Lessons From Everyday Use, Daffodils, and The Glass Menagerie
Literature plays a major role in civilization. Even societies without a written language have literature. Stories, poems and songs are pasted down orally from one generation to another. This term we have study three forms of literature; short stories, poems, and drama. The study of these three forms has affected me in different ways and I have taken different lessons out of each form. The three literary work witch had the greatest impact on me are "Everyday Use" written by Alice Walker, "Daffodils" written by William Wordsworth, and "The Glass Menagerie" written by Tennessee Williams.
Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use" tells of a mother and her two daughters, Dee, who is polished, poise, educated and stylish, and Maggie who is not bright and scarred from a fire. Dee and Maggie are opposites. Dee has tried to make something of her self but in doing so forgot what it was that she came from. Maggie has lived her life in the same way her mother has lived her life and in the same way her grandmother lived her life. Maggie knows where she came from and does not feel the need to better her self.
Dee collects objects from her mother's house to display around her own. Maggie, being use to the idea of Dee getting her way, sits dumb founded while items are gathered by Dee. Dee finally tries to take two quilts handcrafted by her grandmother. The mother tries to convince her to take two different quilts but Dee refuses saying that they were made by machines and not worth as "priceless" as the others.&nbs...
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...he horn breaks off, now it is just like the rest of the horses. She starts to feel comfortable with him when he tells her of his engagement to a woman named Betty. This makes her loose her self-confidence. Despite of this a seed is planned with in her that she is just like all the other girls and does not need to be so withdrawn. The lesson in this play is that it is better to face your problems then run away from them.
The three works of literature, "Everyday Use" written by Alice Walker, "Daffodils" written by William Wordsworth, and "The Glass Menagerie" written by Tennessee Williams have each showed me something different. Whether reading a short story or poem or watching a play there is always a lesson or idea to be gathered from literature.
Eliga H. Gould, The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution (North Carolina: Omohundro Institute, 2000),
Gordon Wood’s Radicalism of the American Revolution is a book that extensively covers the origin and ideas preceding the American Revolution. Wood’s account of the Revolution goes beyond the history and timeline of the war and offers a new encompassing look inside the social ideology and economic forces of the war. Wood explains in his book that America went through a two-stage progression to break away from the Monarchical rule of the English. He believes the pioneering revolutionaries were rooted in the belief of an American Republic. However, it was the radical acceptance of democracy that was the final step toward independence. The transformation between becoming a Republic, to ultimately becoming a democracy, is where Wood’s evaluation of the revolution differs from other historians. He contributes such a transformation to the social and economic factors that faced the colonists. While Gordon Wood creates a persuasive argument in his book, he does however neglect to consider other contributing factors of the revolution. It is these neglected factors that provide opportunity for criticism of his book.
When two children are brought up by the same parent in the same environment, one might logically conclude that these children will be very similar, or at least have comparable qualities. In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," however, this is not the case. The only thing Maggie and Dee share in common is the fact that they were both raised by the same woman in the same home. They differ in appearance, personality, and ideas that concern the family artifacts.
Serial killers commonly attack a single target at a time one on one. There also tends to be no or very little relation between the person being killed and the killer (murder 1). “The nature of this drive has been heavily debated, but there is a consensus on some points (Anderson 1).” Many researchers have noted sexual behavior in the murder.
In Alice Walker’s Short story “Everyday Use” a mother is conflicted between her two daughters and the families quilt. Maggie is uneducated and financial unstable, and Dee is a well-educated woman that’s embarrassed of her family. Each believing they are entitled to family inheritance. The story characterize heritage and how heritage is portaged differently between the two sister. The main characters in this story, "Mama" and Maggie are on one side, and Dee on the other, each have opposing views on the value and worth of the various items in their lives, this conflict makes the point that the substance of an object is more important than style.
Beasley, James. 2004. “Serial Murder in America: Case Studies of Seven Offenders.” Behavioral Sciences and the Law 22: 395-414
Serial killing is rampant in the U.S. According to estimates in a recent study conducted by the FBI, there have been about 400 serial killers in the U.S. in the last century, with the total number of murder victims ranging from 2,525 to 3,860 . Various experts in the field have suggested that there may be anywhere from 50 to as many as 300 serial killers active at the same time, although there is no clear evidence supporting this . Certainly, an estimate of 300 active serial killers seems at odds with the FBI’s estimate of 400 over the entire previous century. But an estimated 80% of the serial killers in the past century have emerged since 1950. For whatever reason, serial killing is clearly on the rise, with the term itself coined only since the mid-1970’s, so perhaps 300 active serial killers at one time could be unfortunately possible. The number of serial killing in the U.S. is staggering.
Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing, Compact. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner., and Stephen R. Mandell
“I am a large, big boned woman with rough, man-working hands” Mama describes of herself in the short story Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Mama, who additionally takes the role of narrator, is a lady who comes from a wealth of heritage and tough roots. She is never vain, never boastful and most certainly never selfish. She speaks only of her two daughters who she cares deeply for. She analyzes the way she has raised them and how much she has cared too much or too little for them, yet most of all how much they value their family. Mama never speaks of herself, other than one paragraph where she describes what she does. “My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing” (Walker, 60). She does not need to tell readers who she is, for her descriptions of what she does and how her family interacts, denotes all the reader needs to know. Although Mama narrates this story rather bleakly, she gives readers a sense of love and sense of her inner strength to continue heritage through “Everyday Use”.
DiYanni, , Robert . Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. 4th. New York: McGraw Hill, 1998. 408-413. Print.
The quilts were pieced together by Mama, Grandma Dee, and Big Dee symbolizing a long line of relatives. The quilts made from scraps of dresses worn by Grandma Dee, Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts, and Great Grandpa Ezra’s Civil War uniform represented the family heritage and values, and had been promised to Mama to Maggie when she married. However, Dee does not understand the love put into the making of the quilts, neither does she understand the significance of the quilts as part of her family heritage. It is evident she does not understand the significance of the quilt, having been offered one when went away to college declaring them “as old-fashioned” and “out of style”. She does not care about the value of the quilts to her family, rather she sees it as a work of art, valuable as an African heritage but not as a family heirloom. She wants the quilts because they are handmade, not stitched with around the borders. She tells Mama, “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!... She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use… But, they’re priceless!.. Maggie would put them on her the bed and in five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!” (317). The quilt signifies the family pride and history, which is important to Mama. She makes the decision to give the quilt to Maggie who will appreciate it more than Dee, to whom she says, “God knows I been saving ‘em for long enough with
2. Cook Don, The Long Fuse How England lost the American colonies 1760-1785, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 1995
Meanwhile, Dee finds this absurd. She thinks they are too valuable and priceless to be used as everyday necessities. Instead she will hang them. These two ideas of how to use the quilts are in complete contrast to one another. Mama finds them practical, Dee finds them fashionable....
Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin's, 2005.
Literature has many purposes, and opens doors to unique worlds. Through Literature, we discover ourselves and world time and again.