...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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...believe that this quotation by Smith is agreeable because of the reason that when authors are writing their novels they always have a deeper and more significant meaning added to it to provide a lasting thought or idea that could be impactful to someones life in the future. Two works of literature that support this quote by Logan Pearsall Smith is The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. Both works of literature use the literary element of theme in their stories that help support the quote by Smith. In the play The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, he uses the literary element of theme to help support the quote. One theme in particular that Shakespeare uses in his play is the transformation of characters throughout the story. For example, the quote from act five, scene two, “Now, fair befal thee, good Petruchio! The wager thou hast won; and I will add Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns; Another dowry to another daughter, For she is changed, as she had never been” by Babtista clearly illustrates how the theme of disguises is being used by the playwriter. Baptista describes Kate's outward transformation from shrew to ideal wife as though the change in his daughter's behavior is so dramatic that she is unrecognizable. We are reminded of the fact that Baptista never really knew his daughter, which doesn’t place him in a position to judge her change of attitude and personality. His inability to look beyond...
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...Heritage is about family and caring about each other; it’s about the importance of family coming together as one. In the poem "my mother placed quilts" by Teresa Acosta and the short story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, both author's use imagery and figurative language to establish the quilt as a symbol for family heritage to illustrate their themes. Alice Walker uses the family heritage as a symbol for "Everyday Use" to represent the respect and appreciation of a family heritage. "She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes" (pg62). Alice Walker uses imagery to describe how she felt about the potatoes. "She gasped like a bee had stung her” (pg64). The author shows that Dee was shocked that her mom would give the quilts to Maggie instead of her. She acted this way because she didn't get what she wanted for the first time ever. "I could almost hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other" (pg64). This shows the level of tension in the room; the smallest sound in the room is the loudest. In Teresa Acosta’s poem “my mother pieced quilts,” Acosta uses imagery and figurative language to establish the quilt as a symbol a mother’s love. Acosta observes all the shapes and patterns her mother displays on the quilt. Astounded at “how she shaped patterns square and oblong and round”...
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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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...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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...Characterization and Symbolism in "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker In Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use" the theme of different ideas of heritage shared between Mama, and her two daughters, Dee and Maggie, is proven by her use of imagery, characterization, and symbolism. Walker uses symbolism and characterization throughout the short "Everyday Use" to show differences within her family and heritage. Mama is the narrator of the story and the mother of Dee and Maggie. In the beginning of the story, the reader learns Mama raised the girls alone thus making her a tough, strong woman: "In real life I am a large big boned woman with rough, man working hands (Walker.) Mama is uneducated and has worked hard throughout her life: "I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man" (Walker). Mama is proud of herself and heritage and wants Maggie and Dee to be the same. Maggie is described as being unsocial, shy and unattractive. She has been severely burned which caused physical and mental problems. Mama has sheltered her from the outside world, "Severely burned in a house fire when she was a child, her scarred, ugly appearance hides her sympathetic, generous nature. She lives at home and is...
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...A literary masterpiece is a piece of literature that has an theme and not only speak of specific events that occurred to a single character, but instead create characters who overcome difficult life situations and characters who are dimensional that uphold characteristic traits that reflects people of modern society and today's society. Characters in a literary masterpiece is important because they are the most memorable and their personalities make the literature stand out more clearly due to the fact that their qualities can be compared and contrasted to anyone of any time period in history. However, the theme is the most important in literary masterpieces because everything within an literature work depends on the theme. The theme outline the whole story and what is going to take place. The prior expectations regarding the literary masterpieces and my expectations of this course are based off not only my own knowledge but the way I critically analyze literature and my experiences with literary masterpieces. In all honesty, when it comes to a literary masterpiece, I expect them to fall into literature categories such as, novels, short stories, poems, comedies, dramas, mysteries, nonfiction and fiction. The reason being is based off my experiences from my very first English literature class. Where we had to read literary masterpieces such as, Alice Walker short story,"Everyday Use" and "Color Purple". Also, Langton Hughes poems," Let America be America" and "Still Here." ...
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...Leo Torres Dr. Anne Kuhta English 122 27 September 2015 ENG 122 – QEP Assignment 1. What do you know about the mother of the story? Mama is the mother in the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, she is also the narrator. She describes herself as a hardworking mother who has played the role of mom and dad to her two children. She has a strong passion for her heritage and loves her children more than anything else. She may be uneducated, it doesn’t take away from the fact on her understanding of the importance of family heritage. 2. When we have a first-person narrator, we have to decide if she is reliable or unreliable. Do you trust this narrator? Why or why not? I trust the narrator because mama is a single mother who prides herself on working hard to take care of her two children alone. This shows her type of character. 3. What assumptions does the narrator have about her daughters? Do you agree? Why? She assumes that her daughter Dee doesn’t understand that materialistic have no actual value and don’t display heritage. I agree with her that heritage is more valuable than materialistic items. 4. How would the story be different if it were told from Dee/Wangero’s perspective? I feel the story would’ve been different by showing us her side of her heritage. 5. Mama and Dee/Wangero have different ideas about personal development. What are they? What are the consequences of their differences? They both have different ideas on...
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...In her short story “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker takes up what is a recurrent theme in her work: the representation of the harmony as well as the conflicts and struggles within African-American culture. “Everyday Use” focuses on an encounter between members of the rural Johnson family. This encounter––which takes place when Dee (the only member of the family to receive a formal education) and her male companion return to visit Dee’s mother and younger sister Maggie––is essentially an encounter between two different interpretations of, or approaches to, African-American culture. Walker employs characterization and symbolism to highlight the difference between these interpretations and ultimately to uphold one of them, showing that culture and heritage are parts of daily life. The opening of the story is largely involved in characterizing Mrs. Johnson, Dee’s mother and the story’s narrator. More specifically, Mrs. Johnson’s language points to a certain relationship between herself and her physical surroundings: she waits for Dee “in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy” (88). The emphasis on the physical characteristics of the yard, the pleasure in it manifested by the word “so,” points to the attachment that she and Maggie have to their home and to the everyday practice of their lives. The yard, in fact, is “not just a yard. It is like an extended living room” (71), confirming that it exists for her not only as an object of property, but also as the place...
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...a possession that is best owed upon a person, rather than one that the person recognizes on his or her own. Life and people are always changing, but the main values and bases of the concept of the family should always remain present. Family is where we all belong to and from where our identity comes from. A person is valued based on his family and upbringing. We all belong to a family and it is our family that keeps us together through thick and thin. Without having a family, no person is complete and the completeness comes with good family bonding. I consider that family values is a compilation of specific events and qualities that are really important to maintain a family. And this can be seen in “Girl” by Jamaica Kinkaid, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, and “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara. The story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid shows love and family togetherness by creating microcosmic images of the way mothers raise their children in order to survive. It is a guide on how live the right way. The narrative is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly in Antigua in the 1980’s. While the setting of the story is not expressly stated by the author in the narrative, the reader is able to understand the culture for which “Girl” was written. Jamaica Kincaid seems to be the passive narrator, receiving the instructions from her mother on how to live in their present social setting. The mother figure focuses on two main categories in her guidance...
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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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...Family relationships are an important piece in many works of literature. In particular, this plays an important role in the three short stories “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The varying levels of love and care provided by the parents, and the attitude that is projected back by the child in response is what moves the plot forward and provides details for bigger themes in many literary pieces. In the short story “Everyday Use,” Mama doubles as the narrator and the reader sees things through her point of view. She has two daughters; Dee is the oldest and Maggie is the youngest. Dee has moved out of the house and changed her way of life drastically; she has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo...
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...Maggie’s “Everyday Use” “Everyday Use” is a story written by Alice Walker in the 1930s. Heritage, materialism, community and isolation all play apart as themes. The short story centers around the reunion of a small African American family in which a nervous character named Maggie Jackson is the youngest daughter. Tattooed with burn scars down her legs and arms from a house fire, Maggie is very skittish. She stays with her mama in the country and she has always been weary of her older sister Dee, who has come home to visit and show off her heritage to her new friend. Maggie is used to the fact that the word “no” is not a word her sister knows. She is always compared to her sister Dee, and she only aims to please everyone but herself. Comparatively,...
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...the rural south during segregation in 1960s, Alice Walker visibly notes the theme and importance of heritage in her short story, “Everyday Use.” Walker presents a family with different perspectives of the definition of culture. There’s Maggie and Mama as “backwards” and uneducated, but they understand their history and heritage, meanwhile Dee has the education and sophistication but is clueless of the actuality of true family history. Walker deems the importance of heritage, suggesting that passing down tradition through generations keeps the bond alive; but these characters choose to dismiss or celebrate their heritage despite the attempts to work for a middle ground in order to balance the extremes. Ultimately, Maggie's roots are deeply and firmly planted in the cultural soil of her family's traditions, unlike Dee who was always ashamed, hating her rural traditions and upbringing. Dee sees her roots from a disconnected view of admiration. Dee’s perceived by the complex, materialistic, modern way of life where heritage is valued by its trendiness. While Maggie and Mama, on the contrary, represent the simple practice way of life where culture holds personal substance. Both have different approaches to life and virtually opposite of one another. Dee knows it is okay to want the best and is described as a confident and fearless young woman: “At sixteen she had a style of her own,” and “hesitation was no part of her nature” (Walker 2582). Unlike her mother and her sister, Dee isn’t...
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...The comparison of characters is something an author allows us to do while reading a story. They do so by, describing to us the characters appearance, personality, lifestyle, and any other unique qualities that might help illustrate someone. In the story “everyday use”, written by Alice walker, it is written from a mother’s point of view as she talks about her two daughters, Maggie and Dee, and how different they are. They are both similar in some ways yet, have very individual personalities, physical appearances, and perspective on things. The first thing I noticed while reading the story was how the two girls differed in appearance. with the way the mother describes Maggie she says of how Maggie is vary skinny like a small child, dark skinned and has burn scars down her arms and legs, from when her home had caught on fire and she had to be pulled out as her mother had explained, causing her to be ashamed of her looks. Her mother says “she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe.” Maggie’s scars have really affected the way she carries herself. She walks like a dog run over by a car as her mother describes it. Maggie is not only physically but mentally scarred. So traumatized from the fire Maggie is very timid, anti social and self conscious. Unlike her sister Maggie never got the proper schooling to learn to read or write vary well, the only things she knows how to do truly...
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