The Epistles of Experience: Creating an Authentic Feminine Space

Abstract

Literature examines how women in society function within their
specific cultures and circumstances to encounter the challenges they
face in life. Despite fragmentation in their lives--like quilt makers, they
piece together the scraps of their existence to form an integrated and
complete whole. The imagery of the quilt plays a significant role in
African American women's writing. The quilt is a narrative device
essential to the storyteller's technique. As the narrator utilises the quilt in
telling the story, it becomes an integral part of the fiction. It functions as
an intrinsic component of narrative and plot and not as a helpful
metaphor. For Alice Walker, the writing process is similar to the art of
quilting, which necessitates assembling various patches belonging to
different textures and transference from one narrative space into
another. Accordingly, the most significant feature of African American
quilts is their "promise of creating unity among disparate elements, of
establishing connectedness amid fragmentation" (Kelley 176).