personality is like the different groups of Blacks in the civil rights movements. Some Blacks wanted segregation, some wanted their own nation, some wanted to be more African, some wanted to live like the White Americans, some were Muslims and some were Christians. They all agreed that their current situation was not acceptable, but they did not know how to improve it. At the same time as Roselily wants to start a new life, she is afraid of losing her roots. She pictures her children exalted on a pedestal, a stalk that has no roots, and She wonders how to make new roots. Alice Walker here describes Black Americans and probably also her own search for identity. Which heritage is the right one; the one from their Black American ancestors, or the one from the African ancestors? As Roselily is about to marry, about to go to Chicago and start a new life with her husband, she is starting to regret her decision and faces the truth: Just like Black Americans went from the slavery in the cotton fields to paid slavery in the sewing plants, she is now moving to the slavery of Islam. She thinks of his religion and sees ropes, chains, handcuffs. She thinks of Chicago, her new home, and realizes that all she knows about the place (is) Lincoln, the president. President Lincoln abolished the slavery, but that did not free the Black Americans. See also my article on "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker Back to the top An Essay on Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" by Gro Mette Moen, 3E 1998/99, e-mail: groomi@online.no "Mending Wall" is a poem written by the American poet Robert Frost. The poem describes two neighbours who repair a fence between their estates. It is, however...
