Short Story Of Mass-Murders

“I could hear you crazies arguing all the way from the car, just give the poor girl something to do this time. You never let her get in on any of the action.” suggested Natasha,

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.

Mama and Maggie are bewildered by Dee's attitude during and after dinner. They feel detached from her life, as if they were not take a part of Dee's life. However, Dee

Dee’s selfishness is on display not long after she arrives with her husband, Hakim-a-barber. The family sits down for a meal when Dee remembers that there is something she wants from the house. She has her eye on the

Dee had moved away to attend a college in Augusta. When she returned she found Mama and Maggie waiting. She was the only one from her family to attend college. Her decision to go to school caused her family and her to grow apart. She arrived with a boyfriend or husband. Her family could not tell which at first. She always wants to show she is strong. “She is determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts.” (Walker 76). She likes feeling strong and in charge. Dee had defined her own style and identity at an early age. “At sixteen she had a style of her own and knew what style was.” (Walker 74). Dee told her family that she decided to change her name. She stated that the reason for the rash decision was because, "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after people who

This will surely lead her to break ties altogether with Mama and Maggie. Dee’s actions leading up to the end show her drifting apart and it is assumed she will never return to the

When Dee came to visit her mom and younger sister, Maggie, she brought a man with her. When Ms. Johnson tries to call her daughter's name, Dee insists that her name is not Dee anymore, she says "No Mama not Dee, Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo" ( Walker 3). She tells her mom Dee is dead because she " couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me" ( Walker 3). Dee's mom is upset her daughter has changed

Notably, the narrator thought Dee "hated Maggie, too" (11). Dee showed animosity towards her sister, Maggie, because she does not compare to Dee's looks and personality. Therefore, Dee looks down on Maggie as if she was this hopeless, little girl. Correspondingly, the narrator noticed how Dee "read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice"

When Dee is about to leave, she tells her mother, 'you just don't understand... your heritage' (Walker 79). This statement suggests a summation of how Dee feels, that she is almost better than her family and better than her true heritage. 'You ought to try and make something of yourself, too, Maggie. Its really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it' (Walker 81). Dee seems to almost mock her mother and sister for embracing their identity and continuing to live a simple life. Dee seems to turn her nose up to their way of life as she turns and leaves towards her new life that she has made for

Mama says, “I will wait for her in that yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon” (108). Mama questioned, “what happened to Dee?” (112). Wangero replied, “She’s dead, I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me” (112). Ironically, the people who were oppressing her was Dee’s purpose to visit her mother.

She is scarred from arm to her legs from a fire and you want to pity her. Her mother makes a reference that she is not attractive. Due to Dee’s education she able to come back and visit her mother and sister. Ms. Walker is so clever when describing how Mama is anticipating with dread her daughter’s arrival. She uses Mama to compare her simple life and upbringing in comparison with her exciting blessed daughter Dee.

What could have been a liberating experience for Dee, her mother, and sister, turns into the cause of divisiveness within their family. Dee did not attempt to educate her family out of love, rather, “She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know. Pressed us to hear with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to

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

"Well, excuse me, Princess. It's not my fault we live in a society where men can't hit women under any circumstances."

“'Cause I'm getting pretty tired of taking your orders,” Sam pointed the gun at Fay. “You have only been with us for a week and you already are controlling our lives.”