Social Boundaries Of 20th Century America

Joseph Fountain
Dr. Jaime Cantrell
English 224: Section 41
01 April 2016
Social Boundaries of late 20th Century America Many interpretations can be inferred after reading Alice Walker’s Everyday Use (1973). A trend in part of 20th century American modern writers was the art of realist writing. With the use of informal diction and colorful language, Walker added realism to her story to fully immerse the reader in setting and enhance the overall reading experience. In more ways than one, Walker’s writing style targets the roots of American social boundaries during the civil rights movement by outlining the acceptance/refutation extremes of African American identity control; this focus directly relates to reactions exchanged between Mama and Dee/Wangero. Similar themes of social boundaries are supported within Flannery O’Connor’s Good Country
People where there is a clear separation between “good country people” and “trash”. Mama’s refusal to create and control a new identity in American society is a direct link to the extreme of social boundaries during post civil rights times. Interpretation of Mama’s behavior to refuse conformity could be viewed positively as an act to preserve heritage, but it could also be viewed negatively as a way to keep the post civil rights social boundary from crumbling. Naturally, views on social principles largely affect the reader’s interpretation of the story line. The home of the narrator, Mama, and her two daughters that was burned down is described repeatedly throughout the story; more specifically, Dee’s hate for the home.
Mama states, “a look of concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red-hot brick chimney…she had hated the house” (1532). She hates the burned house because it directly reminds Dee of segregation, and inequality in her life before civil rights. The new house is replaced with a mere replica of the burned house revealing Mama’s persistence in preserving heritage. Topics of preserving heritage centralize around the family objects: carved dasher and family quilts. Dee seeks these objects not for their family values but to collect them as lost time artifacts. As an activist for desegregation, Dee rejects her real heritage and wants these items as a remembrance of the past. Mama refuses to give up her familial tied items to someone who will not respectfully make an effort to continue the lineage tied behind them through “everyday use”; another prime example of her tenacity to preserving true familial
heritage. Labeling of social boundaries was also seen within Flannery O’Connor’s Good Country People. Mrs. Hopewell is a successful farm owner that divides people of the lower economic class into “trash” and “good country people”. “She had had plenty of experience with trash. Before the Freemans, she had averaged one tenant family a year” (1342). From this line, one collects that Mrs. Hopewell is mean arrogant woman with high expectations from her workers. If a tenant family could only last one year in her home, the label she gives them, trash, proves its detriment. When describing good country people, Mrs. Hopewell seems filled with joy, “good country people are the salt of the earth!” (1345). The social boundary found between trash and good country people exist solely because of Mrs. Hopewell. Although both groups are of the uneducated, low economic class, Mrs. Hopewell names good country people reliable and names trash as their title implies. The reasoning behind her labeling lower class people is potentially due to her higher economic class paired with her delusion of superiority.
Later, Mama received a letter from Dee stating that; “She wrote me once that no matter where we ‘choose’ to live, she will manage to come see us” (1533). By Walker putting quotations around choose, she suggests that by choosing to make a replica of the old house, Mama is refusing to support the derailment of social boundaries. One reasoning behind Mama’s refusal could be due to her lack of education or simply by her ignorance to the changing world around her. As Dee sees her, she is the reason there is still remnants of social boundaries seen in American society. This notion could link to the cold-shouldered condescending relationship between Dee and Mama. Before leaving her family, she states, “You just don’t understand…your heritage”, to her mother (1536). Rather than a daily practice, Dee sees heritage as a commemorative awareness out of respect to her ancestors’ hardships. Rather than the antagonist Walker portrays her as throughout the story, Dee could be seen as the protagonist here in the run to promote social equality.
The reasoning behind interpreting Everyday Use a particular way is due to the Realist writing style of Alice Walker. Realist writing controls a reader’s portrayal of situations; the way the writer wants the reader to view the situation. Through Alice Walker’s eyes, African American identity control was secondary to familial heritage the way she frames Mama: the protagonist who supports past tradition and refuses to conform to the social merge of modern society. Alice Walker was a proactive voice in the civil rights movement against segregation. What is ironic is that her story, Everyday Use, frames the separation of classes in a positive way through the persistence seen in her character, Mama.