Characterisms And Symbolism In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

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Jaylon Carter Joyce Cottonham English 111 6/30/17 "Everyday Use" A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences. All communication is achieved through the use of symbols. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs. A symbol is an energy evoking, and directing, agent. Symbolism that is something that stands for another, it can be place, object, or a person. Human cultures use symbols to express specific ideologies and social structures and to represent …show more content…

Alice Walker as a novelist, poet, short story writer, activist and feminist has built a well-known reputation worldwide. In her short story Everyday Use it is one of her popular and wonderful short stories in which she addresses the predicament of African and Americans who were struggling to define their personal identities in cultural terms. The story goes around some issues of heritage which construct a conflict between the characters of the story, each with different point of views. Walker's use of symbol of "quilt" and the difference of understanding the legacy of family, between Mama and Maggi with Dee, creates a …show more content…

She anticipates that soon her daughter Maggie will be married and she will be living peacefully alone. Mama decides that she will wait in the yard for her daughter Dee's arrival. Mama knows that her other daughter, Maggie, will be nervous throughout Dee's stay, self -conscious of her scars and burn marks and jealous of Dee's much easier life. Mama fantasizes about reunion scenes on television programs in which a successful daughter embraces the parents who have made her success possible. Sometimes Mama imagines reuniting with Dee in a similar scenario, in a television studio where an amiable host brings out a tearful Dee, who pins orchids on Mama's dress. Whereas Mama is sheepish about the thought of looking a white man in the eye, Dee is more assertive. Mama's musing is interrupted by Maggie's shuffling arrival in the yard. Mama remembers the house fire that happened more than a decade ago, when she carried Maggie, badly burned, out of the

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