Character Analysis Of Everyday Use By Alice Walker

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Everyday use is a widely studied short story by Alice Walker. Due to its widely studied situation, it is the most frequently anthologized short story. Walker tells the story as a first person as an African American woman who is living in the Deep south together with her two daughters. In the story, conflicts and struggles within the African American culture are well represented and in the same time figuring out on harmony. There is the representation of the bond between a mother and a daughter defining the African American woman’s identity and other family relationships.
An encounter with the rural family of Johnson is also focused in the story. There is a difference between Mrs. Johnson and her daughter Maggie who is quite shy. They are both based on the rural traditional culture as opposed to her other daughter Dee who is educated and tries to change her identity to a better identity of the native African. The …show more content…

When we compare to the life of Mama and that of Maggie, you find that Maggie has never undergone major challenges in life compared to her mother walker who faced a great deal of personal tragedies while in college. In order to overcome all the tragedies, she faced life with courage, dignity and strength of mind. It is with this reason that she emerges to be a very strong character who is able to live her own life confidently and also becoming and accomplished writer of exceptional calibre and competencies (Walker, pg7). Walker is an educated woman unlike her daughter Maggie who is shy and has no education. Mama is seen to be more concerned about the physical life around her as compared to Maggie who hovers around doorways doing nothing instead of involving her life with things around her and it is so evident that Mama is a very clear defined and strong character. It can be compared to Maggie who is broadminded and unselfish with a spirit of sacrifice to her

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