An Analysis Of Everyday Use By Alice Walker

Generally, mothers and daughters are bound together tightly and cannot be severed. Sometimes, however, can create a serious conflict between the generations, whether the daughters who accept the new culture or the mothers who deeply rooted in the traditional concept can lead the spiritual discordance to their relationship. In the story Everyday Use wrote by Alice Walker, the story is lead by “mama” who is a black woman has two daughters Dee and Maggie. Dee had better education, yet full of confidence and ambition. In contrast, Maggie is described as an unattractive girl. The climax of the story is the belonging of the quilts which represents the heritage of the family. In Maxine Hong Kingston’s No Name Woman, the narrator’s mother told her
a story about her aunt who killed herself and her newborn baby in the family well since she was pregnant with another man instead of her husband in her village. Now the narrator has begun menstruating, so her mother used this story as a cautionary tale to warn her not to promiscuity. The usage of the story-telling form of both stories helps establish the complex and melancholy mother-daughter relationship because they used first person perspective to tell their innermost thoughts in order to better describe the mother-daughter relationship.
The relationship between Dee and her mother in Everyday Use is complex that their relationship changed throughout the story.
The mother had a strong family history concept, meanwhile, she also valued the fighting spirit. In the condition of African cultural identification, Dee had this fearless and fighting spirit that she admired. As the mother said in the story, “Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, ... Dee, though. She would always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature” (471). Dee’s characteristic is different compared to her mother. She hopes to get rid of her own destiny and family history, even change her name. The mother, however, only imagine. When she recalls the day Dee burning down the house, she wanted to ask her “Why don’t you do a dance around the ashes?” (471). This sentence is ironic that she thinks Dee is too selfish because she does not care about her sister who still in the burning house. In spite of this, when she heard Dee has changed her name, she still trying to adapt to her new name. However, when she found Dee trying to take the quilts for decoration but not knowing the real meaning of them, she was disappointed. She uses the story-telling to reveal the complicated relationship with Dee that even she admires Dee’s spirit, she cannot stand for her
selfishness.
In the other hand, Maggie and her mother’s relationship is more depressed. Maggie does not like Dee that she is shy and lack of confidence on account of the burn marks on her skin. For the mother, Maggie represents the painful memory that she is not willing to remember. When she dresses up and ask the mother how does she look, the mother describes her as “a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to them” (471). This is a distasteful description against Maggie. In fact, Maggie would like to has her mother’s attention, but the mother evaded the question. Their relationship is sad that the mother feel disappointed and even shameful for her, which“[she] used to think [Dee] hated Maggie, too” (471). This reveals that the mother dislike Maggie. However, when encounter with the belonging of the quilts, Maggie’s words finally wakes the mother. She says, “ ‘[Dee] can have them, Mama. I can’ member Grandma Dee without the quilts’ ” (478). Now that the mother had faced Maggie with her real heritage which makes her proud. The usage of story-telling form performances in the description on Maggie’s appearance which was the trauma after the house burn. It establishes the sorrow relationship between Maggie and her mother which arouses the reader’s sympathy.
Another story that uses story-telling to reveal the relationship between mother and daughter is Maxine Hong Kingston’s No Name Woman. In the story, the narrator’s mother told a story about her forgotten aunt in order to warn her that “ Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born. The villagers are watchful” (240). The implication is that her mother wanted her not to be promiscuous. This is a strict thought of traditional Chinese woman. However, the narrator herself is willing to accept the new culture that “If [she] made [herself] American-pretty so that the five or six Chinese boys in the class fell in love with me” (246). The migrant mother tried to educate or warn the next generations through telling stories, and the Chinese-American daughters are learning from this. Nonetheless, from the influence of the solid America, the daughters are trying to break the chain and ready to adapt the new society. This massive difference between the narrator and her mother cause their relationship gone melancholy since their spiritual pursuits cannot achieve the consistency. Moreover, her mother describes every detail about the night the villagers came to destroy their house when her aunt was ready to give birth to the baby. However, she uses the minimal description on her decease. Therefore, when she talked about that night based on her self-perception to judge the aunt, it has strong subjectivity and one-sidedness, which creates the spatial for the narrator’s imagination to narrate the unknown factors about the aunt’s death. When she utilizes story-telling to tell all the possibilities about her aunt’s pregnancy against her mother’s version, she portrays how humble the Chinese women are.
Both stories utilized story-telling form to better describe the mother-daughter relationship in which they indirectly reveal their inner thoughts.
The impact of the story-telling form on people is subtle. The importance of the story-telling form is that, when people hear a story which can be relate to themselves, they are likely to feel familiarity. In Everyday Use, the mother tells several stories about Dee which gives a sense that Dee is selfish and shallow. Therefore, it allow readers to agree with her opinion. Conversely, the illustration on Maggie creates a different feeling. In No Name Woman, the aunt’s existence is not be proved. Therefore, the narrator needs to use story-telling to create fantasy for her aunt. In her imagination, her aunt is like a real people. Not only she brings her aunt to life, but also arouses readers different type of emotion. This is the greatness of using story-telling
form.