Summary: Walker, “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens”
Editor’s Note: For this assignment, I needed to read and summarize the published piece or content listed below, and then provide a response or assessment of the writing.
Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose. Mariner Books, 2003.
Summary
Alice Walker discusses the suppressed, untapped, and, ultimately, unknown artistic talent of black women throughout history. She begins her essay by quoting a poem by Jean Toomer who wrote, “I asked her to hope, and build up an inner life against the coming of that day.” Through this poem, Walker immediately defines black women as feeling hopeless and unable to help themselves. She refers to these women throughout history as our mothers and grandmothers, forced into those roles because that’s what society and men wanted of them. Black women were not respected by black men, let alone any other member of society, so their lives were typically defined for them before they may have even known it. Walker cites portions of Virginia Woolf’s, A Room of One’s Own, and inserts text that applied to the lives of black women in history to showcase the fears that women of all color experience, but which black women actually lived. Walker also cites Phillis Wheatley, an author and young black woman who was enslaved by the age of seven. Walker states that Wheatley was ridiculed because many people believed her poetry sang the praises of her owner. Walker points out that Wheatley was working against “contrary instincts” because she knew a little of her homeland, but had been subject to contradictory descriptions from her owners since the age of seven, when they “rescued” her. Walker praises Wheatley for continuing to express her talent as a writer and working even harder against societal expectations and criticism. Walker closes her essay by describing how her mother, who worked “beside” and not “behind” her father in the fields, raised six children, and maintained their house, never had one minute of time to herself, but always found sanctity and pride in creating her flower gardens. Walker lauded her mother’s ability to find a creative outlet in her flower gardens when she had everything else in her life working to stifle any sense of creativity.
Response
I loved reading Walker’s essay, but at the same time, I found it depressing. When she listed the black female artists who made it through the trenches and succeeded in bringing their creative artistic talent to the masses, it reinforced Walker’s point that we will never know how many other artistic black women were never given the chance to showcase their artistry. Many, in fact, were never even encouraged to consider the idea that they may have an untapped artistic talent within themselves. Unfulfilled potential is a common fear among people (perhaps it’s not common, but I know it’s fear that I hold), and to really think about the unfulfilled potential within the community of black women throughout history was disheartening. I thought Walker did an excellent job of illustrating that issue in her essay. The one thing that I thought came across as slightly essentialist was when she stated that all black women have an artistic talent within them. To some degree, I believe that every person has a strength that could possibly be remarkable in its own right; however, I got the impression that Walker believed all black women had artistic talent that would outshine everyone and simply creating a flower garden (as her did) was great if that’s all a woman could muster, but it doesn’t represent the totality of a black woman’s artistic potential. People have varying degrees of artistic talent. Some people—regardless of their ethnic background—are capable of creating flower gardens and perhaps little else. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with accentuating your strength—especially if your love and passion for that strength brings you joy. In a way, I felt as if Walker should have recognized that women—all women—should focus on their creative strength, whatever it may be and however big or small other people may view it, and develop it to the fullest because that strength has the potential to be fulfilling to that woman.