Cover art for Women by Alice Walker
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Genius Annotation

“Women” by celebrated author Alice Walker takes a close look at the sacrifices African American women, especially of her mother’s generation, took to make sure that their children had better educations and futures than they did. Walker said that she wrote this particular piece for her mother, who was a maid and the wife of an unsuccessful sharecropper. Her mother was determined that Alice and her siblings would receive an education so that they could have better opportunities available to them.

The poem analyzes the themes of the strength of women in the face of danger and adversity, the hopes of mothers for their children, and the sacrifices women make. The poem is a single stanza, and uses lines that are no more than five words long, with some lines as few as one word long. Alice describes women of her “mama’s generation”, women who were strong inside and out. They did their chores and did their best to ensure that their children were educated. The narrator ends the poem with a tone of admiration that while these women were often not educated themselves. They knew it was important for the next generation to have access to education.

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