Alice Walker Everyday Use Essay
An essay discussing Alice Walker's famous 1973 short story Everyday Use. The essay contrasts the characters of Mama and her eldest daughter Dee. Walker analyzes how Dee's preoccupation with her African heritage (such as exchanging her given name for an adopted African name) is ironically artificial when compared with Mama's more traditional, less pretentious lifestyle.
In her 1973 short story Everyday Use, Alice Walker draws on her own experiences growing up in the American South to tell the story of an encounter between “Mama” Johnson and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. The tale, narrated by Mama, paints a poignant picture of life for poor blacks in the rural South. Walker uses various themes and symbols woven throughout the narrative to illustrate the differences between Mama's two daughters and how …show more content…
While she ascribes great value to the butter churn and handmade blankets, these are little more than mundane and commonplace everyday-use items to Mama. Dee acts as if they are precious items that belong in a museum. During the exchange between Dee and Mama, Maggie interjects and says that Dee can have the quilts, meekly stating, “I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts” (p. 321). Maggie understands like her mother that the quilts are mere objects and do not themselves contain the memories and value that Dee ascribes to them. Seeing this, Mama takes the quilts from Dee and gives them to Maggie, knowing that the younger daughter is more closely connected to the family's roots and the one who will carry on their traditions. Dee, upset, angrily and ironically declares that Mama does not understand her heritage. Before departing, she tells Maggie that she should try to make something of herself, dismissing Mama's lifestyle as old-fashioned: “It's really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it” (p. 321). Maggie just smiles at
In her 1973 short story Everyday Use, Alice Walker draws on her own experiences growing up in the American South to tell the story of an encounter between “Mama” Johnson and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. The tale, narrated by Mama, paints a poignant picture of life for poor blacks in the rural South. Walker uses various themes and symbols woven throughout the narrative to illustrate the differences between Mama's two daughters and how …show more content…
While she ascribes great value to the butter churn and handmade blankets, these are little more than mundane and commonplace everyday-use items to Mama. Dee acts as if they are precious items that belong in a museum. During the exchange between Dee and Mama, Maggie interjects and says that Dee can have the quilts, meekly stating, “I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts” (p. 321). Maggie understands like her mother that the quilts are mere objects and do not themselves contain the memories and value that Dee ascribes to them. Seeing this, Mama takes the quilts from Dee and gives them to Maggie, knowing that the younger daughter is more closely connected to the family's roots and the one who will carry on their traditions. Dee, upset, angrily and ironically declares that Mama does not understand her heritage. Before departing, she tells Maggie that she should try to make something of herself, dismissing Mama's lifestyle as old-fashioned: “It's really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it” (p. 321). Maggie just smiles at