Everyday Use Character Analysis

     Dee is portrayed as a light-skinned black person who feels as though she is better than everyone else because her waist is small, her skin is light, she has a nice grade of

All of this Mama and Maggie bore as a quiet audience as they watched Dee’s show, but it wasn’t over. Although their kindness, and Mama’s generosity, was being strained, ‘Wangero’ paid no thought to them, and soon she found their limit. The weight of Dee’s act was setting mainly on the shoulders of Mama as she watched Dee prance around the house, belittling everything in sight as Maggie cowered in her fear and discomfort. However, as Dee set her sights on two special quilts, heirlooms that were promised to Maggie, Mama could no longer ignore the problem. Once Dee used her relationship with her to test the relationship between her and Maggie, she was forced to act and set things straight. Finally she saw the vast gap in fortune the two girls had, and how such expectation for disappointment made Maggie give up the quilts, what little she was ever assured. Mama knew then what to do. This ungrateful, insatiable girl could no longer feed off the two of them whenever she pleased, and so Mama cut Dee from her selfish fantasies. The second Mama told her no, Dee’s attitude turned an entire 180 degrees, but Mama knew what she was doing. So with nothing left for her at the house, Dee, and her unusual accomplice, left, but not without showing more condescension by telling Maggie what she could do to be better.

     In this story, Dee is completely unappreciative. One can get the feeling that the mother in the story had worked long and hard rearing her daughters, and has even gotten Dee into college somehow. Dee returns with her college education and new personality trying to preach to her mother and sister about what they are doing wrong. Plenty of times Dee spoke down to her mother and little sister, Maggie.

Dee’s selfishness is also portrayed by her cultured verbal skills. Dee can talk her way through anything. Dee often manipulates others with her verbal skills. This is shown when she reads to her mother and sister “without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice” (Walker 289). This statement further demonstrates the fact that Dee’s family feels inferior to her. Mama describes the situation as if Dee has some kind of power over her family because she is scholarly and her family is not. Dee uses her education to make Mama and Maggie feel less important without, necessarily meaning to.

Dee on the other hand, represents more of a modern, complex, materialistic way of life. She moves to the city to become educated. She is ashamed of where she comes from. In a letter mama receives, Dee writes “no matter where we ‘choose’ to live, she will manage to come see us” (Walker 281). Furthermore, when she comes home to visit she tells mama that she has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo because “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me” (Walker 282).

As the story advances however, Dee does get more complex and is demonstrated to be battling with her own particular personality and heritage. Concrete subtle elements are expressed about Dee that lead you to know she is beautiful, smart and certain. Dee is described as thin with a little waste. She is a light cleaned dark individuals with a decent review hair. She is also well educated. Dee is fashion conscience, continually needing more pleasant things that were not affordable to her family. First and foremost of the story, Dee’s mother and sister, Maggie are is getting ready for Dee’s entry for a visit. Here is the place you get the first flash of Dee’s obvious identity. Maggie is portrayed by her mother as being apprehensive until after Dee goes when Dee hasn’t arrived yet. This persuades that maybe Maggie is threatened by Dee and maybe feels inferior compared to Dee. Dee’s mother discuss dreaming a fantasy about being welcomed by Dee with a grasp and tears in her eyes. All things considered Dee’s mother and sister don’t appear to feel just as they truly measures up to what Dee expects or needs them will be Dee’s mother never had much of an education and Dee’s mother raised enough cash to send Dee off to school. Maggie is specified as having poor sight and not being brilliant. Dee the again is smart.

The African heritage plays a major role in the story, “Everyday Use”. Alice Walker emphasizes the meaning of heritage by having Dee come visit her family and contradicting her heritage. As Dee go off to college, she meets new people and finds her a boyfriend, Asalamalakim. Alice Walker adds attention onto Dee’s new name, Wangero, because Dee changes her name, not understanding the true root of her original name. “No, mama,’ she says. ‘Not Dee, Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!’ ‘What happened to ‘Dee’?’ I wanted to know. ‘She’s dead…” (160). However, Dee truly believes that her heritage lies way back to Africa. The African clothes and name gives an understanding that Dee thinks that she is from Africa and that is where her heritage originally lies. In addition, Mama and Dee have different point of views on what heritage truly is. Mama tells Wangero (Dee) that her name comes from a line of ancestors, yet Wangero believes that her new name has more roots in it. “You know as well as me you were named after your aunt Dicie,’ I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We

Dee is the exact opposite because she places so much value on items. From a young age she was very obsessed with fashion and her appearance to the outside world. When her house burned down she did not even seemed concerned because she had hated that house. Her mom, however, would never want a house to burn down because to her it represented hard work and survival. She knew that her family needed a house to survive and she did not care how big it was, or what it looked like. Because of the value she placed on being in style when her mom offered her quilts that her grandma had made she did not want them because they were out of fashion. Ironically a few years later she wanted that same quilt because to her it seemed to represent her heritage that she tries so hard to get away from. “Identity was partly heritage, partly upbringing, but mostly the choices you make in life. ~ Bran” (Briggs) The choices that people make in their lives are what really affects the way that they see their heritage. “We do not have to be ashamed of what we are. As sentient beings we have wonderful backgrounds. These backgrounds may not be particularly enlightened or peaceful or intelligent. Nevertheless, we have soil good enough to cultivate; we can plant anything in it.” (Trungpa) Dee was ashamed of her background in this story, but she would never admit it. She tried so hard to get away from the life that she grew up with that she no longer identified her mom and sister with her

Dee?s character in the story is a direct relation to any number of people in society that do not know or are confused about their heritage. She is struggling to create an identity for herself, and is confused as to what it encompasses. She grasps at African tradition and culture, yet fails to acknowledge her own African American culture. This happened all over America, particularly in the North, in the 1960?s, following the civil rights movement. Dee is misconstruing her heritage as material goods, as opposed to her ancestor?s habits and way of life. This may be due in part to her leaving her hometown and becoming an educated, sophisticated young woman. Dee?s direct heritage is that of African Americans.

Dee is ashamed of her family and their simple house. The house they lived in when she was a child was burned, so family built another simpler humble family house on its place. This was enough for Dee's mother and sister, but not enough for Dee. She felt helpless growing up in such poverty house. As kid she was popular in the school, very bright and aggressive.

The strongest example of Dee's confusion and of Walker's belief that a family's heritage should be alive and not frozen in time is at the end of the story. Dee finds the two quilts that had been pieced together by many generations of her family, and she wants to keep them. Her mother says, "In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's paisley shirts. And one teeny

Dee is presented in the story as the one who made it in life, but also as the one who is trying to change her family cultural heritage. Although Mama describes her in a positive way, the author suggests that maybe she is not as good as her mother is describing her. The intention of continuously change her mother’s way of thinking makes others uncomfortable, but supporting Susan Farrell’s idea, her real purpose may be to change her mother’s

Most families are complicated but supportive. For example, a family could argue a lot, but still love one another. In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” mama still supports her daughters even though, they’re not around much. Their issues are not unique because my family has its issues, too. The family in “Everyday Use” and my family both have similarities and differences regarding siblings, bonds, and mothers.

The critical writing of Everyday Use titled “Fight vs. Flight: A Re-Evaluation of Dee” talks about Dee as a person. The writer states that the story can be interpreted as a mothers awakening of a daughter’s superficiality and to the other’s deep-seated understanding of heritage. She writes how Maggie and her mother live a simple life, alongside the special characteristics as a family, there folk heritage as well as to how they stay true to themselves, while the world is changing. Compared to Dee whom is portrayed as a shallow, condescending and manipulative person aside from being overly concerned with style, fashion, and aesthetics. Which gives the perspective of Dee lacking true understanding towards herself as a person and her heritage.

In this essay I will choose one character to analysis. It will be Dee the one who are educated and have go out to study. She was the lovely daughter for her Mam. Her Mam was waiting for Dee to come and think her Mam for all what she did for her. When her Mam was waiting for her outside the home. She was dreaming of a TV program and her daughter Dee is thanking her Mam for everything she did to her. When she sees her Mam she told her that she change her name to “Wangero Leewanika Kanjo” an African name. Dee change