Everyday_Use,_a_Literary_Analysis

“The True Inheritance” In the short story, "Everyday Use," Alice Walker teaches us lessons on true inheritance, what it means to the characters and who receives it. The items that Dee (Wangero) comes to retrieve as her inheritance symbolize the true inheritance. They put to “everyday use” the butter dish, churn, and quilts that become the center of conflict in the story. Dee is a child different than the family in which she was raised. She is attractive, quick-witted, confident and educated. “Her feet were always neat looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style.” “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure.” In comparison, Mama, the narrator of the story, does not paint an attractive picture of herself; “…a large, big-boned woman with rough, man working hands…,” and Maggie, “homely” and compared to “a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over….that is the way Maggie walks.” Dee exudes confidence, “She would always look someone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature.” According to Maggie, “… 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 “….will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe.” Mama, being a black woman raised in the early 20th century, lacks self-confidence as well. She wonders, “Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye...I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight,... my head fumed in whichever way is farthest from them.” Mama is an uneducated woman, “I never had an education myself,” and Maggie lacks the intelligence and physical ability; “Sometimes Maggie reads to me, she stumbles along good naturedly but can see well.” Although Mama seems bitter about her daughter’s inherent qualities, asking, “Why don’t you do a dance around the ashes'” Mama sees the need to cultivate Dee’s aspirations to go to school, “…. we raised the money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school.” Dee, “….being named after people who oppress me…” was preoccupied with her own, immature bitterness; “she used to read to us without pity…..forcing words, whole lives upon us…just to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.” Dee arrives at her family home for a visit bearing a new name, Wangero, and a man, Hakim-a-barber, whose relationship to Wangero is not announced, for reasons unknown. Perhaps it is because Wangero, unlike Maggie, is not yet engaged, or maybe it is because she loves a man whose beliefs do not accommodate such traditions. When questioned by Mama as to who is his family, he states, “I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style.” This man is much like Wangero, proud and entitled but never really doing anything. Dee immediately begins treating her sister and mother like artifacts. She takes polaroid pictures not for the sake of memories but “she never takes a shot without making sure the house is included.” The house is simple: “Three rooms…no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides.” In previous letters “that no matter where [Mama and Maggie] “chose” to live, she will manage to come and see [them] but never bring her friends.” As Dee herself doesn’t possess the qualities of a friend, she has never had any real friends, only admirers. The entrance of Hakim-a-barber is symbolic in that he is a mirror of the life that Dee wants to live - the life she left behind. In order to maintain he image that she is portraying to her family, Wangero occasionally looks to Hakim-a-barber for approval. The way he greets Mama and Maggie, “Asalamalakim, my mother and sister!,” suggests that he adopts Mama and Maggie as family. However, upon entering their home immediately refuses to eat their food, saying that “he didn’t eat collards and pork was unclean.” It is ironic that here, Wangero does not do the same thing; she eats all of the food with enthusiasm. Hakim-a barber attempts to shake hands with Maggie “but [he] wants to do it fancy.” Like Dee with her fancy clothing and jewels, he wants to make a grand entrance with no regard to the people and place that they are visiting. When Wangero wants to know the origin of her birth name, Mama explains, “you was named after your aunt Dicie…Grandma Dee…her mother… that’s about as far back as I can trace it…” she muses, “… though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back beyond the Civil War…” Wangero has no real interest in the origin of her name. She only cares to know the heritage of the name and to impress her friend. Hakim-a-barber “…just stood there grinning, looking down on [Mama] like somebody inspecting a Model A car.” Just like Wangero with her photos, Mama and Maggie are being treated like museum pieces, not family. They represented Wangero’s heritage. Wangero marvels over the bench seats at the table and the rump prints they bore, she adds that they were made and used because they “couldn’t afford to buy chairs.” Grandma’s butter dish is next, “I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have.” Still yet is the butter churn. When Wangero inquires about who whittled it, Maggie has the answers, “Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled it ... his name was Henry but they called him Stash.” Wangero simply justifies this knowledge as “Maggie’s brain” being “like an elephant’s.” She is ignorant of the fact that Maggie has the true heritage - unlike Wangero with her false, borrowed sense of self. When Wangero wraps the dasher, she fails to see what Mama sees: “…where hands pushing the dasher….had left a kind of sink in the wood…it was a wood from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived.” This fact would please any real historian or family member searching for family heritage, but Wangero cannot see past them being artifacts. But these are not artifacts, they are everyday household items for Mama and Maggie. Wangero proceeds to Mama’s bedroom, where she begins to rifle through the quilts in Mama’s trunk. Mama knows the history behind the quilts. Maggie learned how to quilt from her family members before her. At this moment, in this room, Wangero disappears and Dee emerges. Hakim-a-barber has gone out to the car. What is left is the same struggle between these three women that they have seen many times before. Dee, “sweet as a bird” using her charms; “Mama, can I have these old quilts'” Mama counters with “a couple of the others.” Dee can only say, “Imagine!” at the quilts. Mama and Maggie do not have to imagine. They know that the quilts were made by Mama and Aunt Dee - from clothing that their mother and father wore. They know the quilting patterns that are used. Just as Maggie had always felt, “no” isn’t a word that Dee knows. She already owns the quilts. Even though Mama says, “I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas,” Dee loses her cool. She insults Maggie in the old childish ways, “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts... she would probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” “She can always make some more,” mama replies. Mama is referring to the fact that Maggie has been receptive to what her ancestors have offered - not fancy things but practical, useful skills. These were the few things that life had afforded the weaker sibling, Maggie. Dee had taken everything else. Must she have it all' Not this time. “Something hit mama on top of the head…just like when [she is] in church and the spirit of God touches [her]…[Mama]did something [she] had never done before…” She escorted Maggie into the room, took the quilts from Dee and gave them to their rightful owner. A speechless Wangero follows after Hakim-a-barber. Unchanged by this event, she lashes out one last insult. But something has changed in Maggie; Mama has stood up to Wangero, no longer intimidated by her beauty, education, and confidence. Walker’s story addresses real concerns that are timeless and universal. Mama no longer has any obligation to Wangero. She has helped her along in every practical way, the only way she knows how. Mama stepped in as the figure of fairness and stand in defense when the weaker offspring was about to be victimized. Although life did not afford Mama and Maggie the same opportunities as Wangero, Mama and Maggie did receive the true inheritance. .