Alice Walker’s Roselily

Alice Walker’s “Roselily”, when first read considered why she decided to use third person. Especially when the story is in such a private line of thought, but then after my second time reading the story I decided that Roselily would not be a strong enough woman to speak about the social injustices that have happened to her. One key part of the story is her new life she will be facing after she is married in Chicago, while comparing it with her old life she is leaving in Mississippi. In Chicago she will no longer have a job, but instead be a homemaker where she will be responsible for the children and home. Also, in Chicago she will become a Muslim because it is what her new husband will want her to be, but back in Mississippi she was of the Christian faith. One of the more positive outcomes of her marriage is that she will go from extreme poverty, to not having to worry about money on a day to day basis.

Next, consider the text trying to express her frustration with life: “She wants to live for once. But doesn’t quite know what that means. Wonders if she has ever done it. If she ever will.” (1130) You can sense her need and wanting to be independent of everything and everyone, to be truly a woman on her own free of any shackles of burden that this life has thrown upon her. Also, there is an impression that her family does not really care that she is leaving from her sisters to her disinterested father. “Roselily”,