Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” tells a story about two sisters, Maggie and Dee, and how their personal experiences have made them grow apart and have completely different personalities. This narrative is told by their mother who describes, in detail, the different characteristics of her daughters. This story shows how people, even those as close as sisters, can change over time and have very different views on life from one another. Dee, the eldest sister, was flashy, beautiful and smart, but she wasn’t as humble and kind as Maggie. She was confident and believed in herself. She seemed as though nothing nor no one in the world could scare her and “she would always look anyone in the eye” (Walker 2). When comparing Dee to her mother and sister it was easy to see that she had greater knowledge and education than they did. The mother stated, “I had never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down” (2). She also said that Maggie would read to …show more content…
She stated that “Dee” was dead and her new name was “Wango Leewanika Kemanjo.” Unlike her sister, Maggie wasn’t very attractive, mainly because of the scars she had obtained from the house fire, and she had a low self-esteem. Maggie seemed to like her home and traditions and didn’t want a different lifestyle. She did not care for all of the materialistic things as Wango (Dee) did. Maggie saw more sentimental value in things that Dee would see as useless or as something to take advantage of, like when Dee asked her mother for the “old quilts” (7). All Dee wanted to do with them was hang them up or sale them, where Maggie, on the contrary, would put them to “Everyday Use.” Maggie, being the bigger person, told her mother that Dee could have the quilts and that she could remember her Grandma Dee without them (8). This act filled their mother’s heart and she took the quilts from Dee and gave them to