Analysis Of Everyday Use By Alice Walker

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Alice walker’s “ Everyday Use” : The value of heritage and different types of personality. In the short story “Everyday Use”, by Alice Walker, is about an African-American mother and her two daughters. This story is written from the mother’s perspective of her daughters, Dee and Maggie. Dee does not live with her mother and sister and is returning home to visit them. In the story , it introduces Maggie and Dee as completely opposite of each other. Maggie is portrayed as ignorant,and a homely girl. On the other hand, Dee is seen as beautiful,boastful, and an intelligent woman. However, the story has more to it rather than the differences between the two sisters. The short story mainly deals with the two sisters in ways in which they …show more content…

Mama sees the quilts as the most valuable assets crafted by her ancestors. She insists that the quilts are used for what they are really made for and be treated with respect. Instead, Dee sees the quilts as a work of art and want to preserve them. After maggie overheard Dee and mama’s commotion about the quilts , she decided to let her sister Dee keeps them. But Mama refuse to hand them down to Dee. She believes giving them to the wrong daughter is destroying something that is so special to their ancestors. To make Mama feel at peace, she made sure Maggie receive the quilts instead of Dee. The thought that Dee does not fully understand her culture is devastating because she wants the most important assets that was made by her ancestors but does not want to use it for everyday use. Moreover, Dee seems to lack respect for her mother’s ancestors. Dee claims to be appreciative of her ancestors but she is still degrading her family. Throughout the story, Dee made everything seems difficult and negative. She has not shown her love and respect to her love ones around. At the end of the story, she attacked her mother and Maggie because they choose to remain in old ways of thinking and living. She sees them as uneducated and worthless. In the article fight vs flight : a re-evaluation of Dee in “Everyday Use” , Alice Walker says , Dee obviously holds a central place in Mama 's world. The story opens with the line: "I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon" (47). I must say agree with Alice’s statement because mama use of language about Dee seems to be very harsh, but she secretly admires and has more preference towards Dee than her younger daughter

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