2/19 The (not so) Chicken Chronicles

"They" say the best stories tell two stories at once. Alice Walker tells many at once. She has found a way to successfully and creatively include history, self realization, motherhood, spirituality and excerpts of her life wisdom (amongst many other things), through chickens. At the heart of the story, and also, my inspiration for this weeks blog, the topic of discussion,"writing histories through metaphor,"becomes beyond prevalent. The story lives and breaths her intentions.

First, take her characters of choice, chickens. A chicken is generally overlooked because it is seen as a common food item or as a word used to insult people for having fear. A chicken has no choice or path other than to produce for it's domesticators. In other words, to the untrained eye, it is seen as anything but what Alice Walker sees as subliminal.

After watching birds "sweep the vineyards," Walker asks a series of questions addressing the chicken's:


"Did you ever fly wild like that? Were you once swooping waves of chickens descending from the sky? Did you ever know such freedom? Did you also, once upon a time know when the season was ripe (so to speak) for you to fly south, then north, then south again? Did every cell in your body know when each food source on your path was ready for your visitation and consumption? Or were you domesticated so long ago that it isn't even a memory?" (43)


 In the literal sense she is speaking of chickens. But her descriptions allude to the many historical moments of captivity. One being the captivation of human beings as slaves. A long process of manipulating a population of human's themselves, who were treated as nothing more than a bunch of puny minded chickens. Chickens, who were good for nothing, except to wait and be utilized for what they had to offer the users. For the purpose of humans. She then insults humans for ever captivating chickens, because humans are responsible for creating the entire alteration of the bird itself. She describes how humans, "have done much damage to other creatures because they think their own big brain is of major importance and any being with a smaller brain is somehow deficient" (44). Never thinking twice, or looking back. A chicken, like a slave, could not speak back, and could not talk about her own sufferings. At least not in a way that people were willing to listen to.

I am both bewildered and astonished by Walkers spirituality. At moments she seems to be religious with her reference to angels. Yet, in the same moment she states her, what I call, insecurity with religion. She calls herself one with a mind of "a believer in art, shamanism, and interspecies magic," however, after the death of her chicken Bobbie, and while reminiscing over her first chicken's death,  Babe, she purchases a form of burial which I cannot fully grasp (50).  Instead of cleaning up her chickens blood from the site of its doorway dismembering, she hung a "Haitian angel, hammered out of a metal drum… over the ill-fated door." She describes how, "In [it's] role as angel, she is both protector and liberator… and her presence of the place where Babe died would represent a tombstone" (50). I have never heard of an angel inhabiting a realm other than that of religion, but, perhaps her spirituality is meant to be uniquely her own and an all encompassing view of her path to enlightenment. She seems to hold onto this as one of her values as well. Her spirituality mingles with her thoughts constantly.

Walker's style is as equally admirable. The story line, written in the present tense, works well with her intertwining of the past. Without abruption she switches from first person to a sort of, third person  perspective as she calls herself, "your mommy," when speaking to the chickens. A phrase she invented, "space nuts," referring to the hurtling of the human race through space, starts the reader off on  their journey through Walter's train of thought (9). A spontaneous and unique experience of life. Her spirituality is intertwined, and in no way uniform, throughout her chapters. As the reader travels through the stories, she picks up on the many versions.

The metaphor of Walkers memoir holds strong. It is powerful in every aspect. The reader is left with plenty to be perplexed by. In fact, she isn't only writing her story, she is writing the chickens story and the story of humanity. Everyone can take something from her experiences.