The story Everyday Use was written by Alice walker. Alice walker was an American author, poet and activist. She has written many novels, poems and stories. She wrote both fiction and nonfiction books. Everyday use was one of her books and it was published in 1973. This story talks about a family that consists of the mother (narrator) and her two daughters’ (Dee and Maggie). In the story they never say anything about the father because he was dead. The main things that the story is revolving around is the heritage and how it is important, the relationship between the two sisters, how education makes a differences, and finally about how generations changed by time.
Alice walker gave the mother an important character in the story and she tried to show us how the father has a very important part of any family. In everyday use the mother had huge responsibilities and a hard time raising her two daughters. “In real life, I am a big-boned woman with rough, Man-working hands. … I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man.” (Everyday Use lines 26-28). This line shows us that the mother was the one who is responsible for everything. It also shows that she is having a hard time without a husband. She was doing the father and the mother job in the same time.
Education was one of the main reasons that separated Dee from her family. Education make her loss the sense of heritage and the love of her family and also the school made Dee prefer modern life than the one she was