What Are The Similarities Between Dee And Bub In 'Everyday Use'

Everyday use is a story that could be interpreted using different kinds of methods: some of those that I will be using to analyze Dee throughout the story are internalized racism, interracial racism, and rugged individualism. Using these methods we could analyze Dee to find out whether she’s right about her keeping the kilt or should Maggie keep the heritage because Dee does not seem to fully understand the true meaning behind the heritage.

Both girls are ashamed of their families and their situation. Dee wants to be sophisticated, educated, and cultured – but she comes from a basic family who lives on a farm. Her mother and sister have very little to no education, cannot read well, and do not have the means for the style and sophistication which Dee craves. When Dee is with her family she gives off a condescending attitude, as if she has to dumb herself down to be around them. The narrator, Dee’s mother, mentions that Dee

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

     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 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.

Although the story "Everyday Use" is narrated from Mama's point of view, Alice Walker reveals Dee, Mama's eldest daughter, to be the central character. Dee remains essentially unchanged throughout the story. Even though Dee achieves her aim by overcoming complications such as poverty and racial discrimination, she is not admirable for her achievements and courage. Walker describes her to be selfish and self-centered, a woman who remains unchanged from her childhood to the current position after several years. The disregard for her sister's pain, ingratitude for the money raised for her education, and the desire for quilts indicates her static behavior.

Alice Walker skillfully crafts the character of Dee Johnson in the short story "Everyday Use." From the first paragraph, Walker begins to weave the portrait of Dee, who at first seems shallow in many aspects. Dee becomes a more complex character, however, as the story unfolds. Blessed with both brains and good looks, Dee emerges as someone who is still struggling with her identity and heritage.

While reading the story Everyday Use, by Alice Walker, one can quickly tell that the narrators older daughter is, in many ways, different than the rest of her family. She causes the main conflict in the story. She is the character in the story that always gets her way and is never told no. Her name is Dee. Dee takes advantage over people including her mom and sister. The problem in this story is Dee is never told no by anyone and that leaves Dee's mom with little to say about anything her daughter does because she knows her daughter does whatever she wants to do. The mother accepts her daughter's actions and seems to give up on changing them. Even though Dee is a grown woman, her actions and the way she treats her mom and sister should not be tolerated.

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).

Dee 's character is loud, catchy, and judgmental. She works under the guise of "Black Pride" and return to pre-slavery identity, which was popular among many black college students in the 1960s. She wears colorful clothes and is insistent on calling herself "Wangero," which seems coercive and without any nuances. Her assessment of "everyday" objects, such as churn butter or blankets, is not by their practical use, but by the heritage right, which she seeks to regain as an artifact, not a way of life. Her Muslim boyfriend, whom her mother calls "Asalamalakim," is short and stocky, with a long hair. The role of the Hakim-a-Barber primarily concludes in helping Dee to legitimize her new identity.

In the story 'Everyday Use', by Alice Walker, the value of ones culture and heritage are defined as a part of life that should not be looked upon as history but as a living existence of the past. Walker writes of the conflict between two Black cultures. Dee and Maggie are sisters whom do not share the same ideals. Mama is torn between two children with different perspectives of what life truly means. In the story, Walker describes the trial and tribulations of one daughter whose whole life is tormented by fear, failure and weakness; while the other "has held life always in the palm of one hand"(61) and moves to a better lifestyle. The possessions of the past will ultimately change the

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

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 however, always thought she was too proud to live with what her Mother provided for her. She still loved her Mother, no doubt, but she said things like "She wrote me once that no matter where we "choose" to live, she will manage to come see us" (415). Another way that Dee thought she was too proud for what her Mother provided for her was when she changed her name. She felt that it was too below her, and that it did not even deserve to be associated with a living person. After she tells her Mother her new name, and her Mother asked her what happened to her old one, she said that "She's dead…I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me" (416). With this statement, Dee sums up everything she thinks about her history and her Mother. She feels that the only way that she could change herself and her background is by changing her name, or killing her other

In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, a character that initially went by the name Dee has always been a very rude and selfish person. As a child, she would read to her mom and sister “without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives up [them]”. She believed that her family’s life style kept them away from the world, telling them that “from the way you and Mama still live you’d never know it”. Dee believes her family to be stupid and behind the time, thinking that she is better than them because of her ability to leave the house and move on. While her education helped her get out into the world, it did not help her become a better daughter,sister, and person. Her selfish personality keeps her away from realizing where her success