Everyday Use By Alice Walker

Everyone defines and identifies themselves in different ways. Whether it’s by our names, our religion, or our sexuality, we all have something different that make us unique and that we identify ourselves as. In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” an African American woman tells the story of her daughter Dee’s long awaited visit. Upon her arrival the mother and her other daughter, Maggie, discover some drastic changes in Dee: she has changed her name to Wangero, she also arrived with a mysterious man who calls himself Asalamalakim, and has adopted an African style of dress in order to depict what she sees as her heritage. During the course of her visit, Dee tries to take several items, important to her family’s heritage. “Everyday

In the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, the author describes different ideas about one’s heritage. Culture and heritage is at the main point of the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker as symbolized by the quilt. The bond that Mother and Maggie share is brought by their common talent to make works of art like quilts. Dee does not have similar capacity because she does not appreciate manual labor nor believes in her heritage. The idea of pride in culture, heritage, and family is the main theme of the story. The line between being proud of whom one is and exploiting one’s self is broken and blurred by one character. The other two keep their firm ground in living out their values, rather than using it simply as a conversation starter.

Heritage is defined as something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth. In “Everyday Use”, by Alice Walker, the theme of the story can be considered as the meaning of heritage or even the power of education. Alice Walker uses many symbols and motifs such as the following: quilts, education, knowledge, Asalamalakim, and the renaming of Dee. In the story, African heritage and knowledge takes a major role.

The beginning of the story involved a lot of characterizing on the youngest sister Maggie. Before her older sister Dee arrived at the house, her actions showed that she was scared to see her sister. “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned to say to her” said the mother.

The short story “Everyday Use” was written by Alice Walker and published in 1973. The story is told in first-person by “Mama,” an African-American woman residing in Georgia. Mama lives in a small but comfortable house with her physically scarred younger daughter, Maggie. Mama is preparing for the visit back home of her eldest daughter, Dee. Dee is educated and driven; however, we come to learn that most of her accomplishments come at the cost of her mother and her sister Maggie. Mama’s relationship with Dee is strained, and this creates conflict later in the story. “Everyday Use” depicts the complications between a mother and daughter’s relationship. The story examines the feelings a mother has when she believes she is not needed anymore or respected. Mama’s feelings towards both daughters are illustrated through two of Mama’s character traits, her low-self-esteem and lack of worldliness. However, because Mama has such a strong character and understanding of her family, she undergoes a significant change in her life, which then makes her into a dynamic character.

In the words of Karl Marx, the founding father of Marxism, Marxism principally believes that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” In essence, Marx asserts that every day is a tale of conflict between society’s upper and lower class. While controversial in the real world, this notion is not far-fetched in the realm of literature. For example, Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” shows prominent signs of tension between classes. When examined from a Marxist perspective, Walker’s characters in “Everyday Use” highlight how each class values items and how survival needs and societal expectations differ among classes.

In her short story “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker summarizes the representation of the beauty, the conflicts and struggles within African-American culture. “Everyday Use” focuses mainly between members of the Johnson family, consisting of a mother and her two daughters. One of the daughters Maggie, who was injured in a house fire and has living a shy life clinging to her mother for security. Her older sister is Dee, who grew up with a grace and natural beauty. “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure… (716) She also grew up determined to have a better life than her mother and sister. This takes place when Dee (the only family member to receive a formal education) returns to visit Dee’s mother and younger sister Maggie. Again this portrays a slight issue between two different views of the African-American culture. Alice uses symbolism to empathize the difference between these interpretations, showing that culture and heritage are parts of daily life. The title of the story, Everyday Use, symbolizes the living heritage of the Johnson family, a heritage that is still in “everyday use”.

In “everyday Use,” Alice Walker tells a narrative of a mother’s frustrating relationship together with her two daughters. At this facet, “,Everyday Use”, tells that how a mom little by little refuses the cursory values of her older, successful daughter at the aspect of the useful values of her younger, much less lucky daughter. On a deeper outlook, Alice Walker takes on the theme of heritage and its norms as it applies to African-Americans.

They everyday use of an item differs from person to person. There can be one item that has many uses or many items that has the same use. For example, a simple rubber band to most is simply a hair tie, but did you know it can also be used to make opening jars easier, tye dye eggs and shirts? It’s all about the way you see things. In the short story “everyday Use” by Alice Walker, it shows the difference of opinion two sisters can have based on the way they perceive themselves.

The narrator who is later known to be Mrs. Johnson, shows her love for her daughters, by giving her audience vivid details about her Daughter Dee’s homecoming and how she seems excited about her coming back home. Mrs. Johnson youngest daughter Maggie is not as excited about her sister coming home. Mrs. Johnson later shows her true personality and humor to her audience. She compares her life to the families that you would watch on television by stating, “You’ve no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has made it is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly from backstage” (Walker 6). Mrs. Johnson dreams that she and Dee could be able to come together as one and love each other. However, she is aware that it is only a dream and in reality, she and Dee have much to work on.

The profundity of the love of parents towards their children cannot be measured. This relationship is like no other. The love of a parent for a child is ongoing surpassing affliction. Our parents can teach us a galore of things. They have the power to show us how we are to be, who we should be, what not to be. Parents could also point out to one traits that one objectifies, soon realizing, that those traits are not of one 's own if not of ones parents which one is reflecting. In the short story "Everyday Use" the author Alice Walker depicts a mothers conflicting relationship with her two daughters Maggie and Dee. The mother feels that Maggie holds the traditional ways of living life and Dee her oldest daughter has broken away from her family 's tradition in effect losing her heritage. The reader may think of this relationship as the typical mother daughter hiss of the rebel child versus the obedient child. However, this challenging relationship shows the reader the struggle to keep hold of African American culture within a family. In "The Queen of Mold" Ruth Reichl informs the reader about how she found that people 's eating habits match their personality through her mother 's deadly cooking. Her mother 's love and daring personality shines through her experimentation with food. Both Walker and Reich make use of characterization to highlight the different ways both mothers showed their love demonstrating that heritage, education and love are essential in a child 's life.

Walker entertains African Americans and Americans about the relationship between these two sisters and their mother. One daughter is named Maggie and she stays at home with her mother and help her with the chores around the house. She was also burnt in a house fire so she does not het out much. “Mamma”, has another daughter, Dee. Dee is very beautiful, and outgoing and really completely opposite of Maggie. Dee leaves home and experience life for her own, and becomes a pro black person. When Dee comes back she wants things from here house to treat them as artifacts at her own home. Especially this quilt. Dee wanted it, but the mother wouldn’t allow it. She wanted Maggie to have it. Maggie kept this quilt and Dee left, but not without talking

In the short story “Everyday Use”, Alice Walker portrays a mother and her two daughters struggling to unite with one another after overcoming many hardships in life. Mysteriously, Walker never reveals a husband and says very little about the girls’ father. Perhaps she intends for the reader to draw their own conclusions as to the reason he was only slightly revealed. The story is narrated in first person by the mother, she never reveals her first name, just her last, Johnson. One of her daughters is named Dee and the other is named Maggie. Dee is quite different from her sister and mother. She is physically blessed with an attractive physique, she is confident, outspoken and very well educated. Although Dee is a product of poverty, she seems to have broken loose from the constraint of poverty and appears to have “made it” (1126). Overtime, with new experiences and higher education, some people change perceptions and beliefs, however, sometimes the best learning opportunities are found at home.

People hold on to pieces of jewelry, furniture, and other symbolic collectables that is passed through generations. These things can remind a person of a loved one that is seen as being priceless.

In the short story “Everyday use” by Alice Walker I see similarities to my own life in several different ways. First, is Geographically my mother is from an southern area and she would tell me of when she was a younger, stories of how she would be in the field picking cotton, and herself and her siblings would have to clean and cook what they had killed. Those, things reminded me of the mother from the story when she talked about “I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly “(p323).