Answer Key - ClassZone

Answer Key from In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens Literary Analysis SkillBuilder, page 68 (Responses will vary. Sample responses are provided.) Statements from Essay 1. “And yet, it is to my mother—and all our mothers who were not famous—that I went in search of the secret of what has fed that muzzled and often mutilated, but vibrant, creative spirit that the black woman has inherited . . .” 2. “And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see: or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.” 3. “For her, so hindered and intruded upon in so many ways, being an artist has still been a daily part of her life.” Walker’s Perspective: She admires the resilience and spirit of African-American women in general, and her mother in particular. Follow Up: Students may say that Walker’s beliefs in civil rights and feminism and her identity as a writer inspire her to write about the lives of African-American women who overcame great odds to express their creativity. Students might point to Statement 1 to support their conclusion about Walker’s perspective. They might also point to the following quotation from Virginia Woolf as adapted by Walker: “Yet genius of a sort must have existed among women as it must have existed among the working class. [Change this to ‘slaves’ and the ‘wives and daughters of sharecroppers.’]”