Everyday Use By Alice Walker Summary

In the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, the author describes different ideas about one’s heritage. Culture and heritage is at the main point of the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker as symbolized by the quilt. The bond that Mother and Maggie share is brought by their common talent to make works of art like quilts. Dee does not have similar capacity because she does not appreciate manual labor nor believes in her heritage. The idea of pride in culture, heritage, and family is the main theme of the story. The line between being proud of whom one is and exploiting one’s self is broken and blurred by one character. The other two keep their firm ground in living out their values, rather than using it simply as a conversation starter.

Dee, from Walker’s “Everyday Use,” is Mama’s older daughter who not only has a judgmental, insensitive attitude towards Mama and her younger sister Maggie, but also believes she appreciates her family heritage more than Mama does, when in fact, Dee is the one who is “uneducated” and lacks an understanding about what her heritage truly is.

In “everyday Use,” Alice Walker tells a narrative of a mother’s frustrating relationship together with her two daughters. At this facet, “,Everyday Use”, tells that how a mom little by little refuses the cursory values of her older, successful daughter at the aspect of the useful values of her younger, much less lucky daughter. On a deeper outlook, Alice Walker takes on the theme of heritage and its norms as it applies to African-Americans.

The conflict in the story is centered around the clash between the two worlds with which Walker 's character Dee is endued. Dee increasingly accuses her heritage of the ideas and rhetoric of the new Black Pride movement. Walker weaves the theme of African cultural nationalism with a descriptive conflict immersed in family issues. On another level, Alice Walker offers a unique look at the struggling African-American woman to find both a personality and voice from the shadows of the past, as well as a rapidly changing future. Everyday use continues to be included in the final anthologies of American literature.

The profundity of the love of parents towards their children cannot be measured. This relationship is like no other. The love of a parent for a child is ongoing surpassing affliction. Our parents can teach us a galore of things. They have the power to show us how we are to be, who we should be, what not to be. Parents could also point out to one traits that one objectifies, soon realizing, that those traits are not of one 's own if not of ones parents which one is reflecting. In the short story "Everyday Use" the author Alice Walker depicts a mothers conflicting relationship with her two daughters Maggie and Dee. The mother feels that Maggie holds the traditional ways of living life and Dee her oldest daughter has broken away from her family 's tradition in effect losing her heritage. The reader may think of this relationship as the typical mother daughter hiss of the rebel child versus the obedient child. However, this challenging relationship shows the reader the struggle to keep hold of African American culture within a family. In "The Queen of Mold" Ruth Reichl informs the reader about how she found that people 's eating habits match their personality through her mother 's deadly cooking. Her mother 's love and daring personality shines through her experimentation with food. Both Walker and Reich make use of characterization to highlight the different ways both mothers showed their love demonstrating that heritage, education and love are essential in a child 's life.

The idea of heritage is very different from one person to another. The story of “Everyday Use” shows a dynamic picture of two sisters that see their family history and upbringing nearly opposite points of view. The quilts become the catalyst for a cultural battle between Dee’s (Wangero) new “enlightened” lifestyle and Maggie’s contentment with her upbringing.

The short story, “Everyday Use”, was written by Alice Walker. She has a well-known reputation worldwide from being a novelist, poet, short story writer, activist and feminist. Many of Walkers writings discuss issues facing African Americans. For her short story, “Everyday Use”, Walker focuses points on African Americans lacking understanding for their heritage. She uses a quilt as a symbol of heritage for her characters, Mama, Maggie and Dee.

In the short story, Everyday Use, the author, Alice Walker, develops and transforms the attitude of the protagonist, Mama, adjusting the way she views her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. As one of the most significant characters in the story, Mama sets the perspective and point of view for the readers because of her important role as the narrator. The plot line of the story revolves around the return of Mama’s eldest daughter, Dee, as she is coming home from college in the city. In the beginning of the story, Walker gives the readers the strong impression that Mama harbors a special partiality for her eldest daughter, and a feeling of shame for her youngest, Maggie. But as the story works its way to the peak, and eventually comes to its

In its simplest form, a child is a product of a man and a woman but Alice Walker one of the foremost authors during the twentieth century, adds depth to her black American women by focusing on the role that race and gender played in their development. Family reunions can be times of great anticipation, excitement and happiness but for Dee, a young, beautiful, African American and our leading character, it was a reunion with underlying, unspoken tensions. Dee was Dee but Dee had changed; a new husband, nice clothes, and a college degree to boat. Maybe that college degree certificate could be farmed and hung on the wall replacing that old photo of George Washington Carver, out with the old and in with the new. Alice Walker is showing

In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” tells us a story of two daughters’, Dee and Maggie Johnson, with different ideas about their identities and values. Dee a young woman who, in the course of a visit to the rural home she thinks she has outgrown, attempts unsuccessfully to divert some fine old quilts ,earmarked for the dowry of a sister, into her own hands. Dee is Mrs. Johnson’s oldest daughter, the one who has always been determined, popular, and successful. Maggie is her young sister who was severely burned in the house fire as a child. She is still lives with her mother in poverty, putting “priceless” objects to “everyday use.” A similar view is expressed by Houston Baker and

As Joe Sarnowski interprets “She has left the family’s rural and impoverished state in pursuit of a college education, and she returns with a strong appreciation for African heritage. The appreciation is initially shown in her manner of dress (the clothing consists of “yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun,” earrings “hanging down to her shoulders,” and “Bracelets dangling and making noises” [52]) that appears—at least stereotypically—African” (Sarnowski 274) Dee takes on an African name of Wangero which further expresses her heritage. Dee’s idea of heritage is embedded within material objects which is evident upon her sudden interest of the churn top, she recognizes it as a piece of art and sees it for what it if aesthetically rather than what the churn is actually intended to be utilized for. She looks at the benches and deems it as an artifact and she quote “they’re priceless” (Walker 422) at that moment and time Dee’s mother comes to realization that she should not give away the items such as the delicate quilts to Dee but rather to Maggie since she shares the same option as her mother. Dee puts up the argument “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” (Walker 422) Thus showing sudden interest in the older quilts when she was noted deeming them old-fashioned and out of style when she was offered the quilts upon

In "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, Walker shows differences in human character, just by the way they act towards family members. The main character in the story, Mother, has two daughters that she treats very differently, and they treat her differently. One daughter looks down on Mother in a condescending manner, and the other is obedient and kind. In "Everyday Use", Walker shows that in relationships between a mother and daughters, adaptation to change can sometimes be very hard, which leads to pride and protecting what one has accomplished, and finally shows how un-appreciation can hinder these relationships.

Dee is the afro-centric, ego- centric and eccentric pseudo-intellect. She values her culture in a more materialistic aspect. She respects the artifacts of her history rather than the usefulness. Dee’s earthly-mindedness sets the stage for conflict throughout the entire story, from her arrival until the central conflict when there is a battle amongst the other two main characters Mama and Maggie, about who is truly entitled to the hand-stitched quilts. The quilts were works of art that have been passed down throughout

Not realizing she is named after her African American aunt, Dee could not stand the possibility of her name being tainted with an association to a white person. Despite Dee wanting to use her education to condemn African American oppression, Walker presents her as the opposite of someone who has a good grasp on the importance of heritage. Ironically, when Dee makes big claims about how unjust the treatment towards her ancestors was, she contradicts herself when she disregards her own unique heritage. Dee is confused about who she wants to be and what she wants to portray. On the other hand, Matthew Mullins prompts the reader to take another look at Dee’s character that is completely separate from the first. In his criticism, Mullins claims that he “...could respect her and sympathize with her attempts to make something of herself in a world in which black women are expected to conform to...stereotypically passive roles...” (3). Even though Mullins agrees that Dee is an unlikeable person, he suggests that the reader should pity her. Dee, a strong and independent woman, is unfairly presented as someone who is selfish and mean. In contrast to her mother and sister, she represents many women in society whose potential is overlooked and simply put into the negative limelight. She is not someone who can just accept social norms; instead, she is very ambitious in her

In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” this story describes what a continuing theme in her writings is: the depiction of constant harmony and inner struggles and conflicts that the minority culture goes through especially the African-American society. In Alice Walker Short Story “Everyday Use” it centers on the relationships between a lower class family by the name of Johnson in a small poor rural community. This meeting takes place when the oldest daughter Dee comes home to visit her mother and sister, Maggie with her paramour. Dee being the oldest is the only person in her family to go off to college and see the world. The encounter between the sisters is basically a meeting among two diverse analyses of the African-American society. Alice Walker engages the symbolism and characterization to point out the changes among these analyses and eventually to support one by displaying that heritage and culture is part of one’s daily life.