Leah Villari, Post 1

Regarding prompt number one, Alice Walker gives a feeling that being different is a positive thing and that the outcast should embrace this. “Be an outcast; be pleased to walk alone.” She’s saying that even though you might not be deemed acceptable in society, it doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing, in fact this should be embraced and shouldn’t be seen as an embarrassment to oneself. Walker also seems to be making the point that as an outcast, you are different for a reason and should therefore be happy being this way. This is where freedom comes in. If a person realizes that they are an outcast and they become happy with how they truly are, then freedom will be theirs. “Take the contradictions of your life and wrap around you like a shawl” Walker is telling us to take what it is that makes us different and run with it. If one never becomes comfortable with their differences, then they can never truly be happy.

In “No Name Women”, Kingston would not agree with Walker because in this story, being an outcast is not seen as a good thing. The mother tells the story as if to make her not be anything like her shunned aunt. Being an outcast in this case is not seen as a positive but a negative. Although her family did not accept her for her choices, she didn’t seem to care much of what others thought and made her choices knowing the consequences of her actions. I feel that Kingston must see this as a bold act because she wrote about her in a different perspective than how her mother told the story. This proves that this work is much different when compared to “Be Nobody’s Darling” in the fact that being an outcast was encouraged whereas Kingston’s  mother tells the story as a cautionary tale, to make sure that she doesn’t make the same “mistakes” as her aunt did.