"Roselily" By Alice Walker

It has been a pleasure to have read "Roselily" written by Alice Walker--one who has been considered a famous southern writer. I may made so many mistakes as well as misinterpretation or understatement, but the following is my sincere response to this short story.

The View of Emotional Conflicts in Roselily

Roselily is the protagonist in this short story, and everything is narrated through the window of her eyes—her wonders, imagination, thought, and experiences. She is considered living a lonely life that filled with doubts and alienations. Her emotional conflict and her willingness to change her life have been the most important inspiration.

There is a possibility that Roselily’s future husband love and care for her, but Roselily feels a difference because of her husband’s identity—his belief. Her husband is a Black Muslim who dislikes people of Panther Burn, as Walker states, “A word she hears when thinking of smoke, from his description of what a cinder was, which they never had in Panther Burn” (267). And Roselily doubts if her husband looks down on her, too. There are many doubts that she has about her life and husband. Those doubts are like fences of her feeling towards happiness in her marriage life. She feels alienated, and she looks alienated since she wears veil, which modern girls may consider unacceptable. She has mental conflicts against the treatments of her society.

All her strong expressions of ambivalence create a sense of sympathy towards the protagonist. It should be an understanding that Roselily attempts a new way of life—and a woman who wants a new identity always have inner conflicts. The theme of rebellion for a new identity can be self-destructive. For this reason, Roselily and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening seems to share a similarity of woman identity. Edna Pontellier in The Awakening became emotionally descent when she tries to struggle against the identity she doesn’t want. Similarly, Roselily is seeking a change for her life, as Roselily wonders “how to make new roots” and “what one does with memories in a brand-new life” (267). The struggle for this change can possibly cause a sadness and loneliness in her feeling.

Her thoughts have shaped by the environment she lives, as Walker writes, “It is not her nature to blame […]. She supposes New England, the North, to be quite different from what she knows […]. It seems…people who move there to live return home completely changed” (267). Because of her environment she feels “impatient to see the South Side, where they would live and build be respectable and respected and free” (268). Clearly, she is a model of such a woman who has the willingness to change—the willingness to transform her life. When she keeps mention about “free,” it reveals that her life now has less freedom, and it is probably wrecked, alienated, and dull.

Roselily wants a change in her life and seek for the South where she believes she could be free. She may be a lonely woman who is not very sociable. Obviously, her society is quite different from today society. I believe if Roselily lives in today world, she could be a strong woman—hopefully a great woman leader because she has a sense of rebellion for something better in life.