Alice Walkers Tale Vs Tale
Woodrow T. Wilson once said that “loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.” Southern authors challenge this mantra of the importance of loyalty to one's family or one’s cultural heritage in many tales. Two, southern short stories in particular exemplify how disloyal some people can be in today’s society: Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and Flannery O'connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Both stories feature strong, female characters that are unfaithful to either her family or her heritage. Both women let down their family/ancestors by failing to devote herself to them.
In “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker depicts the protagonist, Dee as a selfish, African girl who turned her back on her family and …show more content…
Unfortunately, they never made it their destination. The family went on the trip even though there was a killer on the loose, The Misfit. During the road trip Grandma decided the family should make a pit stop in Georgia. She wanted to visit a house with a secret panel that she remembered vividly from her youth. On the way to the house, the family got into a terrible accident and had to wait on the side of the road for help. Grandma selfishly changed the entire course of the trip and indirectly caused an accident that would eventually lead to each of the family members’ demise. Right after the crash, Grandma realized that, “the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (O’conner). She put her family in danger for the sole purpose of reminiscing in her adolescence and it ended up being in a completely different state. Soon after, the family is visited by none other than The Misfit himself. The killer gets his goons to take the family, excluding the grandmother, into the woods to shoot them. While her family is waiting to be shot, Grandma decides to beg for her own life by any means necessary. Instead of trying to help her family, or reasoning with the Misfit to let all of her family go, She decides to take the heartless route and focus on her own well being.
In “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker depicts the protagonist, Dee as a selfish, African girl who turned her back on her family and …show more content…
Unfortunately, they never made it their destination. The family went on the trip even though there was a killer on the loose, The Misfit. During the road trip Grandma decided the family should make a pit stop in Georgia. She wanted to visit a house with a secret panel that she remembered vividly from her youth. On the way to the house, the family got into a terrible accident and had to wait on the side of the road for help. Grandma selfishly changed the entire course of the trip and indirectly caused an accident that would eventually lead to each of the family members’ demise. Right after the crash, Grandma realized that, “the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (O’conner). She put her family in danger for the sole purpose of reminiscing in her adolescence and it ended up being in a completely different state. Soon after, the family is visited by none other than The Misfit himself. The killer gets his goons to take the family, excluding the grandmother, into the woods to shoot them. While her family is waiting to be shot, Grandma decides to beg for her own life by any means necessary. Instead of trying to help her family, or reasoning with the Misfit to let all of her family go, She decides to take the heartless route and focus on her own well being.