# data[].attributes.body
The American dream is seen as a way everybody can become successful solely based on the amount of work they put in. Factors such as race, ethnicity, and other physical attributes do not play a role in attaining this belief. Alice Walkers works thus fail to support the American Dream, as she centers her writing around the “..economic hardship, racial terror…” gender inequality, as well as international conflict.

# data[].attributes.body
Alice Walker's most notable novel, The Color Purple, depicts “...the growing up and self-realization of a Southern black woman…” in the early 20th century. Throughout the story, the protagonist experiences sexual violence, brought upon by her father until she reaches fourteen, where she is arranged to marry a grown man. This story displays the difficult lives many women are forced to lead, thus disproving the American Dream.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Alice Walker, in full Alice Malsenior Walker, (born February 9, 1944, Eatonton, Georgia, U.S.), American writer whose novels, short stories, and poems are noted for their insightful treatment of African American culture. Her novels, most notably The Color Purple (1982), focus particularly on women.

Walker was the eighth child of African American sharecroppers. While growing up she was accidentally blinded in one eye, and her mother gave her a typewriter, allowing her to write instead of doing chores. She received a scholarship to attend Spelman College, where she studied for two years before transferring to Sarah Lawrence College. After graduating in 1965, Walker moved to Mississippi and became involved in the civil rights movement. She also began teaching and publishing short stories and essays. She married in 1967, but the couple divorced in 1976.
(Read W.E.B. Du Bois' 1926 Britannica essay on African American literature.)
Walker's first book of poetry, Once, appeared in 1968, and her first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), a narrative that spans 60 years and three generations, followed two years later. A second volume of poetry, Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems, and her first collection of short stories, In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Woman, both appeared in 1973. The latter bears witness to sexist violence and abuse in the African American community. After moving to New York, Walker completed (1976), a novel describing the coming of age of several civil rights workers in the 1960s.

Walker later moved to California, where she wrote her most popular novel, The Color Purple (1982). An epistolary novel, it depicts the growing up and self-realization of an African American woman between 1909 and 1947 in a town in Georgia. The book won a Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg in 1985. A musical version produced by Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones premiered in 2004.

Walker's later fiction includes The Temple of My Familiar, an ambitious examination of racial and sexual tensions (1989); Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), a narrative centred on female genital mutilation; By the Light of My Father's Smile (1998), the story of a family of anthropologists posing as missionaries in order to gain access to a Mexican tribe; and Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart (2005), about an older woman's quest for identity. Reviewers complained that these novels employed New Age abstractions and poorly conceived characters, though Walker continued to draw praise for championing racial and gender equality in her work. She also released the volume of short stories The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart (2000) and several other volumes of poetry, including Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth (2003), A Poem Traveled Down My Arm (2003), Hard Times Require Furious Dancing (2010), and Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart (2018). Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems (1991) collects poetry from 1965 to 1990.
(Read Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s Britannica essay on "Monuments of Hope.")
Walker's essays were compiled in In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983), Sent by Earth: A Message from the Grandmother Spirit After the Bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon (2001), We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For (2006), and The Cushion in the Road: Meditation and Wandering as the Whole World Awakens to Being in Harm's Way (2013). Walker also wrote juvenile fiction and critical essays on such female writers as Flannery O'Connor and Zora Neale Hurston. She cofounded a short-lived press in 1984. Throughout her career Walker occasionally attracted criticism. Notably, some African Americans strongly objected to the perceived negative portrayal of Black men in The Color Purple. In later years Walker, who often spoke out against Israel's policies toward Palestinians, was accused of being anti-Semitic, with her support of a Holocaust denier drawing particular attention.

In the unconventional memoir The Chicken Chronicles (2011), Walker discussed caring for a flock of chickens while also musing on her life. Gathering Blossoms Under Fire (2022) is a collection of her journals. The documentary Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth was released in 2013.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Alice Walker | Biography, Books, The Color Purple, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alice Walker, in full Alice Malsenior Walker, (born February 9, 1944, Eatonton, Georgia, U.S.), American writer whose novels, short stories, and poems are noted for their insightful treatment of African American culture. Her novels, most notably The Color Purple (1982), focus particularly on women. Walker was the eighth child of African American sharecroppers.

# data[].attributes.body
Not only does Alice Walker’s work focus on the struggles of women, but also that of African Americans. Throughout her life she was involved in countless protests alongside famous black figures such as Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X. These protests had dramatically  affected her literary work, as she often reflected on these events and her experiences. One of her most popular novels, Her novel Meridian, is a great example as it centers around “...activist workers in the South, during the civil rights movement… closely parallel some of Walker's own experiences…”

# data[].attributes.body
Another one of Alice Walker's influential works, Everyday Use, centers around African American history and heritage. The main purpose of this story being "to acknowledge and respect their American heritage,(given that) the history of Africans in America is filled with stories of pain, injustice, and humiliation." She just further disproves her faith in the American Dream.

# data[].attributes.body
Throughout Alice Walker’s literary work, she clearly refutes the American Dream as she focuses on the injustice African Americans and women face. Thus proving that the American Dream does not apply to everyone.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alice-Walker

https://alicewalkersgarden.com/books/book-list/

https://www.biography.com/writer/alice-walker

https://www.biblio.com/alice-walker/author/248

https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/alice-walker-b-1944/

http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/alicew/davidwhite.htm

https://blog.oup.com/2020/12/women-and-literature-alice-walker/

https://www.biblio.com/alice-walker/author/248