Intersecting Silences and Embodied Inequalities: A Feminist, Intersectional, and Womanist Reading of Alice Walker’s Strong Horse Tea within African American Women’s Literary and Health Humanities Traditions

This article offers an in-depth feminist, intersectional, and womanist analysis of Alice Walker's short story Strong Horse Tea, situating the narrative within the broader traditions of African American women's literature and contemporary health humanities scholarship.Set in the rural American South during the mid-twentieth century, the story portrays the lived experiences of Rannie (Rani) Toomer, a poor Black mother whose desperate attempts to save her gravely ill child expose the interlocking structures of racial, gendered, class-based, and institutional oppression.Employing qualitative textual analysis, this study closely examines narrative silence, illiteracy, bodily vulnerability, and restricted access to healthcare as key thematic elements that reflect systemic marginalization rather than individual failure.Drawing on feminist literary criticism, intersectionality theory, and Black feminist and womanist thoughtparticularly Alice Walker's conceptualization of womanism-the analysis demonstrates how Rannie's silence operates as both a product of structural exclusion and a marker of historically enforced voicelessness among Black women.Her persistent efforts to seek help, despite institutional neglect and epistemic barriers, are interpreted as a form of cultural resilience embedded within Black women's survival strategies.The study further argues that Strong Horse Tea functions as a powerful critique of medical racism and class-based healthcare disparities, foregrounding how knowledge, language, and authority are unevenly distributed along racial and socioeconomic lines.By contextualizing Walker's narrative within African American women's literary history and interdisciplinary debates on care, inequality, and embodiment, this article contends that Strong Horse Tea transcends the boundaries of personal tragedy.Instead, it emerges as a socially engaged text that continues to resonate with contemporary discussions on gender justice, racial inequality, and ethical responsibility in systems of care.The findings reaffirm Alice Walker's enduring relevance as a literary voice committed to exposing structural injustice while centering Black women's lived experiences.