The Welcome Table Essay - 762 Words

The Welcome Table â€Å"The Welcome Table† written by Alice Walker is a story about faith and religion. This was a bittersweet story about an elderly woman finding Jesus. The theme of the story is having faith in your religion. Some of the literary elements of this short story that contribute to the theme include plot, point of view, conflict, and setting. This story provides an excellent example of theme because it provokes emotion and insight. The plot of this story begins when an elderly woman went into a church where only white people were allowed. Some of the white women provoked their husbands to throw the old woman out of the church. â€Å"It was the ladies who finally did what to them had to be done. Daring their burly indecisive†¦show more content†¦No, no, the husbands were quick to answer and even quicker to do their duty† (Walker, 1970). This example illustrates the time frame from which this story was written. The author also describes the weather as being not much above zero outside, so this story takes place during the cold winter months. After being thrown out of the church the setting shifts to the highway. â€Å"When they passed her house, forlourn and sagging, weather-beaten and patched, by the side of the road, she did not even notice it, she was so happy to be out walking along the highway with Jesus, she broke the silence once more to tell Jesus how glad she was that he had come, how she had often looked at his picture hanging on her wall (she hoped he didn’t know she had stolen it) over her bed, and how she had never expected to see him down here in person† (Walker, 1970). â€Å"The Welcome Table† was written in third-person omniscient point of view. Third-person omniscient is a the point of view in which the narrator or speaker is not a part of the story. A speaker using third-person omniscient point of view is all knowing, they know the point of view of every character in the story. â€Å"Using an omniscient narrator gives you the advantage of moving seamlessly from one point of view to another† (Sunday Independent, 2006) â€Å"Some of those who saw her there on the church step spoke words about her that were hardly fit to be heard, others held their piousShow MoreRelatedThe Welcome Table by Alice Walker718 Words   |  3 PagesThe Welcome Table by Alice Walker ENG 125 Introduction to Literature I choose to analyze The Welcome Table by Alice Walker; this story is about an old, rundown black woman who staggers the necessary distance in the freezing cold to attend an all-white people church. The Welcome Table is told in the third person and shifts the point of view from which the story is told. The white people are at a loss when they see her near the entrance of the church and do not know what to do. 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