Everyday Use By Alice Walker Analysis

Some Have Good Intentions

The 1960s marked the start of a new era in the American history, introducing one of the greatest victories over racism, the civil rights act. The civil rights act shined a new sun over the nation as a whole and over the African American community in specific, as it abolished segregation and discrimination in public places, and outlawed racism in workplaces. The multiple characters introduced to the reader in Alice Walker's short story “Everyday Use” represented the difference in culture and identities as in ante and post the civil rights movement. Dee stands out as the most controversial and complex character in the story, she represents the change that took place in the African American society, as she comes back to her hometown to visit her mother and sister Maggie. Dee may come across at some points in the story as a selfish, demanding and arrogant character who might disagree with her family's ways of life, she’s still an educated, cultured woman, who's struggling with finding the balance between the change and true identity of her own self.
The mother describes Dee as a very different young girl since childhood as she watched their old house burn down in ashes with fixed eyes.
She had some remarkable fault finding powers that she used to drive people away from her including her first boyfriend, which is why she never had any friends. Dee had a very demanding personality since adolescence “Dee wanted nice things”, but as the story progresses Dee's wants become more of an intellectual than materialistic nature.(Walker 853) Throughout the whole visit Dee keeps asking mama to have different old item around the house that meant a lot to the family like the churn top and the dasher. The story took a very dramatic turn when Dee asked for the quilts made by her grandma, the same quilts that she once called very out of style when she was offered to take one of them to school . For the first time in her life she heard the
word
“no”, a word that the world never dared to say to her, and the two letter word brought out the worst of Dee's character, her selfishness and arrogance. Dee was blinded by her most negative traits, which led her to say that she would be a better keeper of those quilts than her sister. The selfishness in her made her not only want some small random items, but pieces of heritage and culture that might or might not have a quite deep understanding for. On the other hand Dee was sent to college in Augusta, and became a very educated woman, and she seemed to embrace the culture change that took place during the time period, by wearing “A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurt my eyes.” as mama described her, and be changing her name from Dee to Wangero. ( Walker 854) Dee's education and interaction with the college level headed people is perhaps what gave her personality some of that arrogance she expresses by saying that she would be better at taking care of those aforementioned quilts than her sister Maggie, because she wanted to hang the quilts on the wall as pieces of art. Though the reader might see this as a selfish act to want the quilts to herself, Dee seemed to have meant well in heart, by preserving those quilts as a symbol of her roots, and of the long way she has came to accomplish by being the modern educated woman she was. In reality, Dee was just trying to appreciate her roots, yet embrace the new found freedom that she was given to African American society in that time period, and she wanted her family to do the same by saying “You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It's really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it.", which might have not been the best choice of words to end her visit to her family, but the most accurate description to the reforms taking place in their own world. The nature of Dee's contradiction came from her selfish acts that were motivated by some sort of an inner struggle to achieve perfection, and finding a new balance . As a person, Dee tried to be as close to her family as much as her new social standing could let her, by coming to visit them, but as a daughter and a sister, Dee never understood the simpler ways of life that her mother and sister led.
Walker tried to address the identity crisis some African American people went through after the civil rights movement in the persona of Dee, a contradictory personality with selfish acts, but good intentions at heart.