Tilar Bell
Allen
ENGL 2202
3/19/2015

Death Is Not the End of Love

Alice Dunbar Nelson was an influential African American teacher, poet, essayist, social activist, journalist and feminist in the late 19th century. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana she graduated from both high school and college and traveled often throughout her life. Best known for her shorts fictional stories more so than her poetry, influences on the Harlem Renaissance, and political and social activism, Alice Dunbar Nelson had many achievements within the African American community as well as in her literature. Her writings addressed women’s roles in society, intra-racial prejudice, and education, issues of identity, racism, love and sexuality. Also her popular yet chaotic marriage to Paul Laurence Dunbar was widely known and somewhat added to her writing career. Alice Dunbar Nelson experienced two additional failed marriages in her lifetime. Later in her life she wrote less as she became more active in political causes. Alice Dunbar Nelson died in 1935 at age sixty of heart failure. Many of her writings highlighted the life experiences and emotions of African American women in her time.
Alice Dunbar Nelson’s first book Violets and Other Tales was one of her earliest works; a collection of short stories and poems. This book was published in 1895 in Boston when she was just twenty years old. Although the book has multiple writings, “Violets” will be the focus of this poem analysis. “Violets” within the collection is a poetic short story about a past love and heartbreak, and how violets serve as a reminder of the passion and purity of the love that a man and woman once shared. This poem is about the nostalgic effect violets and other flowers such as tube-roses and orange blossoms bring to a woman about the man she is passionately in love with. The descriptive language and diction, symbolism