(A Critical Analysis of Alice Walker’s short story Everyday Use)

Antojos de Mis Ojos
(A Critical Analysis of Alice Walker’s short story Everyday Use)

Albert Camus once asserted: “Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only to their skepticism.” In Everyday Use a strong willed mother tries to protect her younger daughter, Maggie, from having a quilt passed down for generations stolen from her by her materialistic older sister Dee.The short story Everyday Use, authored by Alice Walker, is effective in its moral standpoint because of the believability of it’s characters.
Alice Walker’s character “Dee” puts on a facade of sincere interest in her heritage, but is only motivated by materialistic wants. Throughout the story readers learn that Dee is only interested in the quilts and butter churner because they are somehow “fashionable” to her and her fiance. “Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she’d made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her. At sixteen she had a style of her own, and knew what style was.” Here we learn that from the time she was a teenager, her only interest was in how she looked and appeared to other people. It has been said that: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.” (Orwell). Through this quote one can find ...

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...rse intentions they probably have of using the items. Maggie will truly appreciate the quilts when she is older, because she worked hard with her mother and deserves the beauty and sentimental value of the items.
The short story Everyday Use, authored by Alice Walker, is effective in its moral standpoint because of the believability of it’s characters. Alice Walker’s character “Dee” puts on a facade of sincere interest in her heritage, but is only motivated by materialistic wants. The mother in Everyday Use is a strong woman who is careful in speech and slow of tongue, but is able to understand Dee’s underlying motives. In Alice Walker’s short story, Maggie is a young girl whom Dee is trying to take advantage of and undermine to get what she wants from the family. In the wise words of Jose Saramago: “If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?”