Use Of Sibling Rivalry In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

Alice Walker juxtaposes Maggie with her sister, Dee, to demonstrate how society denigrates not only African-American women but women in general in the 1970s. Early on in the story, Maggie is described as nervous, hopelessly standing in the corner. Later she is described as nearly hidden from view. On a metaphorical level, Maggie is the symbol of the lack of power women held in the 1970s. She is the epitome of the silent female homemaker. On the other hand, Dee is assertive, “will look you right in the eye.” She serves as a symbol of the free, successful modern woman. However, her assertiveness might come off as cockiness, and too much pride. By contrasting Maggie and Dee, Alice Walker is expressing both sides of the female role during that time.

The two sister both have a strong love for their mother. The story gives no name of their mother, but to create a picture the book states, “In real life I am a large, big-boned women with rough, man-working hands” (78). Dee and Maggie are now grown up, but they have not forgot about their mother. Maggie continues to stay at home with her mother throughout the story, until she marries her soon to be husband John Thomas. John Thomas the soon to be husband has mossy teeth in an earnest face. “My own words” (79) Maggie stayed home and help her mother do things around the house. On the other hand, Dee went off to college, but as soon as she completed her education she came home to visit her mother and sister. Their mother was someone that work hard,

The majority of the short story is focused on Dee and how she neglects her family and shows little compassion or thought to Maggie and Mama’s household and their possessions. Walker emphasizes Dee’s lack of family value when she attempts to take the quilts originally planned for Maggie with Dee saying “’Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!’ she said. ‘She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use!”’ (320). Dee puts her self-worth above her family and has misguided thoughts about her upbringing.

She lacks all the qualities her sister has. She’s not bold, and she walks with her head down on the floor, showing she has no self-confidence. She has scars all over her body, from the time the house burned down. She’s more of a quiet person who would stand in the corner and not talk to you. You can tell she’s always been kind of jealous of her sister, but I guess also a bit proud of her, and despite everything she does love her. If she didn’t, she would have never raised money with her mom and the church for her sister to go away to college. She also always looks at her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She’s used to getting everything she wants and loves taken away from her, right in front of her eyes. When Dee finds these quilts that Maggie is supposed to have once she gets married, she’s in the kitchen. When she hears her mom and sister talking about the quilts, she comes out of the kitchen and tells her mom "She can have them mama", and she says it as if she’s used to never wining anything "I can remember Grandma Dee without the quilts." And she smiles, but you can tell it’s not a smile of happiness; it’s more of a forced smile she is used to giving

This story was showing the relationship between the mother and her two daughters (Maggie and Dee). Dee is the one that was one that moved out after the house being burned out and created a life for herself. Dee do not even bring her friends over maybe because she is embarrassed. “She wrote me once that no matter where we "choose" to live, she will manage to come see us. But she will never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me, "Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends” (Walker)? Maggie, on the other hand, has a good relationship with her mother because she lives with the mother. Maggie is old fashioned. In my opinion, I feel as if their relationship is weird because they are arguing out the grandma quilt. Dee

I think it’s a typical story of family’s everywhere in America. Conflict is something that happens in all family’s and sometimes things get resolved and others go unresolved forever among siblings. Dee has gone away to school and is returning home and her sister Maggie can’t wait until she leaves. Maggie dreams of being on a TV show because she sees the conflict of other family’s on TV and they work things out during the show and everyone ends the show with the relief the conflict has ended. The reader is given descripted glances at the two sister’s appearances. Maggie is a large woman with scars on her body. Her hands are rough like a man’s hands and she can do anything a man can do from killing and cleaning a hog. She wears flannel nightgowns to bed and her fat keeps her warm even in zero temperature. Maggie’s self-esteem is very lacking because she walks with her head down and shuffles her

     Pride is the theme that seems to separate this family the most. It's having pride versus not having it. Maggie doesn't have it. She does not speak for herself when Dee wants the quilts. She lets mama speak for her. Like a scalded dog, she hides behind Mama when Dee arrives. Mama compares Maggie to a "Lame animal…run over by a car…"(Walker 88). Pride mostly comes from respect and she doesn't get much. Dee maybe has too much pride. This probably comes from "the world not knowing how to say no to her." She has looks and she's what one would describe as

BEST PARAGRAPH To add onto the idea of a sibling rivalry, Walker includes the older sister getting whatever she desires while the younger is refused. While this is different from the typical stereotype, the point is still existent. Throughout her entire life, Maggie was always refused in favor of Dee. Walker describes this through Mama’s perspective “that “no” is a word the world never learned to say to [Dee]” (69). It is also the fact that this was Mama saying this that proves how much she is aware of her favoring.

Family conflicts Maggie and Mama have family conflicts with Dee. They have conflicts with her about heritage. Dee thinks she is better than them at everything. She always wants to prove that her life is far more better than theirs. Dee says the even her heritage is old fashioned like for example, the quilts, and the Churn top. Now Mama tries to tell Dee that it doesn’t matter how it looks but its what’s left behind that count, or course Dee doesn’t listen at all. One of the major conflicts in the story was the quilts. Dee wants to have the quilts that Mama promised Maggie she’ll have when she marries John Thomas. Dee tells mama that Maggie will do wrong with them by tearing them up and that what she’ll hang them as decoration. Maggie is currently

Maggie and Dee are absolute opposites of each other, therefore their mother attempts to keep the welcoming type of relationship between her two daughters, but the daughters continue to stay apart. When Dee came home with Hakim-a-Barber, “Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling way, but I stay her with my hand.” Through Maggie trying to runaway from seeing her sister, it shows she does not want anything to do with her sister, yet the mother is making an effort in keeping them

In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use” she creates a conflict between characters. Walker describes a family as they anxiously await the arrival of, Dee, the older sister of the family. When Dee (Wangero) comes home to visit Mrs. Johnson and Maggie, right away the readers see the differences in the family by how they talk, act, and dress. Dee has changed her name to an "African" name and is collecting the objects and materials of her past. Dee thinks that since she is in college she knows mores then the rest of her uneducated family. She is more educated and looks down on the simple life of her mother and sister. When Dee asks for a beautiful family heirloom quilt to hang on her wall, Mrs. Johnson finally denies her of this task. Mrs. Johnson finally sees that Dee does not want the quilt for the same purpose as Maggie does. Instead, Mrs. Johnson will give Maggie the quilt to keep her and her husband warm. The theme of the importance of heritage becomes clear at this point of the story. This theme is shown by Walker's use of conflict, irony, and symbolism. All throughout her short story she incorporates heritage. She describes it as a background feeling between family members, and African heritage to heirlooms that have been in the family line for generations. Dee the older sister takes her heritage for granted by only wanting her heirlooms for her educational purposes.

In the story, she introduces two sisters with almost opposite personalities and different views on heritage: Maggie and Dee. She uses the contrast between the two sisters to show how one should accept and preserve one's heritage. Beyond the contrast between two sisters there exist the judge figure mom, the narrator and the Dee's irony. The irony on Dee's opinion is the key to understand the story and why the mother let Maggie keep the quilts, which symbolize the heritage.

First characterization in this short story is very prominent, And Alice Walker does not disappoint with the detail to each character. The mother whose name we never are given, is the life line the bread bearer for this family. It is already a difficult time to be black and live in the south. Now think she is alone and rising two children in the middle of nowhere. So as you could imagine she is a very strong and most certainly an independent woman. She is also very uneasy around white people. She says “Who can imagine me looking a white man in the eye? It seems to me I have always talked to them with one foot raised in flight” (1). During the time she was being raised racism was at its peak in the south. When she was young she probably dealt with the most spiteful racist people, now more than anything it is instinct to have an escape plan ready anytime she in confronted by a person with white skin. The younger of the two daughters in named Maggie. Maggie was burned very badly when she was a toddler when her old house had burned down. Because of this she feels that her sister is perfect and she desires to be like her. It is said “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: (Dee) she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe” (1). She clearly has very low self-confidence compared to Dee, and the main reason seems to be the trauma of the fire as well as the

Maggie the younger sister lived with her mother and liked the life of her living with her mother. Dee didn't like that poor old-fashioned life and she wants to be rich and to forget about this poor family and to live her actual way of life as an African-American. Mama liked their way of life and didn't want to change it and also Maggie liked it and didn't want to change it.

This story is told through the mother’s point of view and the mother views her oldest daughter as some kind of ideal person. Though it is clear that both the mother and younger sister are threatened by oldest daughter/sister, Dee. The story is set back when black had just received the same rights as the whites were getting. Dee seems to have conformed to this new way of living, and participates in the protests and has gone to college and received an education. Whereas the younger daughter stayed at home and is about to get married to a man that lives in the town. Both the mother and younger daughter live in a shack type of a house and still hand make majority of their cloth items. When the oldest daughter come for her first visit since six