The Welcome Table Story
Instructor: Cathy Cousar
Tameshia Norris
02/17/2014
The Welcome Table Story
There are many different genres of literature to choose from when deciding on certain literary work to evaluate. However, The Welcome Table is a short story that deals with racism, hypocrisy, gossip, violence, and compassion. This short story is based on an old woman who is seeking solace by going to worship services at church which are not welcome of her persistence to be there. “The idea that change and personal triumph are possible due to the odds of Walker’s central writing” (Adams, Blackmon, Norton, 2010)
In studying the various works in this week’s text. I will use a reader-response approach to evaluate and analyze The Welcome Table Story by Alice Walker. The reader-response approach allows me to connect with this story and reflect my own feelings of the old woman and the other characters in this story. In order to connect I had to imagine myself in the story.
This story captured my attention immediately while Walker described the old woman. Theses Details made it easy forming a clearer picture of what the woman looked like and how others perceived her. Walker describes her as a very old black woman with ashy gray skin “like the bark of old pines.” She wore musty, decayed, and stained clothes. Even though several people spoke with her about leaving the church, she was bound and determined to stay. When visiting the church members were clearly racist and looked down upon this woman. They mumbled things that were not Christian like. The Reverend and Usher boy asked her to leave at this point though she became very annoyed about it.
Finally, the ladies of the church convinced their husbands to throw her out the church. It’s interesting that she sang happy songs along her journey but after her bewilderment of being threw out her happy songs became sad songs. When Jesus...