“Everyday Use” and “I Stand Here Ironing” The main Character in the short story “I Stand Here Ironing” by Alice Walker explains in the beginning of the story that she has 2 children and one is coming to visit her from school in Augusta. Mama had decided to send Dee off to school in Augusta after their house caught on fire and she was now coming home to visit Mama and her younger sister Maggie. Mama says “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in the corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe”(Walker 155). Maggie was in the house when it caught fire, her mother had to drag her out but Dee and been out first so her does not have …show more content…
She states that she was the only child, out of the five she has total, that was beautiful from the very moment she was born. Emily was smart, “She blew bubbles of sound. She loved motion, loved light, loved color and music and textures. She would lie on the floor in the blue overalls patting the surface so hard in ecstasy her hands and feet would blur.”(Olsen 291). When Emily was eight months old, she needed to stay with a woman downstairs while the narrator looked for a job. Eventually, the narrator had to send Emily to live with her father and his family until she has raised enough money for her fare back. Emily’s father had left because he was scared of becoming poor so her mother was not to happy with this decision. When the narrator finally raised the money for Emily to come home, she had gotten the chicken pox and had to stay home. Once she was healed, she returned immediately. The narrator barely recognizes Emily when comes home. She says she is thin and looks like her father and was now two years old. This means she is old enough to go into nursery school; in order for the narrator to keep her job, she needed to take Emily there. Emily did not like it though, the narrator says “She always had a reason why we should stay home. Momma, you look sick. Momma, I feel sick. Momma, the teachers aren’t there today, they’re sick”.(Olsen …show more content…
In the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, Dee becomes angry with her mother because she won’t allow Dee to take quilts that she had already promised she would give to Maggie. I do not believe this feeling is justified one bit. The mother sent Dee to a school in Augusta for her to be happy since their house burnt to the ground, that must have been expensive; when Dee comes to visit is seems as if she has changed. Dee seems to be very unappreciative. Mama tells Dee that she has already promised Maggie they could be hers then asks “Why don’t you take one or two of the others?”(Walker160). Dee blows up on the narrator. She could have just told Dee that she could not have any quilts at all and also, Dee did not give a good enough reason for her to have the quilts instead of
To begin with, in Walker's Everyday Use, the conflict is a result of clashing cultural values and of cultural point-of-view. Dee, who has adopted the Islamic culture and name the Wangero, returns to her African-American family for a reunion. While there, she asks that a pair of quilts from her deceased grandmother be given to her, not her sister, Maggie. Dee claims that her sister will ruin them through "everyday use." In fact, she charges during a discussion, "[Maggie would] probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use" (89). To these charges, her mother, the story's narrator, says, "I reckon she would [use the quilts daily] ... God knows I've been saving (the quilts) for long enough with no body using 'em. I hope she will" (89). Dee counters by saying, "You just don't understand ... your heritage" (90). She charges that her mother does not understand her heritage and therefore should give the quilts to her since she will preserve them. This conflict...
...y're just collecting dust in the bottom of this old trunk." Momma had other quilts to use. She would not begrudge Dee. However, Momma did promise them to Maggie and so Momma had to keep that promise because Momma knew that regardless of how much more "successful and smart" one daughter was could not be allowed to diminish the love she had for Maggie. For Momma, a promise was a promise and barring her own death, it would be kept.
Emily’s mother is just a teenager when she had Emily. She did not have the money or resources to take care of her, so she had to let Emily live with her grandparents for a couple of years before she could get Emily back. When Emily was two, her mother finally got her custody of her, but Emily is not the little girl she remembered. When the mother first had Emily, she described her as a beautiful baby (302), but it changed when Emily became sickly and got scars from chicken pox. The mother said, “When she finally came, I hardly knew her, walking quick and nervous like her father, looking like her father, thin, and dressed in a shoddy red that yellowed her skin and glared at the pockmarks. All the baby loveliness gone. (302)” Nevertheless, the mother is never there for Emily as she grew up. Emily tried to show her mother in different ways that she needed her, but she never seemed to catch the hint. For example, when Emily was two her mother sent her to a nursery school. The teacher of the nursery school was mistreating the children, and instead of telling her mother directly like the other kids told their parents, she told her in different ways. She always had a reason why we should stay home. Momma, you look sick. Momma, I feel sick. Momma, the teachers aren’t there today, they’re sick. Momma, we can’t go, there was a fire there last night. Momma, it’s a holiday
Having to send Emily in her early days to live with her father was a burdensome nuisance. All of Emily's father's attributes were rubbing off on her, "all of the baby loveliness gone," (p.
Alice Walker’s Everyday Use has the dedication, “For Your Grandmama” (Walker 933). At first it is not clear why Walker has added this dedication until the reader gets to the end. The story is about a woman and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. In this story Maggie is Walker. When Walker was eight she suffered and injury that left scar tissue, “This made me shy and timid, and I often reacted to insults and slights that were not intended” (Editors). Maggie is painfully shy because when their previous house burned down she was burned and now has scars that she is ashamed of. Dee is headstrong and is not satisfied with the simple life that she and her mother and sister have. Dee has moved away, but now is coming for a visit and bringing a gentleman that Mama is not sure is Dee’s husband. While Dee was gone she has tried to rid herself of her past and transformed herself into the woman she thinks she should be. After they all have dinner she starts going through the house wanting to take items to decorate her own home with. When she attempts to claim two quilts Maggie gets upset and hides. These quilts were made by their mother and aunt with some tops that their grandma had pieced together before she died. Dee wants these quilts to hang in her home, but mama has already promised them to Maggie when she gets married. Dee is appalled because she knows that Maggie with use them for everyday use and they will fall apart. Then, “something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet” (Walker 939) Mama puts her foot down and does not let Dee take the quilts, because she knows that Maggie will appreciate them more because she learned to quilt from her grandmother and aunt. Dee thinks that to honor the past she has to put these things on display and not use them, whereas, Mama and Maggie know that to use them with love is a better way of honoring their
Dee, the older sister, wants to hang the quilts on a wall and view her culture from a distance. In fact she even seems ashamed of her family situation. In a letter to her mother Dee says, " . . . no matter where [they] choose to live, she will manage to come and see [them], but she will never bring her friends" (87). She even goes as far as to denounce her name because she claims, " I couldn't bear it any longer being named after the people that oppress me" (89). However, her mother states that she was named after her aunt and grandmother, the very people who made her beloved quilts. She makes it apparent that her idea of appreciating her culture is to leave it alone, especially when she says, " Maggie can't appreciate these quilts! She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use"(91).
...made for, she no longer offers much imagery to the reader. The story comes to an end as the mother reminds Dee that she was once offered the quilts and refused them because she thought they were "old fashioned and out of style" (880). She also turns the table on Dee by snatching the quilts out of Dee's hands and dumping them into Maggie's lap. She tells Dee to get a couple of the other quilts, and with that said, Dee storms out.
When Dee finds out that her mama promise to give the quilts to her sister, Dee gets very angry and says that she deserves the quilts more than Maggie because Maggie would not take care of them like she would. Dee feels that she can value and treasure heritage more than her sister Maggie. Dee does what she wants, whenever she wants and she will not accept the word no for any answer. “She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned to say to her.” Maggie is used to never getting anything. Throughout the entire story, it says that Maggie gives up many things so Dee can have what she needs or
It is what a true mother-daughter bond is supposed to be like. When Dee and the mom were arguing over the quilts the narrator said “like somebody used to never winning anything, or having reserved for her,” which is something that mama has a favorite daughter and she lets Dee have whatever she wants without letting Maggie have anything. It seems like mama wants Dee to be happy when she comes down so she will want to come home. Mama even was going to call her by her new name instead of not going to she tried to because it comes off as Dee is her favorite daughter which is why their mother-daughter relationship is different from Maggie 's and mama’s relationship. Even when Dee took what she wanted like when she just went through mama’s things without asking her. That 's something that only a favorite daughter or someone with a very good mother-daughter relationship would do.
Everyday Use ends with Dee leaving, not with the quilts, thus making room for the new bond between Mama and Maggie. Dee may believe that she has won in some way because she is the educated sister who appreciates her heritage, but the reader sees it is in fact Maggie who has become victorious by having her way of life validated by Mama’s support and Dee’s envy. Maggie’s system of values is redeemed by creating a new relationship, with herself, in which she is no longer silenced and can truly appreciate the beauty of her home even in its everyday use. While there is little growth seen from the experience on Dee’s side, we know that Maggie is forever changed, giving her more power than she ever had. There is still and will always be a struggle between her and her sister, but Maggie now knows she does not need redemption from Dee, nor anyone else, because it is she who carries the importance of the past into the future.
Dee is unappreciative and disrespectful to her own mother and eventually, as with nearly everything; enough is enough and Mama stood up for herself, completely transforming herself as a character. It is necessary in life to treat others the way that you would like to be treated. This seems to be a saying that Mama lived by, but her daughter didn’t reciprocate back to her. “Everyday Use” teaches the reader many lessons of the importance of a family and how easily individuals could be shaped by the world around
One situation in particular that Mama brings up is the time when she offers to Dee to bring some of the ancestral quilts with her to college. She claims, “I had offered Dee a quilt whe...
Right from the beginning of my readings you are introduced to a character named Dee, before you ever get the opportunity to warm up to her character, she shows a very selfish characteristic and that trait is repeatedly brought out in the story. From the start, shortly after the introduction to her new boyfriend, Dee begins to ask for things. For instance, the desk and the chair, Dee wants to take them to help spice up her and Hakim the Barber's house when those objects are still in "everyday use" in their own home. Another instance is when she asks her mother for the quilts her grandmother had quilted, her mother said they were for Maggie (Dee's sister), Dee's reply was that Maggie wouldn't appreciate the quilts and Maggie, being the beautiful person she is, says her older sister can have them.
The story 'Everyday Use', written by Alice Walker, is a story of heritage, pride, and learning what kind of person you really are. In the exposition, the story opens with background information about Dee and Maggie's life, which is being told by Mama. The reader learns that Dee was the type of child that had received everything that she wanted, while Maggie was the complete opposite. The crisis, which occurs later in the story, happens when Dee all of a sudden comes home a different person than she was when she left. During the Climax, Mama realizes that she has often neglected her other child, Maggie, by always giving Dee what she wants. Therefore, in the resolution, Mama defends Maggie by telling Dee that she cannot have the household items that she wants just to show others, instead of putting them to use like Maggie.
As a little girl, Emily clearly indicates to be unlike most children her age. For starters, various illnesses tremendously affect Emily’s physique which makes her look different compared to other little girls. Even her mother expresses “All the baby loveliness gone” (Olsen 291), after had gotten chicken pox. Another consequence derived from being constantly sick is that she looks fragile, “Skeleton thin” (Olsen 292).