Everyday Use Theme Essay

1032 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How is dee described in the essay everyday use

Ashlee Carnahan Dr. K. Lewis ENC 1102-3 9 Oct. 2016 “Everyday Use” and the Importance of Quilting Everyday Use has many underlying themes within its plot. The story embodies the struggle between family members and perspectives of what is important, especially after Dee leaves her home and then comes back with several new ideas that go against her original heritage. Depending on what the reader focuses on and what they have experienced in their own life, they may recognize different themes and motifs than others. The main element that Walker focuses on is the quilts and the “art” of quilting (Piedmont-Marton, para. 1). Walker talks about art in a profound way stating that women “could focus their enormous energies on art forms that were not …show more content…

1). Dee believes that they should not be restricted to just the typical farm life and that they should branch out into other perceptions of African Americans. Where before, being an African American was, in a sense, looked down upon, then this heritage took a turn into being somewhat a fashionable movement (Farrell). And in Everyday Use, Dee is the example of that new perspective on African Americans, especially women. As Mama narrates, she begins to fantasize about the reunion between her and her older daughter (Farrell, para. 3). She wants to impress Dee and worries about how she will feel towards the house and Mama (Farrell). However, Maggie seems to be nervous and withholds herself from the encounter as Dee comes back home and “she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe” (Walker 488). After analyzing this detail, it is evident that Maggie has been put in an uncomfortable situation which suggests she may have harsh or unsure feelings towards Dee, especially now since Dee is returning from getting an education and going into a world outside of her original heritage that she grew up with. Dee’s stronghold on a relatively new idea of family heritage puts her in a different position as compared to Mama and Maggie when it comes to appreciating family

Show More
Related

  • Mama And Dee In Everyday Use

    762 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout “Everyday Use” mama compares the two sisters very often. For instance, “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She is a woman now” (744) Mama is saying Dee is much more attractive than Maggie and how she has the figure of a grown woman, it also shows that Dee is more cherished and appreciated because she is light skin. In the slavery days, Dee would have been an in-house slave while Maggie would have been an outside slave which is based on their physical appearance. Mama also showed bias when she said “Dee feet were always neat looking like God himself shaped them with a certain style.” (745). Mama put Dee on a high pedal stool while she always brought down Maggie, like when she said “she isn’t bright . . . good looks. . . passed her by”. Mama has shown bias between the two sisters since the very beginning of “Everyday Use” comparing the two physical traits. Mama was vey bias throughout the story but between her bias Maggie’s potential and her ignorance tied together brought family themes in this

    Read More

  • Sentimental Gifts in Quilts

    1257 Words  | 3 Pages

    Alice Walker integrates the connotation and symbolism of traditional quilts through her short story, “Everyday Use”. More importantly, Walker illustrates her point through the reasoning of the quilts between Dee and her mother. During Dee’s visit home, she found the quilts in a “trunk at the foot [of her mother’s] bed, then visualized the patches of art work hanging against a wall. Dee also knew that the quilts were priceless. Miss Johnson asked Dee, “What would you do with them?” Dee said, “Hang them. As if that was the only thing you could do with the quilts” (Walker 456). In contrast, Maggie and her mother kept the quilts in a safe place, because they understood the significant role the quilts played in their

    Read More

  • Everyday Use

    1546 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...nderstand each other’s view or just each other. Dee especially believes that these quilts are a representation of what has been discarded as trash just as her culture has, however what she doesn’t see is she was the first to disregard them just as she did her family.

    Read More

  • Everyday Use

    623 Words  | 2 Pages

    When we meet our narrator, the mother of Maggie and Dee, she is waiting in the yard with Maggie for Dee to visit. The mother takes simple pleasure in such a pleasant place where, "anyone can come back and look up at the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house." (Walker 383) This is her basic attitude, the simple everyday pleasures that have nothing to do with great ideas, cultural heritage or family or racial histories. She later reveals to us that she is even more the rough rural woman since she, "can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man." (Walker 383) Hardly a woman one would expect to have much patience with hanging historical quilts on a wall. Daughter Maggie is very much the opposite of her older sister, Dee. Maggie is portrayed as knowing "she is not bright." (Walker 384)

    Read More

  • Dee Character Analysis

    729 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dee is the spoiled daughter who always gets what she wants, while Maggie is the sister who never really got it her way. Dee is the daughter who Mama hopes will one day be successful and help the family financially. But when Dee comes back home from college with a “friend,” her Mama is in for something she did not expect from her daughter. Dee comes home with a different name, and perhaps most importantly, a new personality. This essay will discuss how Dees personality changed and how it impacts her families relationship with her.

    Read More

  • Dee Walker's Character In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

    1110 Words  | 3 Pages

    While reading this there were some animosity toward Dee because of what type of character she was. The animosity was caused by the numerous comments and actions that occurred in the story. She was very selfish, uneducated, and very unappreciative of where she came from. Dee carried herself in a very ridiculous way. Among Dee’s family she is the object of jealousy, awe, and agitation, meanwhile she searches for her purpose and sense of self. Dee and her judgmental nature has an effect on Mama and Maggie, her younger sister. Although she across as being arrogant and insensitive, Mama sees he strive to know more and do more. Dee also portray as being a condensing type person because no matter where Mama and Maggie lived she still kept her commitment to come and visit. When Dee comes to visit she tells Maggie and Mama that she has changed her because Dee had died when she left for college. Dee changed her name to Wangoero, which come across as being an attention seeking ploy who still keeps the selfishness of Dee. With Dee changing her name to Wangoero she wants to reclaim her heritage and honor

    Read More

  • The Meaning of Heritage in Alice Walker's Everyday Use

    988 Words  | 2 Pages

    Baker and Pierce-Baker, Houston and Charlotte. "Patches: Quilts and Community in Alice Walker?s ?Everyday Use.?" Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Eds. Henry Louis Gates and K. A. Appiah. New York: Amistad , 1993.

    Read More

  • Essay on the Setting of Everyday Use

    609 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the short story, "Everyday Use", author Alice Walker uses everyday objects, which are described in the story with some detail, and the reactions of the main characters to these objects, to contrast the simple and practical with the stylish and faddish. The main characters in this story, "Mama" and Maggie on one side, Dee on the other, each have opposing views on the value and worth of the various items in their lives, and the author uses this conflict to make the point that the substance of an object, and of people, is more important than style.

    Read More

  • Family Heritage In Everyday Use

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    The differences in attitude that Dee and Maggie portray about their heritage are seen early in the story. When the family's house burned down ten or twelve years ago, Maggie was deeply affected by the tragedy of losing her home where she grew up. As her mother describes, "She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground" (409). Dee, on the other hand, had hated the house. Her mother had wanted to ask her, "Why don't you dance around the ashes?" (409). Dee did not hold any significance in the home where she had grown up. In her confusion about her heritage, it was just a house to her.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Everyday Use by Alice Walker

    628 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Maggie And Dee In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

    784 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dee is shallow and manipulative. Not only does her education separate her from her family identity and heritage, it prevents her from bonding with her mother and sister. If Dee could only push her arrogance aside, she would be able to develop a deep connection with her family. While connecting with her family, Dee would also develop a deeper understanding of her heritage. Maggie and Mama did not give in to the “whim of an outside world that doesn’t really have much to do with them” (Farrell par.1). In the attempt to “fit” in, Dee has become self-centered, and demanding with her very own family; to the extent of intimidation, and

    Read More

  • Use of Theme in "Everyday Use"

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    The mother describes her younger daughter, Maggie, as ."..not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passed her by," and ."..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's the way my Maggie walks." The reader already feels the older daughter Dee, although ."..stylish...with nicer hair and a fuller figure...and full of knowledge" is more like the careless person rich enough to own a car. Although Maggie and her mother make attempts to improve the appearance of themselves and their home for Dee's arrival and seem eager to see her, having no relation to Dee the reader is given no reason to like her. Already Walker is placing value on "slow, self-conscious," Maggie, who plans on marrying and staying close to home, and casting, Dee, who is attractive and cosmopolitan, and could conceivably bring greater resources to her sister and mother, in a negative light.

    Read More

  • Everyday Use

    814 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Everyday Use" is a short story written by Alice Walker. Walker did a wonderful job illustrating her characters. There are all types of characters in this short story from round to static. Her use of simple symbolism prompts the reader to take a deeper look into the story. Walker’s humble way of conveying the theme makes the reader take a second look at him or herself. Walker did an excellent job in writing this story, so she could warn people of what might happen if they do not live properly.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Time And Place In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

    875 Words  | 2 Pages

    Quilts symbolize a family’s heritage. Maggie adheres the tradition by learning how to quilt from her grandmother and by sewing her own quilts. Maggie also puts her grandmother’s quilts into everyday use. Therefore, when Dee covets the family’s heirloom, wanting to take her grandmother’s hand-stitched quilts away for decoration, Mama gives the quilts to Maggie. Mama believes that Maggie will continually engage with and build upon the family’s history by using the quilts daily rather than distance herself from

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Quilt In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

    1625 Words  | 4 Pages

    She writes in a manner that speaks to where she grew up. The environment was not one of immense wealth, but the knowledge and the love she gathered in this environment is far greater than any monetary amount. As in the story that makes reference about the quilt, Walker tells her stories in a manner that are bided together. “Among some critics there is a tendency, which finds encouragement in Walker’s writing itself, to claim a strong analogy between quilting and storytelling, which allows one in turn to see Walker’s storytelling as metaphorically subsumable to quilting which in this scenario precedes her story”(Whitsitt 445). Walker expresses a different way for the reader to understand her work, because she “quilts” the story in a manner where all things flow together. The quilt is also an important aspect because it keeps the family warm, and offers a feeling of comfort. This is something that can be seen with the struggles African Americans faced during the period Walker wrote this

    Read More

More about Everyday Use Theme Essay

Open Document