In the world of literature nothing is more compelling than reading a story and feeling as though you yourself are witnessing firsthand the events and character’s struggles unfold, due to the interactive language and intricate details the author incorporates into their writing. It is through Alice Walker’s conversational style of writing, and vivid use of symbolism that she is able to give an elaborate description of the family culture gap in the story allowing the readers to explore the concept of African- American heritage. These writing techniques also play a major role in keeping the readers engaged from start to finish. This is especially evident in Walker’s short story “Everyday Use”. Walker has skillfully honed her craft and by integrating …show more content…
Walker uses Dee to symbolize the progress made by African Americans in the 1950’s and 60’s which was characterized by bright and beautiful blacks who were vocal and aggressive in their demands. During this era, many blacks refused to continue hiding their African culture, became increasingly proud of their differences, and adopted certain aspects of their ancestry in the way they dressed. Mama’s characterizations vof Dee illustrate her as a perfect example of this “Dee, though. She would always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature,…She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time…At sixteen she had a style of her own: and she knew what style was” (Walker, “Everyday Use” 409). These personality traits, along with her style of dress and speech, establish her identity as a symbol of the Black Power movement. It is crucial to recognize that Walker is not castigating the Black Power movement as a whole, however she uses the character of Dee to exhibit this mistaken and confusion of black pride. Symbolism can be found in abundance throughout this story, and another prime example would be the infamous quilts.The quilts are not just a representation of the …show more content…
Firstly, she mixes both educated (Dee) and uneducated (Mrs. Johnston and Maggie) dialogue into the story. By taking this approach the author allows the readers to grasp the cultural gap and conflict between the characters. When Dee talks she uses eloquent and fluent sentences, whereas Mrs.Johnston and Maggie use simplistic, short and often incomplete sentences. (enter quote) It is clear there is some envy between the family members over the fact that Dee (Wangero) is educated however the conflict occurs because Maggie is more educated when it comes to her ancestry and heritage. Walker also uses a conversational approach to writing, which makes the reader engaged because it helps to build a sense of comfort and rapport with readers. A conversational style makes it easier for readers to relate to characters and helps to actual person. To that end, Walker makes the story easier to understand because her conversational English expresses the message more effectively and efficiently to readers. Walker utilizes an array of powerful and expressive sentences, although they may be short and simple they are well thought out when trying to make a point and explain a particular situation. (quote) This depicts how Maggie is insecure when stating her opinion even though she wants to make a point about how the butter dish is actually perceived., and
Throughout “Everyday Use” mama compares the two sisters very often. For instance, “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She is a woman now” (744) Mama is saying Dee is much more attractive than Maggie and how she has the figure of a grown woman, it also shows that Dee is more cherished and appreciated because she is light skin. In the slavery days, Dee would have been an in-house slave while Maggie would have been an outside slave which is based on their physical appearance. Mama also showed bias when she said “Dee feet were always neat looking like God himself shaped them with a certain style.” (745). Mama put Dee on a high pedal stool while she always brought down Maggie, like when she said “she isn’t bright . . . good looks. . . passed her by”. Mama has shown bias between the two sisters since the very beginning of “Everyday Use” comparing the two physical traits. Mama was vey bias throughout the story but between her bias Maggie’s potential and her ignorance tied together brought family themes in this
Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” centers on a mama, Mrs. Johnson, and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee, and how they view their heritage. In “Everyday Use”, the author, Alice Walker, uses symbolism not just to convey imagery and increase the story’s emotional impact, as is typical for most literature, but also to tell parts of the story, be more descriptive with her depictions of characters and objects within the story, give back story, and communicate more of her characters’ personalities. Like most writings, “Everyday Use” contains symbolism in the form of objects and actions, but the symbolism in Everyday Use is very notable and striking because it is materialized in rather unorthodox ways and places, such as characters’ names, in the back
Dee is the healthy one who has new thinking’s college student. But she still wants to find black culture. However, the mother and Maggie did not think it. Thus, when Dee requirements took two quilt cultural heritage, and the mother a fierce conflict. “‘But they’re priceless!’ she was saying now… ‘Maggie would put them on bed and in five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!’ ‘She can always make some more,’ I said. ‘Maggie knows how to quilt.’” (Walker, 477) Sentence in the form of direct speech that readers understand Dee’s attitude of the traditional culture in this time, but also depicts that she treats national culture hypocritical side: she was the only recognition of traditional cultural values, Maggie impossible to appreciate. It seems that every family, which has the advantages of a successor of the child, and another child always without it. Maggie that is the second child, she is ugly, inferior, clumsy, weak, these features seem to symbolize the pain of African-American culture. For Maggie, She understood that in the blood and emotion. Maggie inherited the history and tradition of black, she is the family culture and tradition of the best successor. That 's why Walker written at the end of the novel the mother snatched the quilt from the hands of Dee, gave Maggie. This is the mother 's choice, but also the writer 's own
The main objects of topic throughout the story are the quilts that symbolize the African American Woman’s history. Susan Farrell, a critic of many short stories, describes the everyday lives of African American Women by saying “weaving and sewing has often been mandatory labor, women have historically endowed their work with special meanings and significance” and have now embraced this as a part of their culture. The two quilts that Dee wanted “had been pieced together by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me [Mother] had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them” (par. 55) showing that these quilts were more valuable as memories than they were just blankets. The fabrics in the quilts “were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell’s paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the piece of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra’s uniform that he wore in the Civil War” (par. 55) putting forth more evidence that these are not just scraps, but have become pieces of family history. The q...
Mrs. Johnson, the mother, is described as, “a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands” (6). She tells some of her capabilities including, “I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. . .I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog” (6). This description informs readers that Mrs. Johnson has learned all the ways and traditions of her ancestors and knows how to survive from day to day. She and Maggie’s lives in the small home represent a simple, unsophisticated way of life. Dee, on the other hand is described as, “[light-skinned], with nicer hair and a fuller figure” who “wanted nice things” and “had a style of her own” (7). The clothes Dee wears and the phrases she uses to greet her mother and sister show that she has no real understanding of her background and where she comes from. This shows Dee to be materialistic, complex, and lead a life where heritage is looked upon as a trend and not for what it really represents.
...and Mama are indifferent to her rude remark. Maggie smiles though, in a way that lets the reader know that she has finally found a place in her mother’s heart. She does not feel as though she has lost out to Dee, but rather that Dee is the one missing out, because she has no concept of what really matters in life. Maggie and Mama do not have to go out and try to prove to the world how far they have come and cover up for their past like Dee. A sense of heritage is the best gift that anyone could ever be given. Unfortunately for Dee, she is looking for material objects to fill that space in her that she has more than once denied. The story makes it apparent that their are different ways to interpret one’s heritage. For those people who are more secure with who they are, heritage is something that they can pride themselves on and not be ashamed of because of where they came from. Heritage is a person’s undeniable past that they carry around with them everyday, it cannot be found in a mere tangible object.
Author Alice Walker, displays the importance of personal identity and the significance of one’s heritage. These subjects are being addressed through the characterization of each character. In the story “Everyday Use”, the mother shows how their daughters are in completely two different worlds. One of her daughter, Maggie, is shy and jealous of her sister Dee and thought her sister had it easy with her life. She is the type that would stay around with her mother and be excluded from the outside world. Dee on the other hand, grew to be more outgoing and exposed to the real, modern world. The story shows how the two girls from different views of life co-exist and have a relationship with each other in the family. Maggie had always felt that Mama, her mother, showed more love and care to Dee over her. It is until the end of the story where we find out Mama cares more about Maggie through the quilt her mother gave to her. Showing that even though Dee is successful and have a more modern life, Maggie herself is just as successful in her own way through her love for her traditions and old w...
Dee is shallow and manipulative. Not only does her education separate her from her family identity and heritage, it prevents her from bonding with her mother and sister. If Dee could only push her arrogance aside, she would be able to develop a deep connection with her family. While connecting with her family, Dee would also develop a deeper understanding of her heritage. Maggie and Mama did not give in to the “whim of an outside world that doesn’t really have much to do with them” (Farrell par.1). In the attempt to “fit” in, Dee has become self-centered, and demanding with her very own family; to the extent of intimidation, and
Heritage is one of the most important factors that represents where a person came from. In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, this short story characterizes not only the symbolism of heritage, but also separates the difference between what heritage really means and what it may be portrayed as. Throughout the story, it reveals an African-American family living in small home and struggling financially. Dee is a well-educated woman who struggles to understand her family's heritage because she is embarrassed of her mother and sister, Mama and Maggie. Unlike Dee, Mama and Maggie do not have an education, but they understand and appreciate their family's background. In “Everyday Use,” the quilts, handicrafts, and Dee’s transformation helps the reader interpret that Walker exposed symbolism of heritage in two distinctive point of views.
Walker creates Dee as a selfish, unfeeling individual, who has an incredible zest for knowledge. She emphasizes her character as distinct from that of Maggie Johnson her younger sister. ”She used to read to us without pity, forcing words, lies, other folk's habits, whole lives upon us two; sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her words" (7), because of this her mother, Mrs. Johnson sends her to school in Augusta after she and the church raises the money. Dee thinks she is better than the rest, she wants to leave her family and heritage behind because she feels like they aren’t as sophisticated as she is. She tries to force "other folkways habits" on Mrs. Johnson and Maggie. In the story, you see how mama narrates that she pressed them with the serious way she reads, only to shove them away at the moment they seemed about to understand(10). Dee acts superior to her mom and Maggie and also treats them like dimwits because of their illiteracy. I think its best that one is intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy because they are different. In the story, Mrs. Johnson and Maggie are not portrayed as ignorant people, but illiterates who though do not have the kind or experience Dee has. Mrs. Johnson and Maggie are capable of forming cognitive opinions quite as ...
Alice Walker is a well-known African- American writer known for published fiction, poetry, and biography. She received a number of awards for many of her publications. One of Walker's best short stories titled "Everyday Use," tells the story of a mother and her two daughters' conflicting ideas about their heritage. The mother narrates the story of the visit by her daughter, Dee. She is an educated woman who now lives in the city, visiting from college. She starts a conflict with the other daughter, Maggie over the possession of the heirloom quilts. Maggie still lives the lifestyle of her ancestors; she deserves the right of the quilts. This story explores heritage by using symbolism of the daughters' actions, family items, and tradition.
In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," the message about the preservation of heritage, specifically African-American heritage, is very clear. It is obvious that Walker believes that a person's heritage should be a living, dynamic part of the culture from which it arose and not a frozen timepiece only to be observed from a distance. There are two main approaches to heritage preservation depicted by the characters in this story. The narrator, a middle-aged African-American woman, and her youngest daughter Maggie, are in agreement with Walker. To them, their family heritage is everything around them that is involved in their everyday lives and everything that was involved in the lives of their ancestors. To Dee, the narrator's oldest daughter, heritage is the past - something to frame or hang on the wall, a mere artistic, aesthetic reminder of her family history. Walker depicts Dee's view of family heritage as being one of confusion and lack of understanding.
Every possible type of character is displayed in this short story. Dee starts out the story as a stereotypical light-skinned black person. Feeling as though she was better than everyone else was because her: waist was small, skin was light, a nice grade of hair, and she was somewhat educated. Dee was in a hurry to get out of the country and never come back. She wrote to her mother saying "no matter where we choose to live, she will manage to come see us. But she will never bring her friends" (Walker 63), letting everyone know that she thought she was too good to continue to take part in her heritage. Maggie was portrayed as a flat character. The reader is not told much about her, and she never changes throughout the whole story. The mother would be the static character. She is seen as an older women set in her ways from life experiences, and from what she had been taught growing up black in the south. She made up her mind that the two family quilts would go to Maggie and she did not give it a second thought. Dee is also the dynamic character round. She is dynamic when she returns home to the country. She had previously said she would not bring any of her friends home, but when she gets there she is accompanied by a gentleman. Other aspects of her dynamics are displayed when she changes her name to "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo". She went from dyeing and hating her upbringing to wanting to take a piece of it with her back to the city. To show off where and what she comes from. Dee is truly a round character. Walker did an excellent job with these characters especially Dee.
Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," is a story about a poor, African-American family and a conflict about the word "heritage." In this short story, the word "heritage" has two meanings. One meaning for the word "heritage" represents family items, thoughts, and traditions passed down through the years. The other meaning for the word "heritage" represents the African-American culture.
Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” is a short story about an African American family that struggles to make it. Mama tries her best to give Maggie and Dee a better life than what she had. In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” Dee is the older sister and Maggie is younger. Dee is described as selfish and self-centered. Maggie is generous, kind, and cares the family’s history together. She would go out of her way to make sure that her older sister, Dee has everything she needs and wants. Maggie is also willing to share what she has with her sister. Maggie is also shy and vulnerable. Mama is the mother of Maggie and Dee. Mama is fair and always keeps her promises to her children. Hakim-a-barber is the boyfriend