Author(s): Dr. Elizabeth Zachariah

Abstract: This paper examines storytelling as a means of survival in Alice Walker’s The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart. It focuses on the narratives “To My Young Husband,” “Kindred Spirit,” and “Blaze.” The study places the text within feminist narratology and trauma theory. It argues that storytelling is not merely an act of representation but also a means of transforming knowledge. Walker’s mixed narrative challenges traditional boundaries between fiction and autobiography. It highlights emotional experience as a source of knowledge. Through storytelling, the main character reshapes experiences of love, loss, and displacement into meanings that support both healing and resistance. The paper shows that fragmentation, rather than signalling a failure in the narrative, serves as a technique for reflecting trauma and enabling its exploration. In the end, storytelling becomes a means of survival, reclaiming voice, rebuilding identity, and redefining the “broken heart” as a source of creative and ethical renewal.

Keywords: creative and ethical renewal, feminist narratology, fragmentation, healing and resistance, storytelling.

Article Info: Received: 18 May 2026; Received in revised form: 15 Jun 2026; Accepted: 18 Jun 2026; Available online: 22 Jun 2026

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.113.75