Cultural Lens In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

Using the cultural critical lens when analyzing a story shows the relationships between norms, beliefs, and power dynamics, shedding light on the untold stories that mold identities and experiences. In "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, the use of the cultural lens shows the toxic need to portray one's culture in a certain way. This eventually demonstrates how these efforts can result in distorted and superficial representations rather than expressing authentic cultural identity. This is represented when Dee visits her mother's house and becomes preoccupied with gathering ordinary household items to display as décor in her own home. This shows how disconnected she is from her family and heritage and how superficially she approaches it in an attempt

For her studies, Dee was sent to Augusta, accompanied with a western mindset and aspirations and never cared much for what culture stood in the very place she did, and when she returned home to visit, she shared her newfound interest in becoming in touch with her roots with her family as though it always existed within her. She begins to search around the house for things that could give her personality and character meaning in the form of a centerpiece. “That’s it!” she said. “I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have.” She jumped up from the table and went over to the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it clabber by now. She looked at the churn and looked at it. “This churn top is what I need,” she said. “Didn’t Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?” “Yes,” I said. “Uh huh,” she said happily. “And I want the dasher, too.” “Uncle Buddy whittled that, too?” asked the barber. Dee (Wangero) looked up at me. “Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled the dash,” said Maggie so low you almost couldn’t hear her. “His name was Henry, but they called him Stash.” “Maggie’s brain is like an elephant’s,” Wangero said, laughing. “I can use the churn top as a centerpiece for the alcove

As Dee arrives at her former home, she introduces herself as Wangero and states that she is unable to carry the name any more since it pains her to think that she is related to those who have harmed her and her ancestors in the past. “What happened to ‘Dee’?” I wanted to know. “She’s dead,” Wangero said. “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me.” (Walker 318). She is then taught that her name ran in the family for generations before her and just in her name, runs great history about her culture, but as Mama and Maggie explain to her, she became inattentive and uninterested. This clearly shows that her need to be closer to her culture and heritage is simply just by her words, however the actual wanting to learn about her lineage is irrelevant to her, She views her mother and sister as inferiors, hence whatever they try to prove about her or to her, they will never convince her of anything. Dee's name change can be seen as a type of cultural appropriation or shallowness because she adopts a name that she does not completely comprehend, even if her decision depends entirely on the fact that it is a part of her language and only that. It proves that the internal conflict that exists between Dee's need to stay connected to her ethnic roots and her tendency to romanticize it in order to feel higher than the rest