What Is The Main Idea Of Everyday Use Dee

Dee has chosen to stand up against racism and the social class struggle that she faced, but Mama is not so brave in “Everyday Use.” Dee went to college and is educated, unlike Mama, which is where Dee’s confidence has come from. Dee would read to Mama and Maggie, and Susan Farrell says, “Dee tries her best to extend her own education to them, which is surely not a bad thing” (182). Dee received an education, and she wanted to pass on some of her knowledge to Mama and Maggie, but they did not seem to understand like Dee did. Questioning Dee’s reasons, Mama says, “She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know,” showing that Mama was uninterested in learning anything knew (Walker
Ellen Peel explains Armand to be, “Confident that he is a white, a male, and a master, he feels in control of the system” (224). When this story was written, white people were superior to African Americans, and females did not have the same rights as males, which is what this statement means. This description of Armand shows that he is white which was the superior race, and he is a male which shows that females did not have the same rights that males did when this story was written. Because Armand viewed Desiree as an object and “He ordered the corbeille from Paris,” which were gifts that he bought Desiree to buy her love (Chopin 903). The narrator says that “He ordered the corbeille from Paris” showing that he bought Desiree’s love and that he viewed her as an object instead of a person (Chopin 903). This is like him burning Desiree’s belongings showing that he did not have true feelings for her. He just threw her things away like she was garbage. When Desiree questions Armand about their child’s skin color, Armand’s true colors are exposed, and the narrator says that "He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him; and felt, somehow, that he was paying Him back in kind when he stabbed thus into his wife’s soul” (Chopin 905). Therefore, he tells
Miss Moore is trying to teach the children about inequality in the social class, and the narrator says that “She [Miss Moore] had been to college and said it was only right that she should take responsibility for the young ones’ education” (Bambara 924). Miss Moore has received an education, and she wants to pass on her knowledge to the children that live in the slums, which is like Dee trying to teach Mama and Maggie about standing up against the racism that they faced in their lives. Miss Moore feels like it is her responsibility to show the children that there is a much bigger world than the projects that they live in. Roy Graves states that “Miss Moore […] takes some ghetto kids from Harlem on a day trip by taxi to downtown Manhattan to broaden their understanding of money and economics and to show them how deprived they are,” but Sylvia is not interested in what Miss Moore is trying to teach them, which is seen by the way she describes the trip downtown (215). The children think that these lectures and trips are pointless because they feel like they are going to be like their parents and live in the ghetto because that is all they know. This is different than Dee because she used the knowledge and wisdom that she received to leave her old life behind her, but in this story the children