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Critiques of "everyday use" by Alice Walker
Analysis essay about everyday use by alice walker
Analysis essay about everyday use by alice walker
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In Alice Walker’s Short story “Everyday Use” a mother is conflicted between her two daughters and the families quilt. Maggie is uneducated and financial unstable, and Dee is a well-educated woman that’s embarrassed of her family. Each believing they are entitled to family inheritance. The story characterize heritage and how heritage is portaged differently between the two sister. The main characters in this story, "Mama" and Maggie are on one side, and Dee on the other, each have opposing views on the value and worth of the various items in their lives, this conflict makes the point that the substance of an object is more important than style. Dee is the oldest daughter of Mama’s children. She was sent off to boarding school and would visit …show more content…
Dee was part of the educated culture of African Americans that were promoting their freedom. When Dee went to visit her family she wore a long dress, long gold earrings, and her hair standing straight up on that hot summer day. Dee is not dress like everyone else, she’s in her “African” attire. (Hoel) Dee is no longer the child her mother raised; Dee is a completely different individual with a completely new life style, even a new name. Dee has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. With this name change she believes it make her closer to her heritage and relieves her from her oppressors. Dee knows very little about heritage. Heritage is defined as something that is handed down from the past, as a tradition. (Dictionary) The name Dee is the name or nicknames of many women in the family. Dee’s name can be traced back to the civil war and beyond but Dee does not understand the importance behind the name she believes her oppressors gave the women in her family. Yakima-Barber is Dee’s Muslim friend that 's visiting mama with Dee, Mama believes he might be Dee’s boyfriends husband. Yakima-Barber claims the Muslim faith but is unwilling to commit to their hard labor principles. Dee and Yakima-Barber are two individuals with misapplied assumptions of that …show more content…
Dee wants to take the butter churn to use as a center piece for her table. She also wants to take a quilt that Mama promised Maggie, and hang it up to display. All of these objects have a sentimental value but Dee wants to display these objects as art pieces but do not truly understand their value. The quilt has a special meaning to Mama. The quilt was put together by Mama, her mother, her grandmother and so one. There is a lot of history hand stitched into the quilt. Mama will not let Dee have that specific quilt because it is worth more than an art piece. “When I looked at her like that something hit me on the top of my head ran down to the sole of my feet.” (Walker) Although, Maggie will put the quilt through everyday use but she will add to it, and pass it down to her children, which add to the family’s legacy. Mama Prefers to let Maggie have the quilt since she truly understand the value it holds. During the dispute over the quilts, Maggie says “She can have them Mama... I can’ member Grandma Dee without the quilts” (Walker) That shows that Maggie does not want the quilts for decoration but it is a part of who she is, her
... attempts to change the way Mama and Maggie perceive tradition by using the quilts as a wall display. Mama refuses to allow it, Dee was offered the quilts when she was in college and didn’t want them at that time. Mama gives the quilts to Maggie as her wedding gift to be used every day as they were intended, knowing how much Maggie appreciates them. I agree with Mama and Maggie for keeping family memories and objects in daily use. It is important to maintain your family history in your everyday life to preserve those special memories.
Many people show their appreciation for things in different ways. Dee appreciates the quilt for being her heritage. She can't express enough how she feels about it. She can't even imagine that the quilt was hand made with every stitch stroked in and out. As for Maggie, Dee believes she can't appreciate the quilt in the same way she can. "Maggie can't appreciate these quilts." Instead, she thinks that Maggie will use the quilt for about 5 or so years and it will turn into a rag. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use." "Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that!" Dee doesn't feel Maggie deserves the quilt.
The quilts were pieced together by Mama, Grandma Dee, and Big Dee symbolizing a long line of relatives. The quilts made from scraps of dresses worn by Grandma Dee, Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts, and Great Grandpa Ezra’s Civil War uniform represented the family heritage and values, and had been promised to Mama to Maggie when she married. However, Dee does not understand the love put into the making of the quilts, neither does she understand the significance of the quilts as part of her family heritage. It is evident she does not understand the significance of the quilt, having been offered one when went away to college declaring them “as old-fashioned” and “out of style”. She does not care about the value of the quilts to her family, rather she sees it as a work of art, valuable as an African heritage but not as a family heirloom. She wants the quilts because they are handmade, not stitched with around the borders. She tells Mama, “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!... She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use… But, they’re priceless!.. Maggie would put them on her the bed and in five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!” (317). The quilt signifies the family pride and history, which is important to Mama. She makes the decision to give the quilt to Maggie who will appreciate it more than Dee, to whom she says, “God knows I been saving ‘em for long enough with
The daughter Dee, who is coming to visit, has left this rural landscape through her education. Dee has even taken on an African name for herself: Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Dee "couldn't bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me." (Walker 386)
Mama is hoping that Maggie will use the quilt as a practical everyday item. She sees the quilts for their functional use that they were made to use in everyday life. Meanwhile, Dee finds this absurd. She thinks they are too valuable and priceless to be using as everyday necessities. Instead she will hang them. These two ideas of how to use the quilts are in complete contrast of one another. Mama finds them practical, Dee finds them fashiona...
Dee can be characterized as a snobby, superficial, conceited girl. She grows up in a family of hard workers that suffer though many hurdles that have been overcome through much labor. Dee thinks she was always high and mighty because of her education. Everyone at one point in Dee`s neighborhood said she had the most potential; so she went off to school for a better education. She created a life that is fake and unreal to her family. Dee`s false character shows that she doesn’t know herself and what her true feelings are never really show. In the recreation process of Dee; this was a big step for her family to see her again at a big reunion after Dee had finished school. As I read in the book Dee was wearing “a dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out. Her earrings that are too gold and hanging on to her shoulders and bracelets dangling and making too much noise when she moves her arms”, (Walker, p.72). The name of Wangero known as Dee gets out of the car wearing a unique outfit like such to be distinctive. Dee’s attempts being normal by making every item back at home seem as if it’s a museum. However, to Mama and Maggie that wasn’t
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...
...ly?s heritage. So ironically, while Dee is looking for her African-American culture, and it lies right in front of her eyes. Her sister, mother, grandmother, and herself are all a part of their family?s heritage, which stems from the African-American heritage that Dee is so desperate to find.
The main characters in this story appear to be polar opposites. Mama, the narrator of the story, describes herself as a "large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands" (paragraph 5). She does not paint an attractive picture of herself, however she goes on to list the many things she can do. Like the items in the setting around her, she seems more interested in practicality, and less interested in aesthetics. Dee, on the other hand, is defined by her sense of style, and does not seem to do anything. When her name was Dee, she hated the objects around her for their lack of beauty and style. When she became a member of the Nation of Islam and changed her name to Wangero, she saw these old items as a part of her heritage and works of art. At no time, however, did she ever have a real use for them.
Another example of Dee's confusion about her own African-American heritage is expressed when she announces to her mother and sister that she has changed her name to "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo." When her mother questions her about the change, Dee says, "I couldn't bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me" (411). According to her mother, the name has been in the family since before the Civil War and most likely represents family unity to her. However, Dee does not realize that. Apparently, she believes that by changing her name she is expressing solidarity with her African ancestors and rejecting the oppression implied by the taking on of American names by black slaves.
Author Alice Walker, displays the importance of personal identity and the significance of one’s heritage. These subjects are being addressed through the characterization of each character. In the story “Everyday Use”, the mother shows how their daughters are in completely two different worlds. One of her daughter, Maggie, is shy and jealous of her sister Dee and thought her sister had it easy with her life. She is the type that would stay around with her mother and be excluded from the outside world. Dee on the other hand, grew to be more outgoing and exposed to the real, modern world. The story shows how the two girls from different views of life co-exist and have a relationship with each other in the family. Maggie had always felt that Mama, her mother, showed more love and care to Dee over her. It is until the end of the story where we find out Mama cares more about Maggie through the quilt her mother gave to her. Showing that even though Dee is successful and have a more modern life, Maggie herself is just as successful in her own way through her love for her traditions and old w...
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
through she is there with her mom everyday(Cowart 171-72). When Wangero comes back with her boyfriend, she acts like she 's better than them because she found her heritage and she lost what is important to them the mother-daughter relationship. In another source it say “Dee obviously holds a central place in Mama’s world,” so her central place is the reason why all the stuff that she wants she gets especially things that hold heritage value(Susan Farrell 180). The mother-daughter bond that she shares with Wangero is much more special and that bond with her mom should mean more to her then the quilts or anything else with any type of history
At the end of the day, I see Dee's character as a weakness because with all the education and sophistication she does not know the true importance of family and heritage. It is ironical that she tells her mother and sister that they do not understand their heritage, because it does seem that she does not know anything about it either she did change her name after all. Personally, I think that one should not live in isolation of ones history because it defines who you are. Irrespective of the kind of education and experiences Dee has, she should understand that culture can never be acquired. Culture can never be turned on and off at will, but that culture is lived. Finally, Intelligence plus good character is the goal of true education.
But the truth was that she wanted to forget all the Dees who came before her. Dee came with a man who was short and had hair all over his head. Mama didn’t even care to ask Dee if he was her husband or not. He greeted them but with strange word for mama to hear. It was “Alsalamalekim”. She thought that it was his name. Dee asked if she could take the quilts. But mama said that she had promised Maggie to have them as a wedding gift. And she told Dee that she had offered them to her at first when she was at the age of 16 but she rejected them as it was “old fashioned”. Dee didn’t want the quilts in order to remember her grandmother, but she wanted to hang them. But Maggie would use them in everyday use. When mama told Maggie that she will take the quilts not Dee, she couldn’t believe herself, she finally had something for herself not for Dee and she was finally happy. But Dee was angry of mama and she said that Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts and she would use them for everyday use and she didn’t know it was used for that. Then she gets out of the house furiously saying that mama and Maggie just don’t understand their heritage. But mama and Maggie understand that Dee never