Contrasting Ideas Of Heritage In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

Family history and heritage are things that are seen differently through each person’s eyes’ and they can even affect the way families live. “Everyday Use” is a short story that tells about a mother, her two daughters, and the differences in their values and how they live their lives. In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” she uses characterization, imagery, and setting to clearly demonstrate the theme of her story. Throughout the story she continuously uses these literary elements to show her theme of contrasting ideas of heritage. With the use of characterization Walker gradually reveals the personality and traits of her main characters thus revealing the theme of her story. In “Everyday Use” the main conflicting opinions about heritage are between Mama and Dee. Mama is described as a “large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands”.
Mama talks about how she has killed a bull calf with a sledge hammer, killed and cleaned a hog, and can work outside all day long. Mama’s simple way of life speaks for her idea of heritage(Walker). Mama also tells about having only a second-grade education which could make the reader infer that she takes pride in her heritage and probably doesn’t sit around thinking about much about it(White). Dee on the other hand is a selfish, arrogant, and uncaring individual. In the story Mama says “’no’ is a word the world never learned to say to her”. Mama and the church raised money for Dee to go off to school which shows how much Dee wanted to get away from the house and her heritage. Dee tells Mama her new name, Mama asks “What happened to Dee?” and Wangero (Dee) replies, “She’s dead”(Walker). This conversation is significant because it shows how serious Dee is about creating a new life and destroying her old one. When she replies that Dee is dead that reveals the extremes she went to so that she could create a new life for herself. It’s evident that Mama and Dee have very opposing views on heritage and what it means to them. In “Everyday Use” the author uses the literary element of imagery to help the readers to visualize the story, the characters, and their actions.
When Dee and Hakim.a.barber join Mama and Maggie for dinner Dee immediately remembers something that she wanted to ask Mama for. Dee leaves the table and goes to Mama and Maggie’s milk churn and the author purposely adds “the milk in it crabber by now” to make it know to the readers that the churn is used frequently by Mama and Maggie. Instead of asking, Dee tells Mama that the churn top is what she needs and she wants the dasher too. She plans to use them merely as decoration in her home and she probably never even thought about the fact that she would be leaving Mama and Maggie without something that they constantly use(Walker). White points out that “she flippantly decides to take the churn dasher, even though she has no knowledge of its history. During this event in the story it should become obvious to the reader how each character feels about their heritage through their own uses for the churn. Dee disregards the fact that the churn is being used and probably used very
frequently. The setting of “Everyday Use” is seen differently through each of the character’s own point of views. Walker uses the place, time, and condition of their homes to contribute to her theme of contrasting ideas of heritage. Mama describes her yard as an extended living room(Walker). Walker uses the yard as a symbol of making culture out of nothing(Obaid). Mama and Maggie view their yard as a tranquil place where they probably spend a lot of their time. After describing the house Mama says, “No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down”. Mama also recalls when their old house burnt down and how Dee was not even phased by it. Mama says Dee hated the house so much that she wanted to ask her, “Why don’t you do a dance around the ashes?”(Walker). This shows that Dee views her house just as negatively as she did the home she grew up in that burned to the ground. Through Alice Walker’s use of these literary elements it’s evident that her theme is contrasting ideas of heritage. The characters in “Everyday Use” each have traits that help to make their different views on heritage and family tradition more obvious to the reader. With the use of imagery Walker is able to describe these characters and their contradicting actions to provide readers with mental images and help them to visualize the events in the story. Without the details the author gave about the setting of the story the reader would not be able to understand and grasp the theme. All of these literary elements are essential components to the theme of Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”.