The Funky Chicken Chronicles

In the chapter/vignette, ‘Dear Rufus, Agnes & Co.’, Alice Walker’s illustration of her close relationship with ‘the girls’ creates a notion of the human qualities of chickens. This is the first chapter in which Walker begins writing directly to the chickens (or, at least, writing as if she were composing a letter to them). However, by simply reading the title, a reader who wasn’t familiar with the chickens could mistake the names for names of human companions. The title, then, functions to humanize the chickens and, specifically with the word ‘dear’, create the expectation for a personal and possibly intimate vignette.

            Walker contextualizes the piece by writing, “I have taken a plane that has thus far flown me high over the hills where you (and I) live” (37). The aforementioned sentence also places particular emphasis on the chickens; Walker chooses to place herself in parentheses as if she were her own afterthought. Taking into account that Walker is supposedly writing to her chickens on her flight to India already shows the reader her devotion to her ‘girls’, but this devotion is emphasized by the syntactical placement of herself and her chickens.

            Walker continues the thread of placing herself and the chickens on the same level (or even placing them on a higher level) when she writes, “It was hard to leave you, and I will be gone for quite some time, in chicken terms, but at least before I left I was able to conduct the experiment with persimmons I had long envisioned” (37). Here, Walker discusses time on a scale relative to the chickens, acknowledging that what may seem like a short time to her may be a much longer time to her ‘girls’. The recognition of the difference in time communicates Walker’s empathy and care for the chickens, allowing the reader a subtle glimpse of the close relationship she has with them. Additionally, by using the specific word ‘the’ before ‘experiment’, Walker invites the reader into this personal relationship by alluding to inside information that she has already given in prior chapters about how she wants to see if the chickens love persimmons as much as she does. Walker invites the reader in again when she writes, “Space nuts”, as if she were sharing an inside joke with the audience.

            The intimacy of the piece is emphasized by Walker’s recounting of the morning that she brought persimmons to the chickens: “You were interested, as you always are” (38). The brief and assured mention of the chicken’s habits illustrates the close relationship between Walker and the chickens. Additionally, she also pauses before the aforementioned quote to describe the persimmons, which were “a wonderful and visually satisfying display of colors [she] love[s]: deep orange, red, and yellow” (38). Despite a more common perception of chicken feed being unwanted scraps or grain, Walker offers the chickens a chance to share her love of persimmons, which is illustrated by her passionate description of them. Through this detailing and the others mentioned above, Walker gives the reader a notion of the connection and care she has formed with and for the chickens; she seems to be attending to the reader in the same way that she tends to her ‘girls’ – with careful and loving attention. I speculated that the portion she wrote on her brothers tricking her about the tartness of persimmons may have to do with her desire to transform the reader’s notions about chickens; what the reader may see as common, mindless farm animals, she desires to expose as the devoted creatures she sees them to be.