charm of Georgia provides an idyllic backdrop
for Walker's female domestics.  But, Walker's males have inherited the slave owner
mentalities from their sexist patriarchal culture.  In The Color
Purple, Mr.____ treats Celie the way a white plantation owner would treat his
slaves: with physical cruelty and emotional neglect.  Walker says that black men are
little more than pimps who prostitute their women as a means of establishing their
patriarchal superiority.  All in all, the South is a place of domesticity, sexism, and
isolation for Walker's women.