Everyday Use By Alice Walker Analysis

“Everyday Use” is a short story written by Alice Walker. The story began with Maggie and Mama, who is waiting for Dee, Maggie’s older sister, and a man who Mama predicts they might be together arrival. Mama tells that Maggie is nervous and she bears with burn scar marks on her arms and legs, she feels envied by her older sister. Dee, who had a distasteful feeling of her family’s lifestyle, has attended school and now feels more like a superstar. The theme of the short story is about education, heritage, and materialism. Walker uses Mama as a first person narrator in the entire story. The narrarator thinks Dee does not like Maggie until she raised money for her to go school in Augusta. Mama tells the innocent side of Dee when she was younger (paragraph 11) until, she noticed Dee was starting to lie by making make-believe excuse. Dee would push her mother and sister away to show she is taken her reading seriously (paragraph 11). Furthermore, Mama tells the reader she never had an education to herself. After second grade, the school was closed in 1927. She never knew why, but racism was occurring at that era (paragraph 13). However, this information tells the reader that education had separated Dee from her family, and it also separated Dee from a true

Dee became disappointed and furious, that she said Maggie wasn’t going to appreciate the quilts. Dee also added that Maggie would put them in everyday use. Mama was sticking to Maggie’s side (paragraph 66). She goes on trying to tell Dee she doesn’t understand the points of the quilts. Maggie overheard the fuss, and told Mama, Dee could have the quilts; then, Mama became emotional, she hugged on Maggie and told Dee to keep one or two of the other quilts. When Dee stop ranting about the quilts, she told her mother, “You just don’t understand?” (paragraph