The Role Of Mother In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

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As we go through life and learn, a story is never one sided. It always has two different sides and two different perspectives of what actually happened. This same concept can be applied to the stories we read. Just because someone is the narrator does not make the protagonist. They could be the antagonist, but they are trying to get you on their side. As you read Alice Walker’s Everyday use, we are taken through the mind of the mother. She takes us on an adventure through her thoughts as her daughter, who is different from her mother, visits. This short story, Everyday Use, is narrated by the mother of the two girls. Since the story is from the point of view of the Mother, it seems like we should naturally side with her. Naturally, we assume …show more content…

Naturally, this creates tension within a family. But how does this relate to the the protagonist and antagonist in this short story? Again, naturally we assume the mother is the Protagonist and Dee/Wangero is the antagonist. In this short story, the point of view is from the mother. The first line of the story tells us this. “I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon” (Walker 1531). The mother also tells us that her and Dee/Wangero do not get along very well. The narrator of the story said, “A pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?” (Wallace 1531). The climax of the short story happens when Dee/Wangero wants two quilts that mean so much to the narrator. We can infer this when the narrator says, “These old things was just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died.” (Walker 1535). At the end of the short story, Dee/Wangero basically throws a tantrum and leaves. But at the end, the narrator of the story does not seem bothered by this because she is content with her life as it is. Could this story be seen from the opposite point of view from where Dee/Wangero is the protagonist and the narrator of the story is the antagonist? It is completely possible. In this story, it seems like the narrator has a deep feeling of angst towards

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