Analysing the Perception of Violence in Walker’s Short Story Collection in Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women

Abstract

Alice Walker is a renowned African American novelist, poet, short-story writer, and social activist.She became known worldwide with the publication of her seminal work, The Colour Purple. She is regarded as a radical black feminist author. She propagated her theory of womanism in her stories. Violence is a recurring theme in her stories. Walker’s narratives demonstrate the hardships, tribulations, and dilemmas faced by African American immigrants in the United States. Alice Walker’s short story collections explore the theme of violence, particularly as it relates to women of color during the era of chattel slavery in the United States. Women of colour have historically been subjected to violence by both white and black men. While violence against black women is dehumanising, their resistance offers the possibility of a new identity.  Walker exposes the traumatic lives of black women resisting oppression and violence in her short story collections in various forms, such as physical, mental, self-inflicted, and societal violence.