"AN EXTRAVAGANCE OF LAUGHTER" (RALPH ELLISON) & "IN SEARCH OF OUR MOTHERS' GARDENS" (ALICE WALKER).   Term Paper ID:25255 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Compares essays on African-American & human identity, personality, gender, creativity.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Compares essays on African-American & human identity, personality, gender, creativity. Paper Introduction: Alice Walker and Ralph Ellison work toward different ends in their essays "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens" and "An Extravagance of Laughter." Walker urges African American women to identify their own creativity. She refers to Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" in relationship to the experience of these women. Ellison discusses the virtues of adopting a second self, for African Americans and those of other races alike. His inspiration comes from W.B. Yeats. The main difference in the approach of Walker and Ellison is that Walker advocates a stripping away of personality layers while Ellison advocates putting on personality layers. Walker would disagree with Ellison about putting on layers because Walker contends that African American women have had to assume layers of personality all their lives. Walker discusses Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Their onlymeans of survival was to adopt a second self: "They forced their minds todesert their bodies and their striving spirits sought to rise, like frailwhirlwinds from the hard red clay" (Walker 64 ). Walker contrasts the strain experienced by white women with that ofAfrican American women by referring to Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One'sOwn." Woolf contends that a woman cannot be a fiction writer unless shehas a room of her own and financial independence. Ellison claims that wearing the mask is an important strategy inAmerica, regardless of color. Ellison concludes that a person never knows what toexpect in New York City. Ellison believes that the creative spirit can beinstrumental in bringing the races together: "an interest in the artscould break down social distance and allow for communication that wasuninhibited by questions of race--or so it seemed" (Ellison 148). Woolf talks about the "contrary instincts" that served as obstaclesto women in the sixteenth century who wanted to express their gifts ofcreative genius. Walker found her own mother's genius in hergift for gardening. In "A Room ofOne's Own" Virginia Woolf talks about the lost novelist, the anonymouscreative spirits who must have existed among women in past generations.Woolf finds these creative geniuses among women and the working class.Walker finds them among slaves and wives and daughters of sharecroppers.She urges African American women to identify the creative genius in theirown mothers and grandmothers. Incontrast, African American women in the sixteenth century endured slavery,guns, beatings, and a total disregard for their dreams and aspirations. Works CitedEllison, Ralph. Ellison's essay reveals the dangers of wearing the mask as well asthe rewards. Their kindness enabled Phillis to develop her creative gifts,immersed in a white world where blackness was marginalized, she neverexpressed her roots in her poetry: "So torn by 'contrary instincts' wasblack, kidnapped enslaved Phillis that her description of 'the Goddess'--asshe poetically called the Liberty she did not have--is ironically, cruellyhumorous" (Walker 642). Ellison's mask helps buffer thenegative effects of the contrary instincts of society. Ellison does not condemnthis once he understands the importance of wearing the mask in America. At a theater, while watching Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road,Ellison blows his cover. And financialindependence was well out of reach for all but the most well-educatedAfrican American families, much less single black women on their own. As a recent arrivalto New York City, Ellison had a difficult time adjusting to the interracialsocial norms. By finding their ancestors' gifts, African Americanwomen can attune themselves to the strain of genius within them that hasbeen handed down from generation to generation. The main differencein the approach of Walker and Ellison is that Walker advocates a strippingaway of personality layers while Ellison advocates putting on personalitylayers. The identification ofcreative genius helps African American women cope with the contraryinstincts of society that hinder their progress. Immigrants often Anglicize their names and physicalcharacteristics: "Alter the shape of your nose, tint of skin, or textureof hair" (Ellison 152). Such a genius lies like asleeping giant in all of us. Both Walker and Ellison have valid points of view. The only socially acceptable outlet for African American women in theearly twentieth century was the church, and thus many assumed a second selfof religious spirituality. This tragedy occurred with African American poet Phillis Wheatley.Born in Africa, she became a slave to a wealthy white family at the age ofseven. Everyone has a need to express it andeveryone encounters obstacles to its expression. This often requires a splitting of self, but if the second selfthat is projected is one that is overwhelmingly positive, then anintegration of the two selves might occur. Yetdespite these obstacles, African American women managed to express theircreativity. Because of her identification with whiteness, modernreaders often label Phillis a fool or an Uncle Tom. "An Extravagance of Laughter." In David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky (Eds.) Ways of Reading, 137-171. Boston: BedfordBooks, 1996.----------------------- 9 Ellison concludes that the only way to cope with Northern attitudesis with the wearing of a mask. Ellison, raised in Oklahoma, recognized thisstudent as a Native American passing for white. The City College student that Ellison encounteredin the bookstore had done so. Ellisonbases this assumption on a conversation he has with a charming old Jewishlady on a bus, who urges him to take advantage of living in a city sosteeped in art. Yeats, changingYeats' words to match the situation of African Americans in white society.If African Americans cannot imagine themselves as different from what manywhites assume them to be and assume the second self, then they cannotimpose a discipline upon themselves (Ellison 151). The socialstructure is constantly changing with much upward and downward mobility.The person who "projects a self-elected identity and makes of himself a'work of art'" (Ellison 151) stands the best chances of succeeding. For this reason, the poet Jean Toomer referredto these women as "saints." He perceived that they were more than ordinarywomen but lacked the words to adequately describe their hidden selves.Walker, however, has no trouble naming them. Ellison learned that in New YorkCity, if he appeared to be a confident New Yorker, whites would accept himas such, but if he appeared to be uncertain about acceptance then whiteswould not accept him: "Which is to say that in many instances I found thatmy air and attitude could offset the inescapable fact of my color" (Ellison151). On one hand, he experienced that New York City phenomenon,the subway system, where a salad bowl of humanity comes together as equals. Both Ellison and Walker put their faith in the creative spirit.Walker believes that the innate creative genius in African American womenis able to liberate them, helping them rise above the hindrances ofcontrary instincts. Ellison alters his assumption, however, when he encountersa white City College student in a bookstore, whose attachment of racialovertones to an innocent metaphor brings Ellison down to earth. He becomes theobject of the whites' laughter because they view him as an ignorant blackman who cannot tell the difference between a stage play and reality.Cognizant of his socially unacceptable behavior, Ellison is powerless tocontrol himself and becomes painfully aware of how difficult it is to wearthe mask on all occasions: "It was as though I had plunged into anightmare in which my personality was split in twain, with the lucid sidelooking on in wonder while the manic side convulsed my body" (Ellison 165). African American womenin the early twentieth century certainly had neither. The majority, likeWalker's mother, married early and had a houseful of children before theyreached the age of 2 . She refers to Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" inrelationship to the experience of these women. The strain ofmaintaining two selves, the creative soul and the socially acceptable outershell, drove many of these women to madness. They went through themotions of raising families, working alongside their husbands in thesharecropping fields, and enduring the insults of life in a racist society. In other words, peopleare accepted by what they appear to be. The positive outcome of this experience, however, was that Caldwell's playhelped Ellison get in touch with the common humanity that unites all peoplein society. Walker discusses black women in the Southduring the early twenties. The plot of the play is based on poor Southernwhites, the type that Ellison knew too well as a student at Tuskegee: "atype and class of whites whom I had spent the last three years trying toavoid" (Ellison 141). Walker's is a verypersonal approach. Here Ellison refers to W.B. So much for a room of one's own. In some rare instances she wasburned at the stake as a witch or confined to a mental asylum. Boston: Bedford Books, 1996.Walker, Alice. On the other hand he is denied admission to a West Side cinema housebecause he is black. On the other hand, Ellison's point is valid and helpsto ease the strain of social relationships, especially for minorities.America is unique because it is a country that allows a person to invent,and even reinvent, themselves: to a certain degree, you are who you sayyou are. Walker claims that the most pernicious contrary instinct of all wasthat which resulted in splitting the self to such a degree that the hiddenself was lost and all subsequent creativity paid homage to the second selfalone. Walker contends that the contrary instincts that hinderedblack women were far more formidable than those that hindered white women.The white woman faced social ostracism. A person shoulddig deeply within themselves to uncover their creative genius, as Walkerencourages African American women to do. Combining theapproaches of Walker and Ellison might result in a person who is bothintroverted and extroverted, a person who can share his or her creativegenius with others. Everybody does it because America has beenblessed with a society that has a fairly open structure. The outrageous comedy in the play sends Ellison intoa fit of uncontrollable laughter. The creative spirit of these women was sorepressed that they were virtually sleepwalkers through life. The purpose of Walker's essay is to prevent modern African Americanwomen from suffering the same fate as Phillis Wheatley. "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens." In David Bartholomaeand Anthony Petrosky (Eds.) Ways of Reading, 639-647. His cover is blown because he is nolonger the sophisticated New Yorker watching a play, he becomes an offstageextension of the play because some of the whites in the audience focustheir laughter on him instead of the comedy on stage. Phillis' goddess was "divinely fair [with] goldenhair" (Walker 642). Walker looks insteadat what Phillis endured and marvels that she was able to keep her light ofcreativity shining at all: "It was not so much what you sang, as that youkept alive, in so many of our ancestors, the notion of song" (Walker 643).Phillis died in poverty and poor health, the victim of contrary instincts. His inspiration comes from W.B. Alice Walker and Ralph Ellison work toward different ends in theiressays "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens" and "An Extravagance ofLaughter." Walker urges African American women to identify their owncreativity. Ellison advocates a totally different coping strategy than Walker.Ellison, too, has been the victim of contrary instincts, from the blatantracism of the South to the subtle racism of the North. Yeats. She describes them as"Creators, who lived lives of spiritual waste, because they were so rich inspirituality--which is the basis of Art" (Walker 64 ). Ellison discusses thevirtues of adopting a second self, for African Americans and those of otherraces alike. Unfortunately, for ethnics and other minorities the assumption of theself-elected identity often requires eliminating traces of ethnic identityin favor of whiteness. Walker would disagree with Ellison about putting on layers becauseWalker contends that African American women have had to assume layers ofpersonality all their lives. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.