To Hell With Dying as an Autobiography Essays -- Hell With Dying Essay

To Hell With Dying as an Autobiography When reading fiction, whiz can begin to wonder how much of a disruption there is between the story the narrator is telling and the actual events that occurred to make the author decide to write the story. In Alice Walkers To Hell With Dying, one could say that this story is basically auto- biographical. Although some people may have thought that To Hell With Dying was completely fiction, evidence from the story and other sources educe otherwise. The love the narrator olfactions towards Mr. sweet-smelling parallels with actual events that took place in Alice Walkers life. In the preface of Donna Haisty Winchells book Alice Walker, it is revealed that Alice Walker was blinded in one eye at age eight by a careless shot from a brothers BB gun (ix). The shot left-hand(a) a scar that bothered Walker immensely. Winchell also writes that because of the BB shot wound Walker was feeling ugly and outcast (ix). This description of Walkers contingen cy creates the image of a young girl who has no feeling of self worth. In the story, however, Mr. Sweet is very fond of the narrator. He used to call her his princess, and he made her feel simply outrageously devastating at the blazing age of eight and a half(prenominal) (1144). Perhaps this description of how Mr. Sweet makes the narrator feel pretty symbolizes the way Alice Walker felt about Mr. Sweet in real life. Alice Walker was eight when she got shot with the BB gun, and the narrator is eight and a half when Mr. Sweet is telling her how pretty she is. Although Alice Walker only has vague memories of the real Mr. Sweet, she does remember that he never stopped talking about the things that upset him. Mr. Sweets talking and singing made Walker feel good. In Walker... ...e an artist as well. Walker explains in Alice Walker. The love happened, and that is the essence of the story (qtd. in Winchell, 12). Walker wrote To Hell With Dying in order to thank Mr. Sweet for what he contr ibuted to her life. Winchell acknowledges that the story is her Walkers wish that she could have returned the favor (13). Works Cited Walker, Alice. Remembering Mr. Sweet. The harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York HarperCollins, 1991. Walker, Alice. To Hell With Dying. The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York HarperCollins Publishers, 1991. Winchell, Donna Haisty. Alice Walker. New York Twayne Publishers, 1992. Works Consulted Short Story Criticisms. Vol. 5. Detroit Gale Publishers, 1990. Contemporary Literary Criticisms. Vols. 46, 58. Detroit Gale Publishers, 1990.