In comparing and contrasting the short stories “Everyday Use” written by Alice Walker and “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson, tradition is carried on throughout the generations. Symbols are often used in these short stories to convey these messages of tradition and heritage. Rebellious characters are also found in both of the stories, trying to alter traditions to meet their own personal expectations. However, in contrast “The Lottery” is a much more barbaric story that does not reveal the cruelty until the end of the story. The story involves an entire village of families following a tradition. “Everyday Use” is not as tragic, it deals with a conflict within a single family unit.
Both short stories have strong value of tradition and heritage. The lottery is a longstanding ritual where the villagers draw a name each year on June 27th and the unfortunate soul who has drawn the slip of paper marked with a black smudge is stoned to their death. The sacrifice is meant to keep the village crops healthy and hearty. In the story “Everyday Use” the tradition of passing down homemade quilts and family memories are of high importance.
Symbols are displayed in both stories; the quilts in “Everyday Use” symbolize the memories of Mama’s family. The quilts are made of pieces of old clothing from Mama’s family. Each piece of the quilt represents that person and who they were. They are passed on to future generations along with stories of the ancestors’ past. The quilts represent pride of their ancestors’ struggles, where they came from and the fight to preserve their individuality. Unlike Dee, Mama and Maggie acknowledge their heritage from memories of their family members. Dee bases her heritage off ...
... middle of paper ...
... attempts to change the way Mama and Maggie perceive tradition by using the quilts as a wall display. Mama refuses to allow it, Dee was offered the quilts when she was in college and didn’t want them at that time. Mama gives the quilts to Maggie as her wedding gift to be used every day as they were intended, knowing how much Maggie appreciates them. I agree with Mama and Maggie for keeping family memories and objects in daily use. It is important to maintain your family history in your everyday life to preserve those special memories.
Works Cited
Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Perrine’s Story & Structure, 13th Ed.
Ed. Helen Triller. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012, 2009, 2006. 108-115. Print.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Perrine’s Story & Structure, 13th Ed.
Ed. Helen Triller. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012, 2009, 2006. 220-227. Print.
She doesn’t envy her sister Dee’s new style of life, even though she lacks a higher level of education. The opposite, she enjoys her lifestyle, “Maggie still lives in poverty with her mother, putting “priceless” objects to “everyday use” (‘everyday use”). Despite the fact she always felt inferior to her older sister Dee, Maggie expresses her respect for family’s heritage collaborating with Mama, cleaning the house for Dee’ visit, “I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon” (Walker 23). Maggie gives the quilts to Dee because she wanted it even though she was preserving them for her wedding day. It represented for her an invaluable symbol of her heritage, “The quilts contains pieces of family history, scraps from old dresses and shirts that family members have worn” (“everyday
In the story, she introduces two sisters with almost opposite personalities and different views on heritage: Maggie and Dee. She uses the contrast between the two sisters to show how one should accept and preserve one's heritage. Beyond the contrast between two sisters there exist the judge figure mom, the narrator and the Dee's irony. The irony on Dee's opinion is the key to understand the story and why the mother let Maggie keep the quilts, which symbolize the heritage.
In "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, two sisters want the handmade quilt that is a symbol of the family heritage. Alice Expresses what her feeling are about her heritage through this story. It means everything to her. Something such as a quilt that was hand made makes it special. Only dedication and years of work can represent a quilt.
Acosta portrays the quilt as a memoir type deal and makes it into a precious piece of herself for her kids to have with them. Walker signifies the quilts as being special to her and her family heritage and refused to give them to someone who won't respect their meaning, even if it is her own daughter. Anything has what it takes to be of some significance and it doesn’t matter what that thing is. What means the most is how valued that significance is and how well the heritage is kept
Everyday Use ends with Dee leaving, not with the quilts, thus making room for the new bond between Mama and Maggie. Dee may believe that she has won in some way because she is the educated sister who appreciates her heritage, but the reader sees it is in fact Maggie who has become victorious by having her way of life validated by Mama’s support and Dee’s envy. Maggie’s system of values is redeemed by creating a new relationship, with herself, in which she is no longer silenced and can truly appreciate the beauty of her home even in its everyday use. While there is little growth seen from the experience on Dee’s side, we know that Maggie is forever changed, giving her more power than she ever had. There is still and will always be a struggle between her and her sister, but Maggie now knows she does not need redemption from Dee, nor anyone else, because it is she who carries the importance of the past into the future.
Tradition is a central theme in Shirley Jackon's short story The Lottery. Images such as the black box and characters such as Old Man Warner, Mrs. Adams, and Mrs. Hutchinson display to the reader not only the tenacity with which the townspeople cling to the tradition of the lottery, but also the wavering support of it by others. In just a few pages, Jackson manages to examine the sometimes long forgotten purpose of rituals, as well as the inevitable questioning of the necessity for such customs.
In the short story, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, is written in manner to inspire the reader to show them how deep some family traditions can go. Walker, in her writings, tend to talk about issues that she had experienced in her life, and being an African American, she has learned the value of certain things in her life that her parents and grandparents had taught her. The quilt is so important to Dee because it is something that tells a story of the previous generation; the quilt actually consists of pieces of material that the family once used. The issue of the quilt also sets the mood for the story. It helps the reader to understand the deep rooted power simple things can have when it comes to family relations. All this helps explains
Traditions define cultures from all over the world; however, some are done without knowing its true meaning or its possible negative effects. “The Lottery” is about a small town that traditionally holds an annual lottery that selects one person at random to die. No one in the town truly knows why the ritual is done or how immoral it is, just that it has always been done. Using foreshadowing and characterization, Shirley Jackson shows how tradition can have negative effects on people in “The Lottery”.
...cause she had been “savin ‘em for long enough with nobody using ‘em” (12). After Dee gets the picture she walks out of the house and tells her mother “You just don’t understand. . .Your heritage. . .” (13). Dee is in fact the one who does not understand. Dee thinks of heritage to be as tangible as hanging the quilt on her wall or using the churn as a decoration for her table. Her mother, on the other hand, knows about traditions and heritage. Using the quilts would put the memories of their ancestors to everyday use.
Alice Walker integrates the connotation and symbolism of traditional quilts through her short story, “Everyday Use”. More importantly, Walker illustrates her point through the reasoning of the quilts between Dee and her mother. During Dee’s visit home, she found the quilts in a “trunk at the foot [of her mother’s] bed, then visualized the patches of art work hanging against a wall. Dee also knew that the quilts were priceless. Miss Johnson asked Dee, “What would you do with them?” Dee said, “Hang them. As if that was the only thing you could do with the quilts” (Walker 456). In contrast, Maggie and her mother kept the quilts in a safe place, because they understood the significant role the quilts played in their
Tradition is huge in small towns and families and allows for unity through shared values, stories, and goals from one generation to the next. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” carries that theme of tradition. The story follows a small town that performs the tradition of holding an annual lottery in which the winner gets stoned to death. It (tradition) is valued amongst human societies around the world, but the refusal of the villagers in “The Lottery” to let go of a terrifying long-lasting tradition suggests the negative consequences of blindly following these traditions such as violence and hypocrisy.
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
"The Lottery," a short story written by Shirley Jackson, is a tale about a disturbing social practice. The setting takes place in a small village consisting of about three hundred denizens. On June twenty-seventh of every year, the members of this traditional community hold a village-wide lottery in which everyone is expected to participate. Throughout the story, the reader gets an odd feeling regarding the residents and their annual practice. Not until the end does he or she gets to know what the lottery is about. Thus, from the beginning of the story until almost the end, there is an overwhelming sense that something terrible is about to happen due to the Jackson's effective use of foreshadowing through the depiction of characters and setting. Effective foreshadowing builds anticipation for the climax and ultimately the main theme of the story - the pointless nature of humanity regarding tradition and cruelty.
To begin with a quilt is defined as a “coverlet made of scrapes and fragments stitched together to forming a pattern” (Webster). The quilt in “Everyday Use” was made by Grandma Dee, Big Dee, and Mama from scraps of dresses and shirts and part of Grandpa’s Civil War uniform. It is filled with memories and was hand stitched by the family. Mama suggests that Dee take other ones, but Dee rejects the offer because they were “stitched by machine”(Walker, p.114) and the old ones were done by hand. Mama says that she had promised them to Maggie. Dee then replies that Maggie would “be backward enough to put them to everyday use” (Walker,p.114). Mama says she hope Maggie will use them every day. This begins what is means to use and misuse heritage.
The objects that lead to the final confrontation between Dee and Mama are the old quilts. These quilts are described as being made from old material by family members, which enhances their value to Mama, and the detail with which they are described increases the sense of setting.