Many college students have trouble connecting with older works presented to them in the classroom curriculum. An older story may have a strong theme or colorful meaning, but it may be difficult to understand and relate to modern society. For example, Alice Walkers’s “Everyday Use” tells a story of an African American woman living in the transition period between the modern society where everyone has a chance for education and a time when a person had to work hard for everything needed to live. Though “Everyday Use” is an arguably beneficial story for college students to learn from, many of its elements are difficult to understand in the new age. “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie is a superior story to “Everyday Use” for a college curriculum due to the more developed characters, a style which is easier to understand, and a theme which is more relevant to today's young adult society.
“Everyday Use” portrays a character, a “large-big boned woman with rough, man-working hands”, bound by a lack of education; “I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down” (Walker, 418-9). Having noted this lack of opportunity, the everyday college student cannot fully understand this character. Today's society enables everyone a chance at education, regardless of living environment or family income. Not only is it difficult for a college student to understand how a person could function in the modern world without an education, he or she would have trouble connecting because the character does not reach out for new opportunities. Despite the new age of education in which her daughter Dee partakes, she still lives in the same rural environment, with the same handmade furniture, and the same rugged lifesty...
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...ryday Use.” Through the use of a more modern story, a clearer understanding of the lesson being conveyed is achieved. The students are able to comprehend the storyline more easily and are able to grasp the bigger picture presented by the author. Therefore, the college curriculum should adapt to the new age with more modern works in order to achieve optimal understanding in the classroom.
Works Cited
Alexie, Sherman. “What You Pawn I Will Redeem.” 40 Short Stories. Ed. Beverly Lawn. Boston: Bedfor/St. Martin’s, 2009. 498-518. Print.
Hyrick, Katherine H. "Sherman Alexie Explores the Sacred and the Profane." BookPage.com (June 2003). Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Vol. 107. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Sep. 2011.
Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” 40 Short Stories. Ed. Beverly Lawn. Boston: Bedfor/St. Martin’s, 2009.417-425. Print.
When looking into works of literature, some stories seem to be similar to others. They can have a similar setting, point of view, theme, or sense of language and style. However, all of these points could be very different as well and could cover different theme or style. Flannery O’Conner’s “Good Country People” and Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” have some contrasting elements, such as their points of view and use of symbolism, but their similarities in the underlying theme, language, and the setting of these stories reveal how these two stories are impacted by education on both the individual and their family.
The twenties, a time marred by prohibition and television's implantations, were widely known as a time of struggles such as the Great Depression and the beginning of what later became known as women's rights. However, presumably the greatest struggle was that of colored' people. Because of limited resources, limited speech, and limited economic opportunities many colored' people sought ways to escape everyday' life and the hardships they often faced. One of these ways came by beginning to express themselves more freely. In addition, as a result, the Harlem Renaissance formed. In "Everyday Use", Alice Walker, one of the frontrunners of the Harlem Renaissance, tells the story of an oppressed and under-privileged African American family with differing values on what it means to live, or more importantly, of one who struggles with understanding of their present life in relation to the traditions of their ancestors and culture. The audience is introduced to both girls at the beginning of the story. From the narrator's vivid description of the girls, the reader quickly forms a distinction between the two daughters. The way Maggie walks is compared to that of "a dog run over by a careless rich person" (453). However, Dee is described as "lighter than Maggie, with nice hair and a fuller figure" (454). Just from the physical description, the readers can infer that Dee is the "prettier" of the two. Though they are totally opposites in physical features, both girls share a central theme. Alice Walker uses something as simple as a quilt to develop the central theme. This theme is that both daughters, Dee and Maggie, are confused about the meaning of their heritage. However, Dee's confusion is a result of her not wanting to acc...
Short stories are temporary portals to another world; there is a plethora of knowledge to learn from the scenario, and lies on top of that knowledge are simple morals. Langston Hughes writes in “Thank You Ma’m” the timeline of a single night in a slum neighborhood of an anonymous city. This “timeline” tells of the unfolding generosities that begin when a teenage boy fails an attempted robbery of Mrs. Jones. An annoyed bachelor on a British train listens to three children their aunt converse rather obnoxiously in Saki’s tale, “The Storyteller”. After a failed story attempt, the bachelor tries his hand at storytelling and gives a wonderfully satisfying, inappropriate story. These stories are laden with humor, but have, like all other stories, an underlying theme. Both themes of these stories are “implied,” and provide an excellent stage to compare and contrast a story on.
"Everyday Use" is told from momma's point of view which helps to reveal how she feels about herself. Momma feels that she is an uneducated person, she says "I never had an education myself," this creates barriers between her and her oldest daughter Dee who has a college education (94). She describes herself as "big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands" that wears overalls by day and flannel gowns by night (93). From momma's point of view one can tell that she favors her relationship with her daughter Maggie mo...
It has sold 25 million copies world wide as of 2013, and that number continues to grow. It is one of the main books that are used in academic curriculums throughout schools. Every little word has so much depth and meaning that it’s just hard to skim through the book and be done with it. With all the symbolism, themes, and historical relevance, it is not some literature that can be overlooked. This is why many schools use it. The story itself is a history book, love story, and English literature meshed into one novel. Instructors can teach different aspects from the book and many lessons can be drawn out from
Nowadays, students describe slavery based on what they read or learned. Students cannot be able to understand the true meaning behind the word “slavery.” The only people that can understand are the ones who went through it. For them, it is hard to look back from the most brutality and sorrowful years of their lives and yet they chose to write their experience. That is why in school, teachers are requiring narrative books for students to understand the main character’s point of view and apply the moral story to the real world. One of the famous books that English teachers are recommending is the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave. It also includes two different introductions of Houston Baker and Peter Gomes and an
Wilson, Kathleen, ed. Short Stories for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context and Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories. Vol 2. Michigan: Gale Research, 1997.
Bird, Caroline. "The Case Against College." 1975 Power of Language;Language of Power. New York: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2009. 15-18. Print.
Everyday Use, a short story about the trials and tribulations of a small African American family located in the South, is an examination of black women’s need to keep their powerful heritage. It speaks on multiple levels, voicing the necessity and strength of being true to one’s roots and past; that heritage is not just something to talk about but to live and enjoy in order for someone to fully understand themselves. A sociological landmine, it was written to awaken the concepts of feminism as well as the civil rights movement, while being able to focus on just three women and their relationship to one another. Everyday Use give its black female characters an identity of their own, each in their own right, and observes the internal conflicts of two sisters who have made two very different life choices, all the while scrutinizing the underlying sibling rivalry between them.
In ?Everyday Use?, Alice Walker chooses to develop the idea of poverty by focusing exclusively on the environment in which her protagonists live. Setting attributes, such as the ones used to describe the house in which the protagonists reside, enables us to better understand the theme. In fact, the dwelling does not even have any real windows. Instead, it has holes cut in the sides, like the portholes of a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside. Then, Walker proceeds with inside description of the house as she points out that the protagonists use benches for their table instead of chairs because they cannot financially afford any. Further, the author supports the theme by providing us with some physical description of specific objects. The use of quilts that ?Grandma Dee? sewed from the scraps of her dress and the churn that Uncle Henry whittled from the wood is not derived from the protagonists? intention to preserve ?family values? but rather from a necessity to ?survive?.
When I received my lesson assignment, my cooperating teacher requested that the students read an article in their social studies magazine. The first article that we read together was about families, and how they have changed over time. The article talked about economic and social changes. I related this lesson to the class’ trip to Old Salem. This way, the students had background knowledge of what the lesson would be about. The class discussion about their trip to Old Salem, and how life was different then was successful. The students had a lot to say, and they talked to me about a lot of different things that they learned about on their trip. I am glad that I incorporated this as my introduction of the lesson, because it gave students an idea
For a Literary Analysis, I have done the story “What You Pawn, You Will Redeem” by Alexie Sherman. The story talks about this Indian man, known as Jackson Jackson, goes on this quest to redeem his grandmother’s regalia back from this pawn shop employee who would give it to him for $999. This Indian man has had a troubling past, along with saying he has a habit breaking other people’s hearts, but he has good friends and even knows a couple of store employees who let him use their store’s bathroom. As the story goes on, it goes through a series of events, or a timeline, where the main character tells the story of what had happened during that time period on his quest for the regalia. In “What You Pawn, You Will Redeem”, I have found three literary
Tate, Claudia C. "'Everyday Use' by Alice Walker." African American Review 30.2 (1996): 308+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 Feb. 2014.
The use of Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy in this story is very thought-provoking. While we are presented with the image of a young Richard Rodriguez and his struggle to deal with his education and family life. We are also presented Hoggart’s image of the “Scholarship boy” the student who has ...
Perrault, Charles. “Cinderella.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed. Laurence Behrens, Leonard J. Rosen. Toronto: Longman, 2013. 236-240. Print.