The Meaning of "Everyday Use" with Characterization

The Meaning of "Everyday Use" with Characterization Analyzing characterization is the key to find fiction's controlling idea and central insight--theme. Direct presentation--one character description technique--usually directly shows what characters are like by exposition, analysis, or another character's description. The other way to shape characters is to use the indirect presentation by describing their actions and leaving room for readers to develop their own ideas about the characters. "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker is a short story that expresses the conflicts between people's different attitudes and values of heritage. This story is a dramatic story, but one that uses first-person point of view to narrate the story, which gives readers a fresh reading experience. In the story, Dee, a black lady who has been educated, comes to visit her Mama and her younger sister, Maggie. Dee interests in many of the daily-used heritages in the family and wants to take something back for art appreciation. Mama does not refuse any of Dee's requests until Dee wants to have the inherited quilt, which she plans to give to Maggie as a dowry. Dee does not understand the behaviour of Maggie and Mama of putting the treasures into everyday use, and she blames that they do not know the value of those quilts. This work of fiction uses both direct and indirect presentation of Dee, Maggie, and Mama to express the central theme as that the differences between people's ideas toward heritage widely exist in society, from objective-oriented to subjective-oriented and the conflicts in between. "Everyday Use" uses both indirect and direct presentations to show that Dee's view of heritage is objective-oriented. Readers can judge from Dee's behaviors and Mama's thoughts of Dee to realize that she tries to abstract heritage from the real life and emotions and wants to appreciate and pass the culture by displaying and showing the cultural symbols objectively; meanwhile, she completes the