...Characters in “Everyday Use” Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” examines the conflict between family members that are debating over whether to use or to preserve pieces of their family’s heritage. Mama, the mother of Maggie and Dee, is a self-reliant and hardworking woman who can perform any task that a man can. She lives at home with Maggie, who is rather shy and is embarrassed by the burn scars covering her arms and legs. Both Maggie and Mama are awaiting a visit from Maggie’s educated sister, Dee. Upon Dee and her male companion’s arrival, Mama and Maggie stand in awe while gazing at Dee’s exquisite dress and golden earrings. Shortly after her arrival, Dee announces...
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...“Dead Men’s Path” and Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” the reader explores the lives of two individuals whose misguided actions and noble intentions cause grief amongst those around them. While Achebe’s story focuses on modernization and moving forward, Walker’s story is about holding on to the past. Through the authors’ use of conflict, character analysis, and point of view, I was able to recognize the deeper meanings in both stories. The stories do more than just entertain; they reminded us that our heritage is with us everyday and that we shouldn’t change who we are in order to impress others. Achebe’s story is about Michael Obi, a “young and energetic man” who is appointed the headmaster of a village school. He hopes that his ideas and “passion for modern methods” will help turn the school into a place of beauty. After Obi finds a path running across the school compound he quickly works to block it, hoping to impress the inspector. Although Obi’s intentions appear good he ends up making matters worse as conflict arises between the school and the outside village. Another story dealing with noble intentions is Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”. When Mama’s oldest daughter Dee returns home for a visit, Mama is somewhat disheartened after finding out that Dee has changed her name. After the family eats dinner together the author’s use of conflict starts to emerge. As Dee comes across some old quilts she becomes frustrated, as Mama has promised the quilts to her sister...
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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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...Everyday Use by Alice Walker is a story about a dysfunctional family, despite a mother’s best efforts to keep the family united. This is a story about an individual named Dee, who is fortunate enough to attend school in Augusta because the community raised enough funds to pay for her education. Dee shows no appreciation for anyone. Instead, she occasionally returns to her hometown to express her disgust towards Mama, and also collects “souvenirs” to bring back home. Her actions are a reflection of her despicable character because she does not realize how fortunate she is. Her sister, Maggie, was burned from a house fire, leaving scars on her body. Because of this incident, Maggie is suffering from great trauma, whereas Dee is living an “easy”...
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...In Everyday Use, Alice walker uses rich characterization and distinct tone to demonstrate sympathy for other characters to show their discrete differences as individuals in order to convey that each character has a profound reasoning for having possession of the quilts. The dramatic and selfish character in Dee sparks because Mama offers the quilts to Maggie. Mama promises to bestow the dearly prized quilts for Maggie for her wedding. The fierce intensity in Dee builds up and she knows that Maggie would not appreciate the quilts and she said, “ She would probably be backward enough to put them out to everyday use ”(Walker 159). Beforehand, the girls discuss family history giving a serene vibe. Until, a dramatic occurs shift because Dee backfires...
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...Hannah Huie Kate Evans Composition II 05 February 2015 Analysis of Characters in “Everyday Use” Alice Walker’s short story, “Everyday Use,” illustrates the importance of family and heritage. Many times in the story, Ms. Walker brings up heritage and the importance of recognizing of what it means to belong to something or someone. Her characters each go through change. Mama seems to switch her favoritism from Dee to Maggie and realizes that Dee is not the perfect child she had come to idolize her as being. Dee comes back home to realize that she no longer able to get her way as she used too and that her place in the household has changed. Lastly, Maggie is recognized as having the gift of knowing her heritage and having the ability to add to it by being able to quilt. As we read through the story we see that Ms. Walker paints a wonderful picture of difference between Dee and the family she left behind. Mama is the voice behind this short story. She narrates and you only see the story through her point of view. As she waits for her daughter Dee to arrive she has a fantasy about her life being on a TV show. She dreams of being a beautiful women, whose hair glistens in the spotlight of the stage, whose witty tongue has the famous TV personality Johnny Carson trying to keep up. As the reader continues they would be able to see that Mama’s true view of herself is not as flattering, she doesn’t mince the truth, and doesn’t have any false illusions about her looks...
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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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...In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use", The critic Timothy Sexton asserts that the older daughter, Dee, is the "embodiment of the struggle for a unifying identity" (par. 4). In contrast with Dee, the critics Houston A Baker, Jr. and Charlotte Pierce-Baker consider Maggie to be a guardian of history, or "griot" (164). Dee is a selfish and egotistical character with a superficial understanding of her inheritance. She characterizes the confusion and misguidance of young African Americans in the late 60s and 70s. This is apparent in her interactions with her mother and sister. As Sexton notes, Dee "considers herself as cultured, and beyond the abased quality of the lives lived by her mother and sister" (par. 3). She makes her feelings clear when she attempts to "take" the quilts Mama had promised to Maggie: "Maggie can't appreciate these quilts... she'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use" (Walker, 103). By using the quilts for purposes other than their original intent she believes that she is respecting her heritage, but this is not the case: her desire to put them on display is "really not quite so different from the white capitalist cashing in on ethnic artworks" (Sexton, par. 4) Not only is she conforming to the worst of American ideals, but she is rejecting and disrespecting her own cultural heritage-- all under the pretenses of preserving it. It is in this sense that she is the "embodiment of the struggle for a unifying identity," because she has not yet come...
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...Courtney Osmond Professor Jhingree ENC 1102 12 March 2014 Symbolism in Eveline and Everyday Use Symbolism is a common part of any story; from a play to a poem. In both Eveline and Everyday Use, hidden symbols are used that represent each character. In Eveline, the symbol used is dust which covers everything in Eveline’s life. In Everyday Use, the quilt is the symbol that represents heritage. Also, additional symbols are used to define each character. Symbols add a hidden meaning to the story that can add depth to the characters. In James Joyce’s short story, a prominent symbol is dust. Eveline’s character has lots of dust, since she is lifeless, and never advancing. In Eveline, Eveline looks around her room taking everything in. She observes “all its familiar objects which she had dusted once a week for so many years, wondering where on earth all the dust came from (McMahan et al. 3).” This means that she is looking at her life and all the dust that has accumulated over the years. She is noticing how stale and boring her life is due to all the pressures of her dad. Her dad is the main cause of dust build up all these years. Her father abuses her and “says what he would do to her only for her dead mother’s sake (McMahan et al. 4).” The “dust” in Eveline’s life is due to the pressure of taking care of her dad, and trying to support him. Over the years the dust kept piling up, making the dust unmanageable, causing her to freak out at the end of the story. Just as she is about...
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...literature stories Shooting an Elephant and Everyday Use, Alice Walker and George Orwell both show how identity is connected to how we see ourselves in the present. In the story Shooting an Elephant, the main character is a policeman in British Burma. He received a report about a local man was death who killed by an elephant. When he arrived the place, he finds the elephant is no longer dangerous. He knows as a humanity, he shouldn’t kill the elephant since it does not cause a threat anymore. Also, “it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery, and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided” (George Orwell, P.818). However, as a British Burma’s policeman, he knows he need to kill the...
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...The author of "Everyday Use," Alice Walker, portrays that society would value a person such as Maggie more so than her sister Dee. The portrayal of the two characters differs in a huge way considering that Maggie is portrayed as an unattractive, non confident person compared to Dee. The value of Maggie to society is not that she is less confident, but that she has a strong understanding of her heritage and family history that she would pass on to future generations. On the other hand, Dee is seen as a person who has lost her heritage and has become superficial in material things and bigger ideas than her family. Walker shows the portrayal of Maggie and Dee's value of family history when the family quilt is mentioned. The quilt, "had been pieced by Grandma Dee than Big Dee and me [Mama] had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them" (75). This illustrates the importance of the quilts history it has in the family. Walker also gives light to how Maggie would cherish and use the quilts and add to them just as the past women in her family. Whereas Dee only wants the quilts to hang up, ignoring the importance of using the quilt and adding to it has to the...
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...story “Everyday Use” Alice Walker clearly depicts two contrasting meanings of heritage through characterization and symbolism of her two daughters, walker highlights the difference between two interpretations of African American culture and heritage. The gist of the story in “Everyday Use” is how mama bit by bit rejects the superficial beliefs of Dee, her older and extraordinary daughter in admiration of the values about heritage from her less fortunate daughter Maggie. With a more profound thought walker is going into the contrasting culture and heritage of African Americans and superficial African Americans. Mama narrates the story, Ms. Johnson or “Mama” is a woman whose everyday life is part of her culture and heritage. Mama describes herself as, “a large, big-boned woman with rough, man working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill a hog as mercilessly as a man”(155). With knowing that only has a second grade education we can say that she has no choice but to follow tradition and heritage, and stay in the home like she grew up in and work the field as other before her did. Even as mama is more or less forced to do so, still she has a great understanding and value of the concept of heritage and culture. In knowing Mama’s love and compassion for her heritage she gives the quilts to Maggie, because Dee wants the quilts to preserve and display her heritage of her ancestors. Mama gives the quilts to Maggie because Mama knows...
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...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 saying “Its really a new day for us. But the way you and Mama still live you'd never...
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..."Everyday Use” - Literary Analysis Alice walker writes about the importance of inheriting family heritage and how it passes on to generations. This story is based on conflicts of two generations; on the bonds of a mother and daughter and their legacy which is symbolized as two hand stitched quilts. The narrator, Mama introduces us to her two daughters who have conflicting minds. Mama is disappointed on the behavior and the tension that takes place when Dee forces her to make a difficult decision about who gets the quilts. The story unfolds when Mama’s eldest daughter Dee, returns home for the first time after finishing college and starts claiming for possessions. The younger Maggie has never left home and is shown to be of quiet character, who was severely burned in a house fire when she was a child due to which her sympathetic and generous nature is over shadowed by her ugly scarred face. Dee, being stylish and blessed with good looks is the centre of agitation between the family and invokes jealously. Her feet appear "as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style." (385). Around Dee, the younger sister is a coward and since the fire she walks with "chin on her chest, eyes on the ground." (384) . The narrator is protective around her daughters hoping that Maggie becomes self confident and stands up for her right. The narrator fantasizes about reuniting with Dee on a television talk show and day dreams about Dee expressing gratitude to Mama acknowledging what all...
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...heirloom. In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” family heritage is defined as what a person deems “valuable.” Walker begins her short story by using Mama’s point of view. In the story, Mama seems to be an observant and opinionated parent. Throughout the story gives her assumption of what she sees going on in her family. And it is her assumptions that reveals what she values in heritage. Mama sees her daughter Dee or Wangero as being different than her and her daughter Maggie. Mother shows what is important to her from the start of the story by saying “I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon(Walker).” In other words, here she tells us what matters – her home, her family, the place she belongs. She showed how much she wanted to feel love from her daughter Dee. Not only did she want to show her love for her daughter Dee but for her other daughter Maggie as well by taking the quilts that she promised to Maggie from Dee’s arms and giving it back to her. The mother’s longing for family and love displays the mom’s sense of family heritage. She wants the closeness of their family and the memories of the family to show how she values her family. Where Mama values heritage as the things...
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