Plot in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”

Plot in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” At the beginning of the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker it may seem as if the story is about a life of struggle and tragedy of a woman and her daughters, on the other hand it is clear that with all the events that are being described there is a bigger conflict about to unravel. Even when the plot is not clear until later on the story, the events throughout the story show that there will be a major conflict between the greatly different personalities and state of mind of both daughters. With all the events that are being put out to the readers it is easy to assume that they all sum up to the story’s plot , which develops the conflict between the personality of a person who has got everything she ever wanted all her life against the depressed girl that has never had anything handed down to her. The story begins to reveal the plot with all the stories that the main character tells about her daughters and how different their states of mind grow apart. Also the mother speaks of Dee as if she was meant for a better and brighter future on the other hand she speaks of Maggie as if she is never going to have anything good coming to her which also affect the daughter’s personalities. The mother shows how she feels about her daughters when she says, “Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless … sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way that my Maggie walks … Sometimes I dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort … Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid” (99). This reveals how the mother thinks of Maggie and by comparing her to a lame dog; it gives the readers that she really thinks of her daughter as someone that no one would ever care for except for someone who feels sorry for her. Also because the mother feels this way towards her own daughter, it

Cited: Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2007. 99-104.