Everyday Use By Alice Walker Analysis

The short story, “Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker is about the conflicting relationships a mother has with her two daughters, Dee and Maggie. The two daughters differ vastly. Dee, the older daughter, is an educated, worldly person who had the opportunity to leave and explore. Maggie, the younger daughter, is an uneducated, homely person that is envious but intimidated by Dee. The story surrounds Dee returning home to visit Maggie and their mother, the narrator, to learn and collect family heirlooms of their family heritage. Walker’s use of the first-person narrator strengthens the story by displaying her conflicting attitudes towards each of her daughters. She feels distanced from Dee but discovers her close relationship with Maggie. In the

At the end of the story, Dee attempts to take the quilts that were originally promised to Maggie. “I promised to give them quilts to Maggie,” the mother says to Dee, but Dee immediately becomes infuriated by exclaiming that Maggie does not deserve the quilts (75). “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts! […] She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use” says Dee (75). This phrase displays Dee’s misunderstanding of what the quilt represent to the mother and Maggie. The mother wants the quilts to be “used” stating, “I reckon she would [...] God knows I been saving’em for long enough with nobody using’em. I hope she will!” (75). The mother understands that the quilts represent a “living” aspect of their heritage because the quilts were made of materials that were “lived in,” the clothes of past relatives. That is why the “use” of the quilts is so important to the mother because she feels, when the quilts are used, her past relatives are being honored. So, the mother believes Maggie deserves the quilts because Maggie will honor the quilts the way they should be, by “using” them. In contrast, Dee does not understand the representation of the quilt. Dee thinks of the quilt as something “to have,” and states that she wants to “hang them” instead of actually using them. By wanting to hang the quilts rather than use them, this shows that Dee believes that her heritage essentially “dead,” as the mother sees it. Once the mother realizes Dee’s misunderstanding of the quilts, she has an epiphany when she looks at Maggie. “When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I’m in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout” (Walker 76). In this aspect of the story, the mother’s epiphany was that she had taken her relationship with Maggie for granted and that