Elethia By Alice Walker Analysis

Superior Essays
ELETHIA

Nepal is a small country in Southeast Asia, where I was born. A long time ago, the political party named Youth Communist League (YCL) was formed. Members of this party used to kill innocent people just to show their existence and how powerful they are. Later they also entered the politics of the nation. And as of today, the leader of this party is the president of Nepal. Although the members of this party have stopped killing nowadays, people are still afraid of this party because of their fearful past. In Elethia also, even after emancipation proclamation, the law ended the slavery, but it still existed in the society anyhow. In other words, the scatters of slavery were still in the society because of the existence of slave owners.
…show more content…
In this short story of hers, she describes how racism or slavery is still being a problem in the society. Uncle Albert who is regarded as the carrier of truth is stuffed and has become a showcase of the restaurant. Although black people could not eat at Uncle Albert’s, they were still working in the Kitchen. Saturday afternoon, Uncle Albert had become the subject of discussion for people as they thought Uncle Albert was a dummy and looked so real. During Summer, when Elethia was working as a salad girl in the restaurant kitchen, she found out that Uncle Albert was not a dummy, but was stuffed. She had a shadow of a doubt because of his fingernail and hair. She then decides to free Uncle Albert and one night along with her best buddies; she stole Uncle Albert. They burned the body of Uncle Albert in the incinerator of their high school to free him. They all kept a bottle of his ashes. Elethia then travels to various museums, and there she finds many stuffed Indians just like Uncle Albert. Elethia felt that she knew Uncle Albert wanted to be free but she doesn’t know whether these Indians wants to be free or get burned and she couldn’t burn them …show more content…
It may be the reason; they couldn’t understand the feeling of black people. If the owner of the restaurant had known how it’s like to be treated as a slave, he would have never made Uncle Albert a stuffed man. When Elethia had heard the stories about Uncle Albert, who couldn’t stand for the injustice done to his people. Elethia friends used to call her Thia, which refers to goddess and Uncle Porter was the carrier of truth. It may have been the reason that Elethia felt a connection with him and freed him.
Emancipation Proclamation may have ended the slavery, but the people 's view towards African American or black peoples will take a very long time to improve. Slavery has remained as the big scar for the African-American people which is difficult to fade away. Alice Walker who is an African-American novelist should have faced various difficulties in her past or childhood as she was born in 1944 when racism had a huge impact in society as compared to now. Her personal experience may be the reason she says in her last line; Uncle Alberts, in her own mind, were not permitted to

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Imagine being born in the 1840s while slavery was happening around America. While we are imagining this also imagine that you are the black child born into this slavery and having to go through the beating and mistreatment while growing up. Later in life as an African American you must go through segregation, Jim crow laws, fugitive slave act, the civil war, the 14th and 15th amendment and lastly the black codes. Now no one wants to ever go through this as child or as an adult, but there was a person that did and his name was Allen Allensworth. Through his struggle as a young child and later as an adult he would later find a town or better known as a community that African Americans could live in peacefully.…

    • 1500 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In spite of the Reconstruction Amendments, there were many obstacles and challenges, for the physical liberation of all slaves, their integration into society and the development of interracial relationships. On the book, “Hard Road to Freedom” it states, “In late September 1906, a white mob moved through the black community, killing and burnig at random... The White House and Congress refused to move against lynching or to protect civil rights in the South, and it was common for high-level government officials pubicly to express racist beliefs”(Horton 215). This shows that during the first half of the twentieth century the condition of the black community was dreadful and unjustified. Under those circumstances, in their effort to cope with…

    • 274 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Their owners and employers have consistently treated slaves and immigrant workers brutally and inhumanely. Even though the mistreatment differs between these tow groups, both slaves and immigrant workers were taken advantage of because of their inability to control their lives. Slaves had no control over their lives since they were actually owned by the plantation owners, while immigrant workers felt that they, too, were enslaved because of their hopeless situations. Social injustice and brutality by the plantation owners and Chicago meat processing industry owners displayed the opportunity to manage and control their slaves and immigrant employees. Narrative by Frederick Douglass and Upton Sinclair’s…

    • 1196 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sectional conflicts between the north and the south before 1865 lead to the commencement of the Civil War in 1860. Differences on issues such as States versus government power and the issue of nullification arouse causing increasing tensions in congress. Differences between economies also became problematic as the North was primarily industrious while the south 's main economic focus was in agriculture. Although the primary cause of the war was the pro slavery south compared to the northern anti-slavery view. The end of the Civil war gave freedom and citizenship to African Americans in America along with suffrage.…

    • 1260 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    African Americans are "confined by the chains of ignorance and poverty" despite their "high and honorable aquirements. " This suggests that she thinks that slaves want to be respectable citizens and display their honorable intentions but are held down from doing so by the "chains of society." To continue, Stewart calls out the oppressive white society by mentioning that "whites have proclaimed the rights of equal rights and privileges" and that slaves have "caught the flame also. " This compares how just as the white people wanted their freedom and equality from Great Britain in the American Revolution, African Americans want this as well and have caught the "flame" that ignited that desire of freedom.…

    • 595 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Though African-Americans were granted their freedom ‘on paper’, very few Whites (mostly the Southerners) accepted the reality of African-American freedom. While the law may have stated that African-Americans were ‘freedmen’, states still tried to work their way around letting their former slave be completely free. To do so, states created what was known as “Black Codes”. The recognized states that created the “Black Codes” included “Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia”. Through these codes, these states held the newly freedmen in bondage, although it wasn’t technically acknowledged through the title of ‘slavery’.…

    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The documentary The African Americans Many Rivers to Cross tells that nearly 1.6 million African Americans migrated north into the booming economy of places such as Harlem that was predominately white. That is, until 1910 when African Americans quickly outnumbered the white population in 1980 and actually made up more than 90 percent of the city’s population. Zora Neale Hurston’s writing is both a reflection of and a departure from the ideas of the Harlem Renaissance as represented in Janie’s self-discovery, self-acceptance and changing independence in rural black communities within Florida during the 1920s and 30s. Mrs. Turner in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel reflects the general relationship between black and white people during the Harlem…

    • 875 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    According to Wilson, Ester is described as "a very old, yet vital spiritual advisor for the community" (Gem of the Ocean 92). Khanal explains how important of a character Ester is: "An ex-slave old enough to have survived the Middle Passage, Aunt Ester 's experience encompasses the whole African American people 's suffering in America" (Fighting to Maintain the Hard Won Self in August Wilson 's Gem of the Ocean 83). In contrast to Citizen and other young African Americans during this time period, Ester has experienced the whole timeline through slavery and Emancipation, and offers guidance and wisdom to her community that none other can. She uses her wisdom to help unshackle the emotional slavery that African Americans in her community face. The biggest display of this, as described earlier, is the passage of Citizen on Esters Gem of the Ocean, in which she guides Citizen through his troubled past and helps him to identify who he is.…

    • 1652 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The continual reminder that she is “the granddaughter of slaves” looms over her, but it doesn’t upset her, instead she feels that slavery is quite literally a thing of the past, and what matters…

    • 1376 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Antebellum and Civil War America (1793-1865) William Dedman Eastern Kentucky University African/African-American Studies Program GE Essay Assignment Dr. Norma Threadgill-Goldson Margaret Walker said, “Handicapped as we have been by a racist system of dehumanizing slavery and segregation, our American history of nearly five hundred years reveals that our cultural and spiritual gifts brought from our African past are still intact.” By making this statement, Mrs. Walker was reflecting on the discrimination, segregation and isolation African Americans endured in the American society; however, they were able to hold on to their culture and beliefs throughout and never gave up fighting for their rights. The worst treatment of African Americans occurred from 1793 until the end of the American Civil War. Following the Revolutionary War, during the Antebellum Period, Southern plantations began to shift production to cotton, an extremely labor-intense but profitable crop.…

    • 1353 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Dee/Wangero is weary of oppression and aims to overcome it by constructing a new understanding of her Black heritage. However, this new understanding of her ancestors neglects her immediate family and their values. Dee introduces herself to Mama as “Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo”, a name which she believes shows pride in her African heritage, and says “[Dee’s] dead [...] I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me” (Walker). Mama replies with "You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie” (Walker).…

    • 1443 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    “…We colored people did not know how to be free and the white people did not know how to have a free colored person about them”(Houston Hartsfield Holloway).The civil war ended in 1865 leading to the freedom of four million African Americans. The slaves no longer dealt with the suppression of slavery, but now with the hardships of freedom. The African Americans now faced more problems. They were starting a new life with no money, low literacy rates, and not even their own plot of farmland.…

    • 1291 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This is the major thing Elphaba never grasps about herself. She struggles with her oddness, she tries to embrace and emphasize her own uniqueness in her youth (particularly through her pro-Animal quest), and she seems at least somewhat aware of her "special" nature. By the time the answers start showing up about herself and her origins, she almost does not care enough to register them. People around Elphaba tend to recognize that there's something special about her, but Elphaba herself does not. This is crucial, because it's other people who create and define the Wicked Witch of the West.…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Slavery is a way to degrade African Americans. They degrade them by beating them and making them feel inferior. In the quote Sophia Auld was kind to Douglas but then she turned mean. To all the other people who are not slaves, they see a kind and loving person. They do not know what they do…

    • 1003 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it” (Walker 197). The Color Purple is the letters of Celie to God and her sister of life events she wants to talk about but does not have anyone to talk to. She often has issues she cannot handle alone and talks to Shug Avery, God or her sister about. In The Color Purple, the plot, characterization, style, and setting add to the complexity of the story. The story includes sisterly love, life struggles, and racism.…

    • 1224 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays