The short story “Everyday Use”, by Alice walker, begins with a family of three: Maggie, Dee, and “Mama”(there mother). The author never reveals her actual name. However Dee being old enough to attend college leaves off to college. When she comes back from college, she begins to express herself in different ways, a way that is more liberal. By the authors description she is dressed differently, she talks differently, she even changed her name to Wangero. However she starts gathering things that her mother and her sister, Maggie, owned to express her heritage, she has the wrong idea of heritage, her heritage lied in her own name passed from her grandmother to her aunt to her. the name that she carried, Dee, was passed along for three generations, which she didn’t realize. The author shows symbolism and point of view throughout the story through the family’s name,Dee, the quilt, the house, and the mother explains the story where the author uses point of view. The objects that make Dee the person she is, are disrespectful, selfish, and self-centered.…
Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" is the story of a woman, referred to as Mama, and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. Mama and Maggie live together in their small home in a rural area. Dee has gone to college in a big city and is coming for a visit. Maggie is painfully self conscious, "chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle" with scars on her body from a house fire. Dee has always been scornful of her family's simple way of living and has been greatly influenced by her time away. Walker uses Maggie to explore the ideas of a family's heritage and history and, by contrasting her with Dee, voices a concern that in our search for our roots perhaps we are losing important aspects of our heritage.…
The short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker reflects on the heritage of a family of African Americans. The majority of the African American population has forgotten where they came from. The Webster dictionary defines heritage as “ the traditions, achievements, beliefs, etc., that are part of the history of a group or nation.” Maggie, Dee or Wangero, and their mother, who is also the narrator, are the basic characters for this short story.…
Mothers are very important to every living person on this earth. They nurture, educate, and enthrall pupils from birth well into their adult life. According to many psychologists, women are born with nurturing tendencies that are used throughout the rest of our lives. Regardless of monetary and social status, a mother is someone caring and loving. In both ROOM and The Glass Castle, the mothers are nurturing and loving regardless of both above statuses. They also share resilience, creativity, and a dependency on others that can be at times overwhelming.…
In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” one of the characters, Dee visits her mother and sister after being gone for many years at college, from the view of the reader, the reunion seems distant and the character’s relationships amongst each other strained as Dee now looks upon her family with condescending disdain. Throughout the course of the story the author expertly exploits the history of the central family in an effort to explain how they’ve become who they are. Walker uses a combination of allusion and character interaction to illustrate the theme which covers power of education to split people apart and bring them together. Walker’s use of allusion throughout the story is not extensive, though when it is used it takes full advantage of…
Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” is a good example for showing what happens to a family when there is not strong understanding of heritage. The two sisters, Dee and Maggie are opposites when it comes to personality and looks. Dee has a full figure that is outspoken and wants the finer things is life. On the other hand, Maggie is shy and introverted with a thinner frame than Dee. The mother of the two decides to give Maggie her…
In contrast, the women in “Everyday Use” by Walker exemplify the total opposite of what Southern women should be. Walker allows the mother in “Everyday Use” to have self-confident strength, in which she takes on the tasks usually reserved for a man. In the beginning the mother describes herself as “a large big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands.” She goes further to explain how she “can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man.” Walker makes the mother the narrator of the story which becomes significant since she is a great example of the resistance shown to move into a more modernized world. Throughout her narration, it becomes obvious the mother is stuck in tradition, so much so her confinement becomes clear due to her lack of…
The mother in the short story “I Stand Here Ironing” and the mother in the poem “Daystar” are very important characters. The mother in “I stand Here Ironing” has a negative personality. She is very powerless. On page 80, the mother says, “You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key?” This shows just because she is the mother that doesn’t mean she has this magic to help. She has a very negative attitude instead of being happy. Her place in society was being poor. She had many jobs to support herself. The Mother in “Daystar” has a tired personality. Her place in society is not described that much. She may be a person that is poor, and is a single parent.…
Working hard in every sense of the word. She worked hard to give her daughter the chance in life that she never had. A single mother who works hard to take care of her family, and took up the responsibility as head of the family . Mama is able to work all day regardless of the weather and she " can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man"(walker 104). But apart from her physical strength, she also show mental toughness. A large black woman with a heart as big as her profile and the work ethics of an ox. She had the strength of a man and could do any man 's job, and she takes pride in the practical aspect of her…
Mama tries to be influential on the cultural side towards her daughters Dee, who renamed herself to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo and Maggie, who still lives at home with Mama. But Maggie turned out to be the only one who is exactly like Mama. Everyday Use contains antecedent action in its exposition to show readers that Mama is the back bone of the family. As they grew up, they didn’t have very much. Mama only has 2nd grade level of education but very willingly, she wants her children to do better than she did. Therefore, Mama supports them. Throughout their lives Mama tried to instill values in Dee and Maggie. Walker shows the juxtaposition between Maggie and Dee to reveal to the reader how people can develop different values throughout their lives, even though they come from the same…
Everyday Use is at its core a story of family. Families are messy. They are complicated and not always easily understood. And, family stories are almost always deeply personal and best told from within. This is not a story that belongs to a distant third-person, semi-omniscient narrator. It is the story of three African-American women trying to find themselves, and while each has a unique perspective to offer, it is Mama who has seen and experienced more with both of her daughters…
Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" is a short story about the clash between a mother and daughter. Dee is the child returning home to visit. The visit is not exactly pleasant and ends after a stand-off between her and Mama. Many readers see Mama as finally standing up for her own ideals while also refusing to conform to the rules Dee wishes her to follow. Dee follows different rules of society and religion than her mother does in order to become her own person. The rules Dee follows are shallow compared to the old-fashioned ways of her mother.…
The short story, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker portrays the relationship between a family and their issues concerning their heritage and values that are different to them. Clearly, the author Alice Walker incorporates her personal experiences into her writings. In the short story, the family lived a poor lifestyle and had to adapt to what they had. According to one source, “The Walkers lived in poverty, and as a young girl” (Cummings 1). Along with her lifestyle, Walker is able to include real details in her short story about being poor because she has been through it. Walker explains in her story as the character of Mama, “I never had an education myself. After second grade the school closed down” (21). Tuten explains that, “Commentaries…
In present-day society, families go through several problems and arguments regarding numerous issues which would have been considered unacceptable in past times. Throughout a variety of different cultures, the level of respect and obedience for one’s parents has diminished while the negotiation of conformity and rebellion has risen. This statement is supported and evidential in two different stories, “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. Although these stories represent different cultures, they both exemplify the values and importance of family relations; as well as demonstrate in every culture families face social problems. In both these stories, two major topics stood out which allowed me to compare each one to one another. These topics were mother-daughter relationships and obedience as a whole.…
In “Everyday Use” an essay by Alice Walker, she demonstrates that there was a totally different framework about daughters from what we have previously read. She shows the reader that instead of having mother and daughter relationship issues there are problems between the two sisters. Walker wanted us to think about how this was also a social norm in the 1960’s and not just think about how the mothers and daughters fought.…