everyday use by alice walker theme essay

A Summary and Analysis of Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday Use’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Everyday Use’ is one of the most popular and widely studied short stories by Alice Walker. It was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1973 before being collected in Walker’s short-story collection In Love and Trouble .

Walker uses ‘Everyday Use’ to explore different attitudes towards Black American culture and heritage.

‘Everyday Use’: plot summary

The story is narrated in the first person by Mrs Johnson, a largeAfrican-American woman who has two daughters, Dee (the older of the two) and Maggie (the younger). Whereas Maggie, who is somewhat weak and lacking in confidence, shares many of her mother’s views, Dee is rather different.

Mrs Johnson tells us how she and the local church put together the funds to send Dee away to school to get an education. When Dee returned, she would read stories to her mother and sister. Mrs Johnson tells us she never had much of an education as her school was shut down, and although Maggie can read, her eyesight is poor and, according to her mother, is not especially clever.

Mrs Johnson also tells us how their previous house recently burned down: a house, she tells us, which Dee had never liked. Dee hasn’t yet visited her mother and sister in the new house, but she has said that when she does come she will not bring her friends with her, implying she is ashamed of where her family lives.

However, Mrs Johnson then describes Dee’s first visit to the new house. She turns up with her new partner, a short and stocky Muslim man, whom Mrs Johnson refers to as ‘Asalamalakim’, after the Muslim greeting the man speaks when he arrives (a corruption of ‘salaam aleikum’ or ‘ As-salamu alaykum ’). He later tells Mrs Johnson to call him Hakim-a-barber.

Dee then tells her mother that she is no longer known as Dee, but prefers to be called Wangero Lee-wanika Kemanjo, because she no longer wishes to bear a name derived from the white people who oppressed her and other African Americans. Her mother points out that Dee was named after her aunt, Dicie, but Dee is convinced that the name originally came from their white oppressors.

Dee/Wangero now starts to examine the objects in the house which belonged to her grandmother (who was also known as Dee), saying which ones she intends to take for herself. When Mrs Johnson tells her she is keeping the quilts for when Maggie marries John Thomas, Dee responds that her sister is so ‘backward’ she’d probably put the special quilts to ‘everyday use’, thus wearing them out to ‘rags’ in a few years.

Although Maggie resignedly lets her older sister have the quilts, when Dee moves to take them for herself, Mrs Johnson is suddenly inspired to snatch them back from her and hold Maggie close to herself, refusing to give them up to Dee and telling her to take one of the other quilts instead.

Dee leaves with Hakim-a-barber, telling her mother and Maggie that they don’t understand their own heritage. She also tells Maggie to try to make something of herself rather than remaining home with their mother. After they’ve left, Maggie and her mother sit outside until it’s time to go indoors and retire to bed.

‘Everyday Use’: analysis

The central crux of Alice Walker’s story is the difference between Dee and her mother in their perspectives and attitudes. Where Mrs Johnson, the mother of the family, sees everything in terms of the immediate family and home, Dee (or Wangero, as she renames herself) is more interested in escaping this immediate environment.

She does this first by leaving the family home and becoming romantically involved with a man of African Muslim descent. She also looks deeper into her African roots in order to understand ‘where she comes from’, as the phrase has it: not just in terms of the family’s direct lineage of daughter, mother, grandmother, and so on (Mrs Johnson’s way of looking at it, as exemplified by their discussion over the origins of Dee’s name), but in a wider, and deeper sense of African-American history and belonging.

This departure from her mother’s set of values is most neatly embodied by her change of name, rejecting the family name Dee in favour of the African name Wangero Lee-wanika Kemanjo. Names, in fact, are very important in this story: Maggie is obviously known by a European name, and ‘Johnson’, the family name borne by ‘Mama’, and thus by her daughters, doubly reinforces (John and son) the stamp of male European power on their lives and history.

Dee, too, is very much a family name: not just because it is the name the family use for the elder daughter, but because it is a name borne by numerous female members of the family going back for generations. But Dee/Wangero suspects it is ultimately, or originally, of European extraction, and wants to distance herself from this. Dee’s rejection of the immediate family’s small and somewhat parochial attitude is also embodied by the fact that she reportedly hated their old house which had recently burned down.

‘Everyday Use’ was published in 1973, and Dee’s (or Wangero’s) search for her ancestral identity through African culture and language is something which was becoming more popular among African Americans in the wake of the US civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Indeed, a productive dialogue could be had between Dee’s outlook in ‘Everyday Use’ and the arguments put forward by prominent Black American writers and activists of the 1970s such as Audre Lorde, who often wrote – in her poem ‘ A Woman Speaks ’, for example – about the ancestral African power that Black American women carry, a link to their deeper roots which should be acknowledged and cultivated.

However, Walker does some interesting things in ‘Everyday Use’ which prevent the story from being wholly celebratory off Dee’s (Wangero’s) new-found sense of self. First, she had Mrs Johnson or ‘Mama’ narrate the story, so we only see Dee from her mother’s very different perspective: we only view Dee, or Wangero, from the outside, as it were.

Second, Dee/Wangero does not conduct herself in ways which are altogether commendable: she snatches the best quilts, determined to wrest them from her mother and sister and disregarding Maggie’s strong filial links to her aunt and grandmother who taught her how to quilt. The quilt thus becomes a symbol for Maggie’s link with the previous matriarchs of the family, which Dee is attempting to sever her from.

But she is not doing this out of kindness for Maggie, despite her speech to her younger sister at the end of the story. Instead, she seems to be motivated by more selfish reasons, and asserts her naturally dominant personality and ability to control her sister in order to get her way. The very title of Walker’s story, ‘Everyday Use’, can be analysed as a sign of Dee’s dismissive and patronising attitude towards her sister and mother: to her, they don’t even know how to use a good quilt properly and her sister would just put it out for everyday use.

We can also analyse Walker’s story in terms of its use of the epiphany : a literary whereby a character in a story has a sudden moment of consciousness, or a realisation. In ‘Everyday Use’, this occurs when Mrs Johnson, seeing Maggie prepared to give up her special bridal present to her sister, gathers the courage to stand her ground and to say no to Dee. She is clearly in awe of what Dee/Wangero has become, so this moment of self-assertion – though it is also done for Maggie, too – is even more significant.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Alice Walker’s Everyday Use

Analysis of Alice Walker’s Everyday Use

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 24, 2021

Probably Alice Walker ’s most frequently anthologized story, “Everyday Use” first appeared in Walker’s collection In Love and Trouble: Stories by Black Women. Walker explores in this story a divisive issue for African Americans, one that has concerned a number of writers, Lorraine Hansberry, for instance, in her play Raisin in the Sun (1959). The issue is generational as well as cultural: In leaving home and embracing their African heritage, must adults turn their backs on their African-American background and their more traditional family members? The issue, while specifically African-American, can also be viewed as a universal one in terms of modern youth who fail to understand the values of their ancestry and of their immediate family. Walker also raises the question of naming, a complicated one for African Americans, whose ancestors were named by slaveholders.

The first-person narrator of the story is Mrs. Johnson, mother of two daughters, Maggie and Dicie, nicknamed Dee. Addressing the readers as “you,” she draws us directly into the story while she and Maggie await a visit from Dee. With deft strokes, Walker has Mrs. Johnson reveal essential information about herself and her daughters. She realistically describes herself as a big-boned, slow-tongued woman with no education and a talent for hard work and outdoor chores. When their house burned down some 12 years previous, Maggie was severely burned. Comparing Maggie to a wounded animal, her mother explains that she thinks of herself as unattractive and slow-witted, yet she is good-natured too, and preparing to marry John Thomas, an honest local man. Dee, on the other hand, attractive, educated, and self-confident, has left her home (of which she was ashamed) to forge a new and successful life.

Alice Walker/Thoughtco

When she appears, garbed in African attire, along with her long-haired friend, Asalamalakim, Dee informs her family that her new name is Wangero Leewanika Kemanio . When she explains that she can no longer bear to use the name given to her by the whites who oppressed her, her mother tries to explain that she was named for her aunt, and that the name Dicie harkens back to pre–CIVIL WAR days. Dee’s failure to honor her own family history continues in her gentrified appropriation of her mother’s butter dish and churn, both of which have a history, but both of which Dee views as quaint artifacts that she can display in her home. When Dee asks for her grandmother’s quilts, however, Mrs. Johnson speaks up: Although Maggie is willing to let Dee have them because, with her goodness and fine memory, she needs no quilts to help her remember Grandma Dee, her mother announces firmly that she intends them as a wedding gift for Maggie. Mrs. Johnson approvingly tells Dee that Maggie will put them to “everyday use” rather than hanging them on a wall.

Dee leaves in a huff, telling Maggie she ought to make something of herself. With her departure, peace returns to the house, and Mrs. Johnson and Maggie sit comfortably together, enjoying each other’s company. Although readers can sympathize with Dee’s desire to improve her own situation and to feel pride in her African heritage, Walker also makes clear that in rejecting the African-American part of that heritage, she loses a great deal. Her mother and sister, despite the lack of the success that Dee enjoys, understand the significance of family. One hopes that the next child will not feel the need to choose one side or the other but will confidently embrace both.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” In Major Writers of Short Fiction: Stories and Commentary, edited by Ann Charters. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1993, 1,282–1,299.

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“Everyday Use” Theme, Analysis & Summary by Alice Walker: (Like Sparknotes, Cliff Notes)

Can’t find Sparknotes or Cliff Notes for Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use”? You’re covered.  This short story from 1973 is one of her best known. It’s frequently anthologized and is a popular short story for students . It’s about a mother who’s expecting a visit from her daughter, Dee, who’s pursued education and distanced herself from her background. This analysis starts with a summary then looks at “Everyday Use” themes and questions.

“Everyday Use” Summary

Maggie will be nervous and self-conscious during the visit because of her burn scars and Dee’s advantages.

Maggie gets dressed for the visit and comes into the yard. She’s been extremely shy and diffident ever since the fire that burned their other house. She was burned but Dee wasn’t. Dee hated the old house and Mama thought she hated Maggie too, before she went off to school.

The new house is a lot like the old one—three rooms, holes for windows and built in a pasture. Maggie will probably want to tear it down. She said she wouldn’t bring friends there, but she’s never had many friends. She found so much fault with her old beau that he ran off to marry a girl from the city.

Dee uses an African greeting and her guest uses a religious Muslim one. Dee tells Mama not to get up. She goes back to her car for a camera. She takes several pictures of Mama and Maggie, making sure to get the house in as well.

Dee has changed her name to Wangero Lee-wanika Kemanjo. Her old name was given by her oppressors. Dee is named after her aunt, and Mama traces it back to the Civil War. The discussion peters out. The man’s name is longer and harder to pronounce, so they settle on Hakim-a-barber.

After dinner, Wangero goes to Mama’s trunk in her bedroom and takes out two old family quilts that she wants to take. Mama suggests taking other ones that have better stitching, done by machine. Wangero wants the hand-sewn ones and acts like they’re already hers. Mama has promised them to Maggie when she gets married.

Maggie timidly says her sister can take the quilts. Mama is struck by Maggie’s appearance and demeanor in the moment. She hugs Maggie and brings her into the room onto the bed. She takes the quilts from Wangero and gives them to Maggie, telling Wangero to take some of the others.

Maggie smiles and the car pulls away. Mama and Maggie sit contentedly in the yard until bedtime.

(End of “Everyday Use” summary)

“Everyday Use” Theme Analysis: Heritage and Identity

Dee hated the old house that burned down. Her distance from it was mirrored by her standing away from it and her family after it burned. She doesn’t like the new house, either, which is very similar to the old one. She’s said she won’t bring friends there.

When Dee visits, her attitude toward her family background seems to have changed. She takes several pictures, being sure to get the house (which she had previously disparaged) in them. She delights in the traditional Southern food. She sees the benches her dad made with fresh eyes. She also wants the butter dish and dasher that were hand whittled.

Despite the newfound appreciation Dee has for her heritage, it proves to be superficial. As she leaves, she says to Maggie, “It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live, you’d never know it.” Dee’s attitude toward her family heritage seems to be the same. So why is she so interested in it?

Her view is made clear when she says Maggie couldn’t appreciate the quilts, that she’d be “backward enough to put them to everyday use.” Mama and Maggie are living their heritage. Dee thinks they’re backward, and only wants her heritage represented by objects. It’s not going to be a part of her daily life.

In contrast, Maggie is steeped in her family heritage. She’s marrying a local man and will continue to live in the area. She knew the dasher’s provenance—who carved it and what people called him. This is probably something Dee heard many times, but she didn’t care to remember it. Maggie has learned from her family how to quilt, and can continue to make them, even if they wear out from daily use.

Other Themes in “Everyday Use”

Irony in “everyday use”, why does maggie smile at the end.

It seems more likely her smile is related to the scene that just played out. Maggie feels Dee has had all the advantages in life, that “‘no’ is a word the world never learned to say to her.” Mama has just given her a definitive “no” over the quilts, to Maggie’s advantage. She could be smiling at this role reversal, at this affirmation of her worth.

Where is the story set?

What do the quilts symbolize.

Everyday Use

By alice walker, everyday use study guide.

Everyday Use was first published in 1973 as part of the short story collection In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women . These stories span multi-generational periods and interconnect Black women from the American South, New York City and Uganda.

Told in first person by Mama , Everyday Use is set in the late 1960’s, a time when Black America was undergoing a great transformation. Through the Civil Rights movement, black Americans began ushering in a new era for themselves. The old life of the rural black farmer immersed in the aura of sharecropping and spectre of slavery is quickly being rendered obsolete.

The conflict in the story is centered around the clash between these two worlds, which Walker’s character Dee straddles. Dee increasingly rebukes her own heritage for the ideas and rhetoric of the new Black Pride movement. Walker weaves themes of African cultural nationalism with a narrative steeped in family conflict. On another level Alice Walker provides a unique perspective on the struggle of the African-American woman to find both identity and voice from the shadows of the past, as well as a rapidly changing future. Everyday Use continues to be included in definitive anthologies of American Literature.

Everyday Use Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Everyday Use is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Everyday Use by Alice Walker

From the text:

I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down.

In paragraphs 61-72, how does the conversation between Dee and Mama about the quilts develop the theme?

I'm sorry, please provide the text in question.

I saw my brother sneaking out of my room, his (1) movements slow and silent. When he saw me the poor kid was flinching, practically (2) under my gaze. "I was just looking at your CDs," he told me. At least he admitted he had been (3) _. annoyed, I decided

Is this related to the book Everyday use? What are you asking here?

Study Guide for Everyday Use

Everyday Use study guide contains a biography of Alice Walker, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Everyday Use
• Everyday Use Summary
• Character List

Essays for Everyday Use

Everyday Use essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Everyday Use.

• Identity Confusion in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"
• The Black Empowerment Movement within Bambara's "The Lesson" and Walker's "Everyday Use"
• Pride and Heritage in “Everyday Use”
• "Everyday Use" from an Antipatriarchal Perspective
• A Comparison of Dee and Mathilde

Wikipedia Entries for Everyday Use

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Characterization and Symbolism in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"

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Literary Analysis of Everyday Use by Alice Walker

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Published: Feb 9, 2023

Words: 705 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Works Cited:

• Budney, A. J., Roffman, R., Stephens, R. S., & Walker, D. (2007). Marijuana dependence and its treatment. Addiction science & clinical practice, 4(1), 4-16.
• National Institute of Drug Abuse. (2017). Marijuana.
• Pappas, S. (2014). Marijuana history: George Washington and the hemp industry. Live Science. Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/48337-marijuana-history-how-cannabis-travelled-world.html
• Martin, B., & Booth, M. (2003). Cannabis: A history. St. Martin's Press.
• Ferner, M. & Matt, E. (2019). The marijuana industry could be worth $75 billion, but analysts say it's impossible to know for sure. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/26/the-marijuana-industry-could-be-worth-75-billion-but-analysts-say-its-impossible-to-know-for-sure.html
• Wilcox, A. (2017). Does cannabis cure cancer? Leafly.
• Turbert, D. (2018). Can marijuana help treat glaucoma? American Academy of Ophthalmology. Retrieved from https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/can-marijuana-help-treat-glaucoma
• Volkow, N. D., Baler, R. D., Compton, W. M., & Weiss, S. R. (2014). Adverse health effects of marijuana use. New England Journal of Medicine, 370(23), 2219-2227.
• Crean, R. D., Crane, N. A., & Mason, B. J. (2011). An evidence based review of acute and long-term effects of cannabis use on executive cognitive functions. Journal of addiction medicine, 5(1), 1-8.
• Yanes-Lane, M., Winters, K. C., Moberg, D. P., & Reichert, J. (2020). Marijuana use and risk of lung cancer: a 40-year cohort study. Cancer Causes & Control, 31(1), 37-46.

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Cultural Identity and Heritage in the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker Research Paper

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Introduction

Claims made in the story, how the author’s background and life experiences influence the theme, literary devices, characters that speak on behalf of the theme, works cited.

Everyday Use is a frequently anthologized chef-d’oeuvre short story by Alice Walker highlighting the problem of cultural identity and heritage among African Americans after the abolishment of slavery. Narrated in the first person, the story revolves around three characters – Mama and her two daughters, Dee (Wangero) and Maggie.

Mama is caught up between two clashing views of African heritage held by Dee and Maggie. Walker uses these two characters to show the cultural and heritage dilemma that African Americans had to deal with after slavery and throughout the era of the Civil Rights Movement. This paper discusses how Walker, in Everyday Use, makes a statement about cultural identity and heritage among African Americans.

Walker seems to claim that slavery and its subsequent abolishment created a conflict among African Americans concerning their heritage and cultural identity. On the one side, slavery robbed Africans of both. Immediately after becoming a slave, Africans were required to change their names and forget about their language and culture.

Maggie represents the harm that slavery caused to Africans. When describing her, Mama says, “Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks” (Walker 333). She is the aftermath of the destruction that slavery had on Africans and their cultural identity. She is dull, uneducated, and full of both emotional and physical scars.

However, after the abolishment of slavery and the subsequent civil rights movement, Africans were educated. Therefore, they started understanding the damage that slavery had caused to their identity and heritage. Such enlightened Africans fought for their civil rights and the restoration of their heritage. Ironically, these individuals were unaware of the very heritage they were claiming. Dee represents this side of the conflict.

While she has changed her name to Wangero, which is African, she does not understand her heritage. She is oblivious of the fact that her name, Dee, is generational because it was adopted from her great-grandmother. She also does not know the history of the quilts she wants to own. In other words, she does not understand the cultural identity that she claims to defend.

Walker was born in 1944 in Eatonton to black sharecroppers. Her family was extremely poor and being raised as the last born in a family of eight children meant that her life was difficult. Her life was limited by poverty and the fact that her brother shot her in the right eye with a BB gun when playing a game of Cowboys and Indians (Lazo 25). She was teased and rejected due to this disfigurement until it was rectified later in life during her college years. She left Eatonton after securing a government scholarship to study at Spelman College in Atlanta in 1961 (Lazo 34). During this time, she got involved in the civil rights movement.

The plotline of Everyday Use mirrors Walker’s life experiences. She lived in conflict with herself – first by being brought up in poverty and ridiculed for her disfigured eye, and second by getting a higher education and becoming a champion of civil rights. Walker is talking about her conflicting sides – one that is conservative and shy and another being bold, educated, and aware of her rights. Cowart argues that the “story can be read, in fact, as a cautionary tale the author tells herself: a parable, so to speak, about the perils of writing one’s impoverished past from the vantage of one’s privileged present” (176).

In the broad context, Walker designs the story to underscore the conflict that African Americans faced concerning their cultural identity and heritage after the abolition of slavery. On the one hand, they were emancipated and educated to acknowledge the erosion of their cultural identity through slavery. On the other hand, they were suffering from the subjugation of slavery, and thus they were caught up between these two worlds.

Walker uses irony as a literary device to depict the conflict about cultural identity and heritage that African Americans were experiencing in the 20th century. Dee wants to reclaim her cultural identity because she cannot be associated with white people. She says, “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me” (Walker 337). Therefore, she wants an African identity, which explains why she is now called Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Ironically, she does not understand the heritage of the very identity she claims to pursue. This aspect stands out clearly when she talks about the quilts. She wants to hang them on the wall as cultural artifacts, but in African heritage, they are intended for everyday use.

On the other hand, Maggie, albeit uneducated, understands the meaning of the quilts. She wants to use them and replace them if worn out as part of the family’s history. Therefore, while Dee seeks to reclaim her cultural identity, she is conflicted because she has no real understanding of her ancestors. Towards the end of the story, she criticizes her mother and Maggie for being stuck in their old way of thinking. She is disconnected from the very past she claims to revere by changing her name (Cowart 172). This aspect shows the disconnect that African Americans had concerning their heritage while fighting for civil rights and the recognition of their heritage, while at the same time keeping up with modernity and being assimilated into the Western culture.

Mama, Dee, Hakim, and Maggie speak on behalf of the theme of conflicting cultural identity and heritage among African Americans. Hakim identifies with Black Islam, but he “does not appear to be a good representative of these or any other ideals” (Sarnowski 272). Mama speaks for African Americans, who are torn between their cultural identity and Western ideas. Maggie represents the side of Africans that was devastated by slavery and remained voiceless for long but held on to their heritage. On the other hand, Dee stands for the emancipated and empowered Africans, who wanted to reclaim their cultural identities, but they found some of the aspects and traditions repulsive and outdated. Maggie and Dee are the conflicting voices within Mama.

The first symbol used in this story is the quilts. They represent the strong bonds created between women of different generations to underscore their enduring legacy. Mama had promised to give Maggie some quilts during her marriage. The quilts are symbols of Mama’s cultural heritage and traditions. Mama says, “These old things were just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died” (Walker 341). Therefore, the quilts carry the family’s history, and that heritage should be passed from one generation to the other. However, Dee does not appreciate this deep meaning of the quilts, and thus she rejects the cultural identity that she is pursuing. This aspect underscores the theme of cultural conflict as presented in this story.

The second symbol is the house, which was burned to the ground, and scarred Maggie in the process. The house represents the cultural identity of African Americans before slavery. Their heritage was strong and revered. However, slavery and poverty came along and burned down the culture (Maggie), and when it was abolished, the freed Africans remained with a conflicted view of their identities (Dee was born).

Cowart posits, “This burned house, however, represents more than failed attempt to eradicate poverty. It subsumes a whole African American history of violence, from slavery…to the pervasive inner-city violence of subsequent decades” (174). Mama tries to reconcile the two warring sides (Dee and Maggie), and she succeeds to some extent. The story ends with the two of them “sitting in silence, just enjoying until bedtime” (Tuten 126). Similarly, African Americans learned to live with their scars from slavery, violence, and poverty and at the same time adopted the Western culture.

In Everyday Use, Walker narrates a story of conflicting cultural ideals that she faced at a personal level and which most African Americans encountered after the end of slavery. Dee claims to revere a cultural heritage that she does not understand. On the other hand, Maggie does not recognize that she is emancipated, and thus she is no longer bound by her inferiority, poverty, and lack of education. Mama has to live with these two conflicting sides. Walker succeeds to tell her personal story of struggle and at the same time chronicles the cultural identity dilemma that African Americans had to live with after slavery.

Cowart, David. “Heritage and Deracination in Walker’s “Everyday Use”.” Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 33, 1996, pp. 171-184.

Lazo, Caroline. Alice Walker: Freedom Writer. Lerner Publications Company, 2000.

Sarnowski, Joe. “Destroying to Save: Idealism and Pragmatism in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”.” Papers on Language & Literature , vol. 48, 269-286.

Tuten, Nancy. “Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”.” The Explicator, vol. 52, no. 2, 1993, pp. 125-128.

Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Short Story Masterpieces by American Writers, edited by Clarence Strowbridge, Dover Publications, 2014, pp. 331-344.

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Everyday Use Theme Essay

In the short stories we have read there have been numerous themes. The impact of tradition, the value of heritage, the importance of family, the divide between social classes, and the presence of love are all ideas that can be found in the stories we have read. Short stories have managed to encapture the importance and true meaning of life in just a few sentences by imposing on the readers themes we can all relate to. A common theme presented in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson” is the power of knowledge and education. In “Everyday Use,” two sister Dee and Maggie have different views on how they should preserve and honor their heritage. The story is told from the point of view of their mother, Ms. Johnson, and it is from her that we learn about the difference in the sister’s characters. Dee, who changes her name to Wangero, is outspoken and is the educated sister. Maggie is shy and appears to be ashamed of the burns on her skin. “[Maggie] thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that ‘no’ is a word the world would never learn to say to her” (Walker 6). This is important because, in the end, Dee does not get her way. Dee is the educated …show more content…

Ms. Johnson didn't have an education, yet she knew the value of the quilts and she didn’t let a few words from Dee change her decision of giving the quilts to Maggie. Dee leaves her mother’s house quite upset and tells her sister, “You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you’d never know it” (Walker 12). This quote relates to education in many ways. Dee wants her family to get an education when in reality they are already educated in their own way. Similarly, in “The Lesson,” Miss Moore wants to give an education to a group of

Everyday Use 'And Good Country People By Flannery O' Connor

Furthermore, Dee-Wangero’s relationship with her mother and sister is very strained. Throughout the story you can see Mrs. Johnson’s resentment towards Dee-Wangero. Dee-Wangero’s persistence in trying to teach her mother and sister and lack of respect for her family’s heritage also cause a gap between her and Mrs. Johnson. Misunderstandings play a role in their relationship, for example, Mrs. Johnson used to think that Dee-Wangero hated her and Maggie (Walker 744). However, according to Susan Farrell, “elsewhere, as well, we see that Mama is often wrong about her expectations of Dee and her readings of Dee's emotions” (1998).

Everyday Use Literary Analysis Essay

Dee is also really selfish which makes her have tension between her family since she only cares about herself. Throughout the story, there were a lot of conflicts between Dee and her family which shows with the quilt incident, butter churn controversy and lastly different views on heritage. One of the main conflicts in Everyday Use is the quilt incident. The conflict started when Wangero (Dee) came out with two quilts that had been pieced by Grandma Dee and big Dee.

Character Analysis Of Dee Kemanjo In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

She doesn 't know how hard life is with her sister and mother. Dee only cares about what she wants and she talks down on her family. She believes her sister could not use the quilts in a way she thought they should be used. " Maggie can 't appreciate these quilts!" she said.

A Rhetorical Analysis Of 'Everyday Use' By Alice Walker

Maggie is also oppressed by society and Dee, and, though to a further degree than her mother, her view of herself attacks her equality compared to the rest of the world. The subject is immediately introduced. The story begins with Maggie and her mother waiting for Dee. They waste their time in order to be available to Dee as soon as Dee

The Betrayal Of Heritage In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

The Betrayal of Heritage Alice Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia on February 9th 1944. On her journey to success she worked as a social worker, teacher and thereafter she became a lecturer. She was also part and parcel of the Civil Right Movement in Mississippi during the 1960’s. Apart from being a reputable poet and writer, Walker also won herself a Pulitzer award for fiction on account of her 1982 novel “The Color Purple”. “Everyday use” is a short story found in Walker’s (1973) collection “In love and in Trouble”.

The Lesson By Toni Cade Bambara Analysis

The symbols present in “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, depict the economic and social injustices faced by specific members of society, specifically the children in the story. The characters in the story are being mentored by Miss Moore, a woman from their block who has taken up the role of taking them out on weekly outings. The story touches on the situation of the children that are stuck in living in almost poverty. “The Lesson” focuses on the socioeconomic disparities between the different racial groups and how. Bambara uses several techniques such as irony, othering, and second person point of view to make the story meaningful and demonstrate the characteristics of the characters.

Symbolism In 'Everyday Use' By Alice Walker

In the short story “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker shows the conflicts and struggles with people of the African-American culture in America. The author focuses on the members of the Johnson family, who are the main characters. In the family there are 2 daughters and a mother. The first daughter is named Maggie, who had been injured in a house fire has been living with her mom. Her older sister is Dee, who grew up with natural beauty wanted to have a better life than her mother and sister.

Compare And Contrast Sula And Everyday Use

Growing up together under the same conditions clearly created two very distinct individuals with contrasting views regarding their past, present, and future. When Dee arrives home from college, she portrayed herself as higher class; she put herself above her family and her past. During her visit, she was looking for valuable things to have in her home. While looking around, Dee notices two handmade quilts containing pieces of clothe that date back to the Civil War.

Irony In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

Alice Walker’s Everyday Use (rpt. in Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine’s Literature Sound and Structure 11th ed [Boston: Wadsworth, 2012] 166-173) is a short story told by the mother of two daughters, Mama. The story tells the tale of the return of Mama’s oldest daughter, Dee, and the problems that Dee’s return causes for Mama and her youngest daughter, Maggie. This short story includes humor and irony, displays detailed characterization, and portrays a very effective point of view. These three literary elements contribute to this story by giving insight into the past and the true personalities of the characters, and the way the characters have changed over time.

The Lesson And Everyday Use Short Story

Where Miss Moore wanted to construct a life for the unfortunate youth from her hometown. When comparing “The Lesson” and “Everyday Use”, there are numerous similarities and differences noticed regarding their

Everyday Use Heritage Analysis

Mama wanted nothing but the best for her; she did everything in her power to get her to college because she wanted her to have a better life than she did. However, Dee used her education against Mama and Maggie in efforts to present her culture in a “better” way. Changing her name to Wangero because her birth name “Dee”, as she informed them “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people oppress me” (Walker 27). In contrast, Mama and Maggie never changed the way they dressed “African descent” or change their names to portray their true

A Comparison Of Maggie And Dee In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

Maggie did not go to school, does not dress in colorful attention-getting African garb, and does not have a fancy boyfriend, but she does slam a door which indicates her feelings about the quilts and butter churn her sister has come to claim out from under her feet. The temper has flared, and Maggie gets her quilts. In conclusion, the story seems to tell how different Maggie and Dee were from each other; with few comparisons between the two girls to suggest that they had anything in

Everyday Use Compare And Contrast Essay

For some of my family the search for individuality is an ongoing process. In fact, my family and the family in “Everyday Use” share similarities and differences when it comes to actions of young people, the treatment of children, and relationships between family members. Firstly, the young people in my family and in the short story share similarities and differences when it comes to our actions. Dee, known as Wangero, and I have some similarities.

Everyday Use Short Story

Both of the daughters are like two members of my family: my sister Ursula, who is like Dee; rude, confident, traditional, and smart. Maggie and I are the opposite; we are both shy, timid, scarred, and homely like a “lame animal” who always has its tail between it’s legs and head always facing down. Everyone has relationships but they can friendly, mean, or loving. Maggie

Characterization In Everyday Use

(Nancy Tuten) agrees by saying, "Mama's distaste for Dee's egotism is tempered by her desire to be respected by her daughter.” The Mom’s character changes during the quilt scene, as she realizes that Maggie shares the appreciation of culture and heritage, and Dee's appreciation is entirely different from theirs. During the quilt scene, Dee is demanding Mom to give her the quilts, and Mom says, "when I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet.” In other words the daughter who she has always thought so highly of knew little of their culture and had little appreciation for their heritage. Walker creates the “mom” character to help defend her point, which is the importance of upholding the values and traditions in the African American

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Everyday Use

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In “Everyday Use,” Mama , the story’s first person narrator, describes her relationship to her daughter Dee as Dee, an educated young African-American woman, returns to visit her childhood house in the Deep South. The story begins as Mama and Maggie , Dee’s sister and Mama’s younger daughter, prepare for the visit. Maggie changes her clothes as Mama fantasizes about reconciling with her daughter on a television show hosted by someone like Johnny Carson. Mama then dismisses her fantasy as unrealistic, because she believes she is not the kind of person who would appear on such a show.

As she waits for Dee, Mama looks around the yard and at Maggie, triggering memories of Dee’s troubled childhood in their house—her anger towards her family and their poverty, her hunger for higher quality clothes and an education, her charisma, assertiveness, and her beauty. Mama thinks about how Dee’s attitude towards them changed as she became educated thanks to money from Mama and the Church, turning her from hateful to hurtfully condescending. As she remembers Dee as a child, Mama contrasts her with Maggie—a diffident, kind, homely young woman with a scar on her face from the house fire. Mama recounts the traumatizing fire, which burnt down their home, and forced them to build a new one, exactly like it, where they now live.

At last Dee and her partner, Hakim-a-Barber , arrive at the house. Dee is dressed in a beautiful, colorful, floor-length dress in African style. She introduces herself as “Wangero,” not as Dee, stating that she changed her name so she would not be named after her “oppressors.” Mama is originally skeptical of both these choices, but decides that she likes the dress. Mama reminds Dee that she is, in fact, named after her aunt Dicie, but agrees to call Dee by her chosen name.

Dee takes pictures of her family with their house. She and Hakim-a-Barber eat with Mama and Maggie, and while Hakim-a-Barber is unenthusiastic about the family’s fare, Dee enjoys the collard greens and pork with relish. Dee, who, as Mama mentioned, once disdained the family’s possessions, now unexpectedly covets them. She admires the worn stools, coos over her grandmother’s butter dish, and demands to be given the top of the family’s butter churn to use as decoration in her house. Mama acquiesces, and gives Dee the churn.

After dinner, Dee insists on taking home her grandmother’s quilts as well, to hang on her walls. Mama, however, had planned on giving the quilts to Maggie. When Mama refuses, saying that she promised them to Maggie, Dee becomes angry. She insists that Maggie cannot appreciate the quilts, and will wear them out with “everyday use.” When Mama brushes Dee’s anger off, saying that Maggie can simply make new quilts since she knows how to sew, Dee insists that the quilts are “priceless” and that Mama does not “understand” her heritage. Still, Mama refuses to give Dee the quilts, and dumps them on Maggie’s lap. The story ends with Dee’s departure, leaving Mama and Maggie alone together in the house.

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Everyday Use

by Alice Walker

Discussion Topic

The historical background and setting of "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker and how it relates to Walker's own experiences

"Everyday Use" by Alice Walker is set in the rural South during the 1960s and 1970s, a time of significant social and cultural change. This setting reflects Walker's own experiences growing up in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. The story explores themes of heritage, identity, and the contrasting perspectives on African-American culture, which parallel Walker's personal history and activism.

Authorship: Alice Walker

themes: Cultural Identity

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In what year does "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker take place?

Alice Walker 's " Everyday Use " first appeared in a collection of stories entitled, In Love and Trouble :  Stories of Black Women in 1973.   Because of the attire of Dee, the reader can fairly safely assume that the story takes place in the late 60s or early 70s, for she is dressed in bright clothing and lots of gold jewelry; her boyfriend has an afro hair-do.  Dee has changed her named to an African one following a trend of the 1960s fostered by such men as Stokely Carmichael and the Black Nationalists in which African-Americans began to show a pride in their heritage as a way of bolstering their esteem or forming an identity. They rejected "slave names" and ignited interest in their own culture.  It is this interest in the African-American culture that brings Dee home to claim the quaint butter-churn and other items which her father has built.  Likewise, because the quilt has been sewn by hand, Dee wishes to put it on display, rather than appreciating the love and history that has gone into the fashioning of this quilt.

Cite this page as follows:

"The historical background and setting of "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker and how it relates to Walker's own experiences" edited by eNotes Editorial, 8 Sep. 2009, https://www.enotes.com/topics/everyday-use/questions/the-historical-background-and-setting-of-everyday-3132293.

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What is the historical background of "Everyday Use"? How does Walker relate to her story?

In her short story "Everyday Use," Alice Walker exposes the tensions between black urban life and black rural life, between generations, and between black people who have had access to education and those who haven't. She also considers how the black consciousness movement wasn't always about building a stronger community; some, like Dee, may have used it to distinguish themselves from a past for which they felt shame.

Dee wants to distance herself from her poor, rural roots and uses her education and her awareness of Afrocentricity to cast herself as superior. Walker seems to be exploring these unspoken divisions in the black community, which arose with black militancy and the black consciousness movement in 1966. I use 1966 as a marker because this was the year in which Stokely Carmichael took leadership of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and coined the expression "Black Power." It is also the year in which the Black Panthers first organized in Oakland, California. Around the same time, Ron (Maulana) Karenga instituted Kwanzaa as a holiday in an effort to help black people feel more connected to their African roots (it seemed irrelevant that Kwanzaa is a Swahili word, derived from Kenya, while most black people from the Americas are of West and Central African descent) and to help them develop shared community values based on the holiday's tenets. Kente cloth, derived from the Akan and Ashanti people of Ghana, was also commonly worn at the time.

Undoubtedly, Walker was very aware of these socio-cultural currents and wanted to use them to explore how the black consciousness movement was a positive thing but also something that would force younger generations to question the social compromises their parents made to survive in a white supremacist society. Walker, like Dee, came from rural Georgia. Unlike Dee, Walker speaks positively of her parents, who were sharecroppers, and particularly of her mother, who insisted that Walker would get an education—even to the point of standing up to the plantation owner who dared to say that Walker needn't bother with going to school.

Maintaining tradition was as key in Walker's family as in that of the Johnsons. In her best-known essay , "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens," Walker writes about the great care that her mother took in raising her own garden while living on a plantation. Walker maintained this tradition when she settled in Northern California.

Sutton, Mary. "The historical background and setting of "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker and how it relates to Walker's own experiences" edited by eNotes Editorial, 8 Nov. 2018, https://www.enotes.com/topics/everyday-use/questions/the-historical-background-and-setting-of-everyday-3132293.

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The historical background of the story is very important. During the 1960's, there was a movement by African-Americans to learn more about their African roots.  Because of all of the civil rights greats like Martin Luther King, Jr., and their influence, many African-Americans learned to take pride in their heritage and to connect with it for the first time.  Dee and Hakim-a-Barber reflect this.  They are wearing traditional African clothing when they come to see Dee and Maggie.  They have grown out their hair to respect their African roots, as well, for example.  The two of them represent this movement in American history.  

As for biographical information, Walker's life parallels the life that Maggie and Mama live.  Walker grew up the daughter of a sharecropper.  Her family lived in very poor conditions and suffered heartbreak and many difficulties.  Like Maggie, Walker was also disfigured; a gunshot would left her blind in one eye and made her shy and withdrawn.  

Read more about Alice Walker on eNotes in the link below:

 http://www.enotes.com/everyday-use/author-biography

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Balderas, Paris. "The historical background and setting of "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker and how it relates to Walker's own experiences" edited by eNotes Editorial, 1 Aug. 2008, https://www.enotes.com/topics/everyday-use/questions/the-historical-background-and-setting-of-everyday-3132293.

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