Paradox In Everyday Use

In Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, the Christmas tree parallels with Nora’s development, her mental state, and position in the household. The tree can be recognized as an object placed in a house to please the eyes and adds beauty to a home. Torvald objectifies Nora, seeing her as a plaything carrying no purpose other than to look at and be pretty. As the play continues and Nora develops into a mature character and becomes aware of her repression, the Christmas Tree begins to visibly deteriorate and wither. The Christmas tree emphasizes Nora’s rebirth and realization of her own dissatisfaction with life and must act against Torvald. The disintegration of the tree also parallels the disintegration of the decorations (pretty dresses) Nora uses

The story “ Everyday use “ by Alice Walker is a story of a family consisted of Mama and her two daughters Dee and Maggie. Dee is one of the main characters that is an independent woman, educated and has complete different views from Mama and Maggie. She has a lot of qualities and she has her own different style, which makes her stand out through out the story. Mama is really loving, forgiving, independent, frank stronger than most men, and mild tempered. Their goes Maggie who is really quiet, not open-minded and is an innocent young woman who has yet to come into her own.

The short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker begins with the narrator, Mama, and her daughter, Maggie, sitting in the yard that they both prepared and cleaned the day before. They were waiting for Dee, the oldest daughter, that is returning from college in Augusta after seven years of education. Maggie is going to be nervous for as long as Dee stays because of the scars and burns marks she got from the fire in their previous house. Maggie thinks that Dee has a much easier life than her. Mama compared Maggie to a lame animal and Mama thinks Dee is lighter than Maggie. Also, Mama believed that Dee hated Maggie, but that was before Mama and the community church raised the money to send Dee to school in Augusta. When Dee showed up

She knows where she come from and is proud but at the same time wants better for the life of her children. Mama doesn’t understand the general view of the world, but feels that Dee rejects her family origin. I think mama wants Dee to be proud of where she’s from and value her heritage. Mama wants to be recognized for all she’s done and anticipates that they are respective of her. Evidence in the

When Dee returns from school with her male companion, she has changed her name to Wangero. This is the first instance of cultural confusion that is delivered to the reader. She claims it is done in an effort to reject the oppression of the taking on of American names by the struggling ‘colored' people. She states "I couldn't bear it any longer being named after the people who oppresses me" (455). However, to Dee's mother, the name is symbolic of family unity. Dee's mother traces the name back to Dee's aunt, Dicie. The name holds a symbolic value to Dee's mother because it belongs to a love one. Walker uses this strategy to show that Dee has little or no understanding of her heritage, and if she took the time to accept her people's way of life, she would have a better understanding. Dee changing her name shows how she tries to mask her true culture with bits and pieces of her knowledge of her ancestors. However, this fails because Dee's heritage does, in fact, encompass the very struggles of her people that she chooses to forget.

In “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker tells a story of a mother’s conflicted relationship with her two daughters. On its surface, “Everyday Use” tells how a mother gradually rejects the superficial values of her older, successful daughter in favor of the practical values of her younger, less fortunate daughter. On a deeper level, Alice Walker is exploring the concept of heritage. “Everyday Use” is set in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s. She uses the principal characters of Mama, Dee (Wangero), and Maggie to clarify the cultural theme.

In the opening of the play, Ibsen integrates Nora’s clothing as part of extensive stage directions to provide the illusion of a comforting and safe home to her as wife and mother. The audience is first introduced to the protagonist, Nora, as “wearing outdoor clothes”. After intensively describing the “comfortably

Ibsen focuses on setting up the unveiling in the final acts, in that we are introduced to the idea that the truth coming to light is inevitable, and may soon have disastrous effects. Nora is depicted as being an extremely manipulative woman in order to get her way, she is quoted on numerous occasions saying things such as; “I’ll do anything to please you Torvald, I’ll sing for you, dance for you,” and she is portrayed as an uninformed and naïve young lady. The tricks Nora is willing to perform in order to satisfy her husband provide the foundation for the idea that the two are really living an idealistic lifestyle at all, and are really caught up in a web of lies and deception. Ibsen uses a variety of techniques to portray how disguised and fake the marriage is; such as the Christmas tree which is decorated and set up, and the significance given to the clothing of Nora and her Husband. In the case of the Christmas tree, its significance is that it represents exactly what their marriage is. It is covered with decorations, appearing ideal, but has no grounds in the realm of truth. Such is similar in the heavier than normal use of wardrobe throughout the play; when, particularly Nora, is often dressed up attempting to please Torvald, she is merely playing a role. Not only is their relationship riddled with lies, but such lies seem to exist to cover up how little the two truly have in common. While they get along and act

To clarify, Walker’s narrative focuses on two classes of people: one lower and one higher. In general, Mama and Maggie represent a class that only appreciates practicality, whereas Dee and Hakim-a-barber represent a class that places more value on artistic interest. For example, when Mama asks Dee why she would rather be called Wangero, she explains that “[she] couldn 't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress [her]," (Walker). In effect, Dee’s new and dramatically different name exemplifies how serious she is about defining her identity with her new culture as opposed to remaining in the same culture as her Mama. In other words, Dee has taken the sole purpose of having a name, identity, and added a symbolism to it of her defiance. In another instance, when Dee sees her family’s butter churn, her

     Ibsen’s purpose for writing this piece is to entertain while pointing out an injustice. Through the events of the play, Nora becomes increasingly aware of the confines in which Torvald has placed her. He has made her a doll in her own house, one that is expected to keep happy and

The tree also symbolizes the mood of the play, in the sense that it represents celebration and happiness, but at some point it must all come to an end, and normal life must resume, and in Nora and Torvald’s case, this means accepting that their marriage is not a part of reality.

The Christmas tree in itself is symbolic and it means the play takes place during Christmastime. Ibsen uses Christmas tree to mainly construct the character of Nora. The Christmas tree symbolizes the feelings of

In Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House”, the Christmas tree is a centrally important stage property used to symbolize Nora’s duplicity, reflect the disintegration of the facade of the perfect marriage as well as the fate of the Helmer family, and mirror Nora’s self-image. The state of the Christmas tree transitions from a plain fir tree at the beginning of Act I, to a decorated Christmas tree towards the end of Act I, then finally to a dishevelled tree at the beginning of Act II. Such transition in its appearance on-stage symbolises significant changes that happens in the Helmer household over the Christmas season. The decoration of the Christmas tree symbolizes Nora’s duplicity as being both a seemingly compliant housewife, and a tactfully manipulative

It is parallel to Nora’s life when she tells Torvald that no one can see her in her dress until the evening of her tarantella dance. She is the tree that nobody can see until it is “dressed”. A life cycle of Christmas trees is that they are grown in their natural settings, then chopped down and moved into a house where the family decorates it while it is dying. This can be related to Nora’s life she no longer lives with her father and is taken out of her natural settings, in a sense decorated for

Ibsen created an extended metaphor of Nora as a doll in Torvald’s dollhouse to illustrate her confinement. As the title of the play implied, Nora was trapped as a doll in the house of her husband Torvald; Nora lived to please him as a doll exists to please a young child. He treated her like a doll by making her dress up: “are you trying on the dress?” (Ibsen 90). Controlling what she wore was only one way Torvald dictated Nora’s life. Nora, at first, lived to please him; her dream was “To know [she is] carefree, utterly carefree; to be able to romp and play with the children, and be able to keep up a beautiful, charming home- everything just the way Torvald likes it!” (Ibsen 56). Ibsen used this statement ironically because it is