Character Uses In Alice Walkers Everyday Use - 1095 Words

The short story â€Å"Everyday Use† by Alice Walker begins with the narrator, Mama, and her daughter, Maggie, sitting in the yard that they both prepared and cleaned the day before. They were waiting for Dee, the oldest daughter, that is returning from college in Augusta after seven years of education. Maggie is going to be nervous for as long as Dee stays because of the scars and burns marks she got from the fire in their previous house. Maggie thinks that Dee has a much easier life than her. Mama compared Maggie to a lame animal and Mama thinks Dee is lighter than Maggie. Also, Mama believed that Dee hated Maggie, but that was before Mama and the community church raised the money to send Dee to school in Augusta. When Dee showed up†¦show more content†¦Dee becomes infuriated and says that Maggie would wear them out in less than five years. Dee tells Mama if she got to take the quilts she would hang them, she says this as if hanging quilts was something of the norm . Maggie finally breaks her silence and tells Mama that Dee can keep the quilts and that she will remember Grandma with or without them. Even though that is what Maggie said, Mama picked up the quilts and laid them on her lap anyway. She told Dee to take one or two of the other ones. Dee told Maggie to make something out of herself and then she left. The central theme of â€Å"Everyday Use† is the theme of heritage. In â€Å"Everyday Use†, Walker’s theme is greatly based on heritage. She shows this is multiple ways. One of the ways she shows this is by Mama becoming offended in Dee’s name change. Dee comes home from college announcing to Mama that she has changed her name to â€Å"Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. (746)† Mama asks â€Å"What happened to Dee? (746)† Where Dee then responds with â€Å"She’s dead.† Dee expresses her thoughts on not liking being named after the people who oppress her. Mama then explains to her that she wa s not named after the people who oppress her but after her aunt and grandmother. She even says that she could probably trace back the name â€Å"Dee† back before the Civil War. Walker uses the name as a symbol of family tradition and unity. She takes advantage of the dialogue between Mama and Dee to showShow MoreRelatedConflict of Characters in Alice Walkers Everyday Use722 Words   |  3 Pages In Alice Walkers Everyday Use† she creates a conflict between characters. Walker describes a family as they anxiously await the arrival of, Dee, the older sister of the family. When Dee (Wangero) comes home to visit Mrs. Johnson and Maggie, right away the readers see the differences in the family by how they talk, act, and dress. Dee has changed her name to an African name and is collecting the objects and materials of her past. Dee thinks that since she is in college she knows mores then theRead More The Character of Dee in Alice Walkers Everyday Use Essay879 Words   |  4 PagesThe Character of Dee in Alice Walkers Everyday Use Alice Walker skillfully crafts the character of Dee Johnson in the short story Everyday Use. From the first paragraph, Walker begins to weave the portrait of Dee, who at first seems shallow in many aspects. Dee becomes a more complex character, however, as the story unfolds. Blessed with both brains and good looks, Dee emerges as someone who is still struggling with her identity and heritage. Dees physical beauty can be definedRead MoreEveryday Use by Alice Walker: A Look at Symbolism and Family Values879 Words   |  4 PagesAlice Walkers â€Å"Everyday Use†, is a story about a family of African Americans that are faced with moral issues involving what true inheritance is and who deserves it. Two sisters and two hand stitched quilts become the center of focus for this short story. Walker paints for us the most vivid representation through a third person perspective of family values and how people from the same environment and upbringing can become different types of people. Like most peoples families there is a dynamicRead MoreEssay about Autobiography in the Fiction of Alice Walker1077 Words   |  5 PagesWhen reading Alice Walker’s â€Å"The Color Purple† and â€Å"Everyday Use,† it is evident that she writes about her life through her use of allegory. Alice Walker uses the events of her childhood, her observation of the patriarchy in African American culture, and her rebellion against the society she lived in to recount her life through her stories. Alice Walker grew up in a loving household in the years towards the end of the Great Depression. Although her family was poor, they were rich in kindness andRead More(A Critical Analysis of Alice Walker’s short story Everyday Use)700 Words   |  3 PagesAntojos de Mis Ojos (A Critical Analysis of Alice Walker’s short story Everyday Use) Albert Camus once asserted: â€Å"Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only to their skepticism.† In Everyday Use a strong willed mother tries to protect her younger daughter, Maggie, from having a quilt passed down for generations stolen from her by her materialisticRead MoreAn Analysis Of Alice Walker s Everyday Use989 Words   |  4 PagesEnglish 102 22 January 2015 Heritage: The Various Interpretations in Alice Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use† According to The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2015), heritage is defined as, â€Å"traditions, achievements, beliefs, etc., that are part of the history of a group or nation† (â€Å"Heritage†). Heritage takes on mixed meanings for different people as a consequence of life experiences and belief systems. Alice Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use† utilizes characters with varying ideas of â€Å"heritage† to enlighten the world of theRead MoreAlice Walker s Everyday Use906 Words   |  4 PagesHidden Messages A Critique of Alice Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use† Title Often authors use the titles of their writing to portray a part of the story that will eventually come up, or to give an underlying message about what’s going on in the story. In Alice Walker’s short story, Everyday Use, she uses a title that isn’t blatantly seen within the story, but is explained through different aspects of the dialogue and actions of the characters. Walker could’ve chosen to explain the title more obviously withinRead MoreAn Analysis of Alice Walkers quot;everyday Usequot; Essay929 Words   |  4 Pagesp An Analysis of Alice Walkers Everyday Usep Alice Walkers novel, The Color Purple, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982. This novel, in addition to her short story collections and other novels, continue to touch the emotions of a vast audience. This ability, according to critics, has solidified her reputation as one of the major figures in contemporary literature (Gwynn 462). Born to sharecroppers in Eatonton, Georgia, in 1944, Alice Walkers life was not always easy. Her parents strived toRead MoreThemes Of Racism And Poverty1495 Words   |  6 Pagespoverty in the black community, there are elements of both themes in August Wilson’s Fences, Alice Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use,† and Gwendolyn Brooks’ â€Å"What Shall I Give My Children.† By critically evaluating the main characters in each piece, elements of racism and poverty are identified in all three texts. All three of these texts show the hardships blacks experienced and how they suffered. In Fences, â€Å"Everyday Use,† and â€Å"W hat Shall I Give My Children,† there are themes of racism and poverty in black AmericaRead MoreDead Mens Path Literary Analysis1000 Words   |  4 Pagesvillagers go. â€Å"Everyday Use† by Alice Walker shows conflict between Mama, Dee, and Maggie. Dee wants to take the quilts away from her home, but Mama already planned to give the quilts to Maggie. Both literatures are relatable to readers. However, one literature shows a stronger connection readers can relate too. â€Å"Everyday Use† by Alice Walker distinguishes a more relatable conflict to modern day readers than â€Å"Dead Men’s Path by Chinua Achebe because readers connect the short story to everyday problems