Everyday_Use_by_Alice_Walker

Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” In the short story “Everyday Use” Alice Walker depicts the importance of African-American heritage. Through the use of the setting, plot, characters, style and atmosphere, this piece of literature shines a theme that mirrors black culture in the United States. Shallow reading would uncover Alice Walker’s story to be that of a mother who discards the superficial values of one daughter, for the everyday homely values of her other ill-fated daughter, however, underneath lays much more substance than the common reader would comprehend. In order to fully understand the concept of this story one must read further in depth and establish meaning to not only the plot, but each character, along with other elements as well. Each element carries an important aspect to the central theme behind “Everyday Use”, without them the personality and inspiration for Alice Walker’s ideal is lost. As many know, a setting is something that enables the reader to establish the time and place that an event takes place. It allows the reader to envision and understand the context of the story that much better along with aiding in encouraging a reaction and mood out of the reader. It is safe to say that “Everyday Use” takes place in the 1960’s because Ms. Johnson details not only her submissiveness but also her daughter Maggie’s submissiveness to the white man. Mama (Ms. Johnson) lets us know her comfort level with white men when she reflects on page 402, “ Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye' It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them.” This is anything but irrelevant due to the younger generation pushing the “Black Pride” movement at this point in time. Mama represents the older generation of those who were tangled in the segregation during the early 1900’s, whereas Dee her older daughter represents the younger generation of African-Americans who took part in the “Black Pride” movement. When understanding the setting the reader is allowed to comprehend the plot on a deeper level, therefore pushing their minds to allow new ideals to come into place. Within the plot there are main events laced in a sequence that enables the theme to come through, the involvement of a protagonist and antagonist aid in pushing the plot forward and play into the interest of the readers. Walker begins the story with Mama reflecting on many different aspects of life. Not only does she reflect on her surroundings and herself, but both her daughters as well. While Mama is constantly reflecting internally, many events occur during this process that influences her actions towards the end of “Everyday Use”. Both Mama and her youngest daughter Maggie await the visit of Dee who is Mamas oldest daughter. Coming into this there is uneasiness in the air as they await Dee’s arrival on account of her “faultfinding” (P404) personality. Mama goes off to reflect on the relationship she has with Dee by comparing it to that of a TV show when parents are reunited with their child who has “made it”; the sense of joy that would occur in such a matter would not be the case in Mama and Dee’s situation. Mama goes to say, “What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other'” (P402). Already it is established that there is a strain between Dee and Mama. This idea continues to reveal itself when Mama expresses her feeling of ignorance and lessened self worth when Dee had read to her and Maggie only to push their so called “ignorance” in their face. Once Dee arrives her sister Maggie tries to make a dash for the house in attempts of being unseen, seeing this there is not only a known strain between Dee and her mother but her sister as well. Dee has brought along a man unknown to her family, without introducing him Dee says a quick hello and quickly starts taking pictures of Mama and Maggie on her Polaroid. Once she was done Dee gave Mama a quick kiss and then went into telling her family that she disowns her name and has acquired a new name that didn’t bear that of the people who have “oppressed” her. Her new name, “Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo” was a symbol of her breakage from the oppression that African-Americans were put through. Already the reader can experience the insincerity and forwardness that comes through Dee’s personality. Here we can see tension rising through Dee’s disregard to the lineage of her name. After the quick discussion of Dee’s name Mama, Maggie, Wangero and her male guest Hakim-a-barber sat down to eat. Wangero managed to turn the meal into a discussion of what she wanted to acquire from Mama. Wangero’s “need” for the churn top and dasher opens readers to the idea that she concerned with materialistic things and is ignorant of the background of items she desires. After dinner Wangero rummages through the trunk and decides she wants the quilts her Grandma made. Things turn for the worse in leading to the climactic event when Mama tells Wangero she has reserved them for Maggie. Not accepting “no” for an answer, she continues to debunk Maggie’s use for the quilts by saying that she will ruin them by putting them to “everyday use”. Use to getting the short end of the stick, Maggie tells Mama that Wangero could have the quilts because she doesn’t need them to remember Grandma Dee. Hearing this and seeing Maggie’s dismay, Mama snatched the quilts from Wangero and told her to take two of the other quilts. This climax lead to a blunt falling action where Wangero left and told them, “You just don’t understand,”(P.410) referring to their heritage. Once she and Hakim-a-barber had left, Mama and Maggie sat in enjoyment until it was time to go to bed. The characters in “Everyday Use” represent different aspects that tie into the theme of the story. Although it is obvious who the antagonists and protagonists were, there is more to their shapes that require character analysis. Mama see’s herself as a “large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands.” (P402). She comes off as a practical woman who is full of love and understanding of her heritage, even though she may not know much outside her world. This comes through when she touches the dasher and quilts. Mama feels and remembers each person who had used and made those pieces passed down to her. This is shown from Mama’s description of the quilts, “They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them.” She adds on that in both quilts were scraps of Grandma Dee’s dresses, “pieces of Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts”, and a teeny piece from Great Grandpa Ezra’s uniform he wore in the Civil War. When seeing those quilts she not only remembers her heritages but, remembers the people who had lived before her and had each had their part in creating the two beautiful quilts. On the other hand we have Dee (Wangero) who is the smart, beautiful and self-centered daughter. Mama views her as one who “would always look anyone in the eye” and someone who would “stare down any disaster in her efforts.” (P.404). Dee’s aggressive composition is what leads her to assert her rights to the quilts along with the other items in Walker’s story. She claims to know her heritage, and yet fails to know anything of substance about her direct heritage. One example would be when Dee said that the quilts were composed of her grandma’s dresses and were stitched by hand from her grandma alone. In fact it was composed of not only her Grandma Dee’s clothing, but from her grandpa and great grandpa’s clothing as well. Not only did she fail to recognize this, but also she didn’t care to know that her own mother and aunt had helped in quilting them. If Dee has knowledge of her heritage it is one of the shallow and superficial sort. When she declared that she changed her name to one that was not oppressed she in turn rejected her family heritage along with the long lineage of the name that was given to her to carry on. Although her attempt be more cultured was one of good faith, she ended up becoming ignorant of all her ancestors before her that bared extreme burdens during their encounters with slavery as well as segregation. In contrast to Dee we have Maggie who is someone who is not use to winning. Mama describes Maggie as seen as, “a lame animal, 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 them.” (P403). Maggie seldom speaks in “Everyday Use”, however she represents an important quality of the story. She is perceived as someone who has been hurt when Mama describes that she has been scared and burned from the fire of the house they had lived in before. These scars and her quiet demeanor represent not only an opposition to the antagonist (Dee) but African American’s as a whole during the oppression they have endured. Alice Walker’s style of writing “Everyday Use” was from that of a first person point of view. In order to feel and understand the plot and each character, Walker had to write as if it was done through the person who was living in it. Mama is the narrator and casts an atmosphere of disappointment. This mood and tone, purveys throughout most of the story. She is constantly at odds with her own opinions of her two contrasting daughters. Not completely satisfied with either, she creates a sense of self-conflict as well as disappointment until the end of the story; whether it is with Maggie’s lack of beauty and brains, or Dee’s pronounced egotistical manner and superficial understanding of heritage. The most significant element of “Everyday Use” was the theme itself. Walker works the underlying idea of the story very strategically so that the readers feel the theme before they realize what it is they are encountering. Naturally it seems as if Walker is trying to portray Mama’s decision to side with her more practical daughter rather than Dee who broods with insincerity. However when read in depth, one realizes that Walker is using the characters to portray the “Black Pride” movement that was happening during the sixties. Dee represents those who jumped on the movement without fully realizing what they stood for. Although she seemed cultured through her outfit and yearn for artifacts that represented her heritage, she failed to understand the meaning behind it. In rejecting her birth name, she in turn rejected the hundreds of years of struggle that her ancestors endured, therefore rejecting a crucial part of her heritage that she claims to understand. Where Dee represents one end of the spectrum, Maggie symbolizes the other. Her submissive character entails the lifestyle African-Americans went through during their struggling years of oppression in the United States. Maggie represents the American heritage of African-Americans, without accepting and recognizing this important fragment of history; the understanding of African-American heritage is lost. Walker is not condemning the “Black Pride” movement, however she is getting across that in order to be a rounded person one must accept all aspects to ones heritage.