...In the short story, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, Alice writes a touching and relatable story on how the evolution of tradition affected a relationship between two sisters. She describes the struggles that anyone can encounter while finding their point of view towards their culture. Even though Dee and Maggie were raised under the same household, they are very different. Dee and Maggie are different on how they interpret and express their culture through beliefs, actions and appearance. First of all, Dee and Maggie have different beliefs on the importance of the quilts. The quilts cause a big conflict towards the end due to the interest of both sisters. Maggie and Dee both want the quilts for their keeping. Originally, Mama was going to...
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...Associate Level Material Appendix E Final Paper Matrix Fill in the matrix below, in which you will select two pieces of literature from the assigned course readings to compare and contrast in your final essay. Additionally, develop three possible topics for your paper, which your instructor will review for approval. Lastly, list and describe three to five sources that you will use to write your essay. |Literature |Title: Everyday Uses | |Selection One |Author: Alice Walker | | |Why I Chose This Piece: I chose this because of the symbolism it uses on the values placed on old quilts. | |Literature |Title: The House on Mango Street | |Selection Two |Author: Sandra Cisneros | | |Why I Chose This Piece: It emphasizes the symbolization on the emotions that Esperanza feels about her life circumstances. | ...
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...Edgar Hernandez Professor Ali ENC 1102 March 20, 2014 Amy Tan's, “Mother Tongue” and Alice Walker's “Everyday Use” both share similar traits in their writings of these two short stories. “Mother Tongue” revolves around the experiences Tan and her mother had due to her mother's English speaking limitations, she also revolves her story around the relationship of a mother and daughter. Alice walker on the other hand writes a story narrated by “Mama” the mother of two daughters Maggie and Dee and explains the conflicting relationship she has with Dee, both writers similarly emphasize on the relationships these mother and daughter characters had and they unravel both short stories based on these relationships. Although both short stories share this one similar characteristic it is clear that both writers have opposite point of views of their described mother daughter relationships. To begin comparing, both Tan and Walker use the characters of mother and daughter to evoke the importance the relationship plays in the telling of the story. There are similarities that both these characters share. One of these similarities are shown through the use of words that describe a similar feeling of shame or embarrassment both Dee and Tan have towards there mothers at some point in the stories. In one part of the story Tan describes feeling “ashamed” of her mother's broken English (Tan 345). Walker also shows the character Dee having some sense of shame of her mother and sister Maggie by...
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...2013 Alice Walker Section 1 Biography According to Michael Mayer, Alice Walker, one of the best-known and most highly respected writers in the United States, was born in Eatonton, Georgia. She was the eighth and last child of Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker. Her parents were sharecroppers, and money was not always available as needed. At the tender age of eight, Walker lost sight of one eye when one of her older brothers shot her with a BB gun by accident. This left her in somewhat a depression, and she secluded herself from the other children. Walker felt like she was no longer a little girl because of the traumatic experience she had undergone, and she was filled with shame because she thought she was unpleasant to look at. During this seclusion from other kids of her age, Walker began to write poems. Hence, her career as a writer began. Walker found the love of her life in 1967, a white activist civil rights lawyer named Mel Leventhal, and they married him in 1967. A year later she gave birth to their daughter, Rebecca. It was not until she began teaching that her writing career really took off. She began teaching at Jackson State, then Tougaloo, and finally at Wellesley College. Walker was involved in the Civil Rights Movement and spoke for the women’s movement, the anti-apartheid movement, for the anti-nuclear movement, and against female genital mutilation. She also started her own publishing company: “The Wild Trees Press”, in 1984. Walker refused...
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...Meredith Butler English 1102 Fiction Essay In the story Everyday Use by Alice Walker, the author attempts to show the contrasts between family members in regards to their heritage during the 1960’s. Ms. Walker tells the story of how different the family members are in education, lifestyle and beliefs. In doing so, she illustrates the importance of everyday items and of everyday people. Ms. Walker, through the point of view of the mother, paints the picture of a young woman, too good for her family, running off to the city only to find that the city values her heritage and conversely, now must she. The character of Dee is first described by her mother in the excerpt, “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure” (Walker, 1973). This is in contrast to her “large, manly mother who can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man” (Walker) and her sister who was disfigured in a fire as a young child. The same fire that Dee stands and watches, so intently, that her mother thought to ask her “why she didn’t do a dance around the ashes” (Walker). It is never stated why Dee feels such deep hatred for her home, however shame and ignorance play a key role. “Dee wanted nice things” (Walker), things that would be difficult if not impossible to a young black girl of the time to obtain. Her mother often notes that Dee daydreams to the point of not blinking, determined to get what she wants. When Dee’s mother and the town raise money to send Dee off to school...
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...practices. Each culture has a purpose on its inhabitants and it helps fuel the inhabitant’s thoughts and beliefs on everyday life. In Alice Walker short story Everyday Use she talks about a certain heritage of the Johnson’s family depicted in the South in the1960s. The story main characters are Dee, the narrator, Mrs. Johnson (Dee’s mother), and Maggie Dee’s sisters. The story starts with Mrs. Johnson and Maggie waiting on Dee to arrive who arrives with a gentleman when Maggie and Mrs. Johnson learn that Dee has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo to find her root. The story is evolved around the family’s heritage of...
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...Conflict Essay “Everyday Use”-Alice Walker Alice Walker authored the short story entitled “Everyday use”. In this story we get a set of characters, round (Mama) and flat (quilt) and several supporting characters, like Hakim-a-barber. Walkers “Everyday Use” is set somewhere between 1960’s America right around the time the civil rights movement was taking place. The setting takes place at Mama’s house primarily with the exception of a flashback to their old house that burned down. The plot of the story reveals the characters cultural pride and ignorance towards the changing times. The themes in “Everyday Use” are, the meaning of heritage and the power of education. Additionally, the author creates different conflicts that arise throughout the story in which they are: man vs. man, man vs. society, and man vs. himself. Man vs. Man is first seen between Dee and Mama due to the fact that Mama doesn’t meet up to Dee’s standards. This coincides with the theme, power of education. Mama struggled to send Dee to a good school, which could have ended up doing more harm than good in regards to their relationship. Mama herself was denied an education and her youngest daughter Maggie lacks in that department. Therefor, giving Dee the advantage of being the only one educated which makes her arrogant and condescending. The education that Mama generously gave to Dee only created a bigger wedge between them and the family. Dee with her knowledge and way of the world becomes a...
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...In Elise Trumbull and Moria Pacheco’s personal essay “Cultural Identity”, both show how much cultural is in the world today that we don’t even know about. “We all have unique identities that we developed within our culture but are not fix possess” (Trumbull and Pacheco’s 9). Reader’s see that in this quote means that all cultural are valuable but are not the same. “Our culture is often hidden from us, and we frequently describe as the way things are” (Trumbull and Pacheco’s 10). Their culture is hidden by the way things are in the world. Next in Alice Walker personal essay “Everyday Use” shows that a person’s culture could mean everything to them. “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure” (Walker 50). The meaning of...
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...How does our culture influence our identity and view of the world? There are several opinions whether culture influences us, never, sometimes, or always. Throughout this unit we have read and watched several pieces that can be used to argue each side of the argument. Pieces such as “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, “An Indian Father’s Plea” by Robert Lake, and “Legal Alien” by Pat Mora, can be used to argue more than one of these views.These pieces show how culture constantly influences one and their view of the world. Some may believe that culture that culture rarely informs how we view the world and others. This can be argued using examples from Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” in which two sisters “Dee” and “Maggie” who once shared a culture now see the world very differently. According to Dee, Maggie is “‘backward enough to put them to...
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...ENC 1102 section 049 Essay 1 stage 2 February 6, 2008 Characters of Everyday Use Each character in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” play an arduous role in the different stages of life from the educated civil rights activist to the loving mother of two, Alice Walker portrays the hardships of raising young girls, who are very different from one another. Mama, who was the narrator of the story, feels that her daughter Dee has changed quite a lot over the years she has been away. The author also put a lot of detail into Dee’s little sister Maggie who seemed to be scared and also jealous of her sister. Mama is the narrator of the story and she seems to be a very caring person when it comes to her family but also has a strong manly side to her. The most intriguing character is Dee (Wangero); because of the way she conflicts with the rest of her family. Mama, who was the narrator of the story, feels that her daughter Dee has changed quite a lot over the years she has been away. Other than her daughter Dee she also has a daughter named Maggie. Dee has always been the one that has had more luck and usually had things go in her favor, unlike Maggie. Dee is the better looking and also was given the chance to go to Augusta for school in turn making her more educated than Maggie. When Dee came back to visit Mama she came with a man whom we can assume is either her husband or her fiancé. She automatically started with the new name Wangero, which she preferred over Dee. Wangero said...
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...“ A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people”- Mahatma Gandhi. No matter where you are, you always should know where you came from. There were two stories that were read about cultural heritage. One was a short story titled “ Everyday Use” by Alice Walker that was about how there were two girls, sisters who wanted a quilt because it reflected on their heritage, but one wanted the quilt to symbolize as a trophy; while the other sister wanted the quilt just to use for everyday use. The second text that was read was a personal essay named “ Two Ways to Belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee that was about two Indian girls who moved to America, and one became an American citizen, while the other was just a legal immigrant, so they both had different perspectives of America. Life experiences can easily change a person’s customs in life. Even though Dee and Mari embraced their heritage or assimilated to a new culture; they both still overall care for their culture....
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...Comparison/Contrast Essay Oblique lines can be drawn to connect the similarities and differences from the short story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan to “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. Although each short story has a different setting, ethnicity, theme, meaning, purpose, past and/present characters, we are still able to determine which characters resembles one another as well as the actions that are portrayed from one character in one story that mirrors another character from the other story. These two stories may have the same point-of-view, but can differ in their way of detailing and explanation. Therefore these were the similarities and differences between the two short stories that caught my attention. First thing that caught my attention was the difference in the ethnicity. The ethnicities can influence the way things are done because all cultures are simply not the same and handles situations differently. The story Two Kinds has a Chinese background, which most of us could relate to. Everyday use has an African American background, which most of us could also relate to as well. The stories are told in different perspectives, but they are both in first person. In Two Kinds, the daughter is telling the story of how her mother believed that you could be anything you want, but there was a trick to that. On the first page in the fourth paragraph, it talks about how the mother chooses what the daughter’s prodigy is going to be. That goes to show us that the Mother in this story has...
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...A Sense of Belonging Student Name College Name A Sense of Belonging Alice Walker’s Everyday Use was about a woman who raised two daughters on a farm in the rural south during the late 1960s or early 1970s. Even though they were very poor, the eldest daughter, Dee, was able to go away to college. She was educated and very worldly. The younger sister, Maggie, stayed at home with Mama and could barely read. Although Mama and Maggie felt they belonged on the farm, Dee felt she belonged in the city, and couldn’t understand why Mama and Maggie didn’t feel the same way. Mama felt comfortable living on the farm. While waiting in the yard for Dee to arrive for a visit, she said, “a yard like this is more comfortable than most people know” (Walker, 2011, p. 283). Mama knew the yard would be a suitable place to wait. She said “the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house” (Walker, 2011, p. 283). Mama was a very practical person and content with her lot in life. She accepted the fact that she didn’t possess the skills that women typically possessed. She couldn’t sing like the other ladies in church, but she spoke proudly of her rough, “man-working hands” (Walker, 2011, p. 283). Mama was a large, big-boned, strong woman. She could slaughter animals and work hard all day just like a man. She even dressed in...
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...Maria F Ortiz May 01, 2016 Essay #3 – Everyday Use “The Character of Dee in Everyday Use” While reading the story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, I found that I had a surprising amount of anger towards the character named Dee, or as she prefers Wangero. The anger that was instilled in me was caused by numerous comments and actions that occurred throughout reading the short story. I feel she was selfish, uneducated and unappreciative of her past and that the way she carried herself was ridiculous. Right from the beginning of my readings you are introduced to a character named Dee, before you ever get the opportunity to warm up to her character, she shows a very selfish characteristic and that trait is repeatedly brought out in the story. From the start, shortly after the introduction to her new boyfriend, Dee begins to ask for things. For instance, the desk and the chair, Dee wants to take them to help spice up her and Hakim the Barber's house when those objects are still in "everyday use" in their own home. Another instance is when she asks her mother for the quilts her grandmother had quilted, her mother said they were for Maggie (Dee's sister), Dee's reply was that Maggie wouldn't appreciate the quilts and Maggie, being the beautiful person she is, says her older sister can have them. Another reason I had feelings of anger for the character Dee, was that she was uneducated. Not the usual education, such as in college, because she had that, but the education of her heritage...
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...In the essay, “An Indian Father’s Plea” by Robert Lake, Lake said, “When my wife asked why not, the other boy’s mother answered, ‘Because you are Indians and we are white, and I don’t want my kids growing up with your kind of people’” (Lake 92). The only reason to prevent two children from playing outside of school was based on the idea that the Indian culture could be bad or dangerous. The boy’s mother specifically emphasizes that the reason she is against their children being together is because of her belief that Indians and Whites don’t belong together. At some point in her life this mother’s mind was molded to believe that the cultural differences between Whites and Indians is enough to prevent interaction between them. This perspective she has developed is a reflection of her own culture that she was raised to believe, because I can assume she has been White for the majority of her life. However, culture can change; the way that we act, believe, and dress are always changing and adapting. When our culture changes, so does our perspective on other cultures. In an essay by Bharati...
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