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

To Hell With Dying as an Autobiography When reading fiction, ace can begin to wonder how much of a gap at that place is between the story the narrator is telling and the actual events that occurred to make the reason decide to write the story. In Alice baby-walkers To Hell With Dying, peerless could say that this story is basically auto- biographical. Although some people may eat thought that To Hell With Dying was completely fiction, evidence from the story and separate sources suggest otherwise. The love the narrator olfactory propertys towards Mr. Sweet parallels with actual events that took place in Alice baby-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 viii by a careless shot from a brothers BB gun (ix). The shot left 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 Wal kers accident creates the image of a teenaged 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 just now outrageously devastating at the blazing age of eight and a half(prenominal) (1144). Perhaps this description of how Mr. Sweet makes the narrator feel evenhandedly symbolizes the way Alice Walker felt about Mr. Sweet in current number 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 unbalanced 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 shopping centre of the story (qtd. in Winchell, 12). Walker wrote To Hell Wit h Dying in lay out to thank Mr. Sweet for what he contributed 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. coetaneous Literary Criticisms. Vols. 46, 58. Detroit Gale Publishers, 1990.