Alice Walker Meaning

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Authors have the ability to make many creative decisions. One of those decisions is deciding on what to name the story. It can either be straightforward and obvious, or it can have alternate meanings. Often, when the title has different meanings, the authors has a lesson to teach. “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker talks about the relationships between a mother to daughter and sister to sister. Alice Walker chose the title “Everyday Use”, because it shows, to embrace your past, the importance of family, and not to look past the things we use everyday.

Alice Walker chose the title “Everyday Use”, to show to embrace your past. Momma and Maggie don’t even feel like they are at home when Dee comes to visits. Dee thinks she is better than the people that surround her. When it finally came time for momma to choose between the two on who should get the quilts, she chose Maggie instead of Dee. Walker states on page 1319, “Maggie would put them on a bed and in five years they’ll be in rags. Less than that. She can Always make more.” Maggie was going to embrace the quilts and use them as a reminder of where she came from. Dee would have hung them up as if they were beneath her. Maggie would put the quilts …show more content…

More often than not, the things that are most important to us in life are right in front of us, and we never take the time to look down. The things that we use everyday are the things we are going to miss. Those are the things that memories are based off of, not a picture hanging on a wall, or a vase on a shelf. Walker states on page 1318, “I took it for a moment in my hands. You didn’t even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood.” What makes things special, are those memories that are embedded in them. It is the little things in life that we come to cherish the