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Everyday Use And Good Country People Summary

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Everyday Use and Good Country People are short stories with similar themes, can an attitude from one of daughters have an affect on both the mother and daughter’s life. Both Dee and Hulga change their names in order to prove a point . Joy changed her name as a tool to rebel against her mother, Mrs Hopewell while Dee changed her name to express to both Maggie and her mother a new culture. Making Dee’s mother as a rejection towards her identity and heritage. Both relationships between mother and daughter expresses the daughter as being insubordinate. Creating the question was a way to help me understand the message throughout the story and to reframe the tensions and connections between mother and daughter. Rereading the text with the question in mind helped me understand that both Joy and Dee see their mother as an unsophisticated knowledgeable person. I noticed both daughters feel superior to everyone else, causing the conflict in the stories. However Rachel Pietka explains within the article Good country people" unmasked: Hulga's journey to salvation that Hulga bases her identity on self-aggrandized superiority towards …show more content…

Flight: A Re-Evaluation of Dee in Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use. Dee has inherited her stubbornness and self determination from her mother. Dee’s mother triumph is achieved because she is able to attain a balance between heritage in both of her daughters. Maggies respect for tradition and Dee’s refusal to back down. My thoughts shift into a perspective that Dee’s ways has lead the true colors of her mother to shine. Dee is an actual representation of her mother. Which leads me to believe that an action of Dee becomes an effect towards the mother. When Dee explained to her mother that she would take the quilts and portray them in a museum, the mother got up snatched the quilts, using the same attitude Dee uses towards

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1083 Words | 5 Pages

1. Joy changes her name to “Hulga” because she is acting in an act of rebellion to her mother. She knows her mother’s wants her to have a really pretty name and “Hulga” is the ugliest name Joy could think of that her mom will hate. Mrs. Hopewell is for sure that Hulga looked for that name until she finally found the ugliest name she could think of and after that Joy legalized it so it would be for sure certain. Hulga’s poor health keeps her at her home all the time.

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614 Words | 3 Pages

Dee has more advantages than Mama and Maggie both combined. Mama struggled so Dee could go to school in Augusta along with the financial help of the community. She oftentimes uses her interlet to intimidate others around her including her own family members. The short story states, “She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice.” Maggie does not know as nearly as much as Dee.

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With her newfound intelligence came an air of superiority. She views her family as relics of the past who exist only to be catalogued. Walker shows this with the first action Dee takes upon arrival at her mother's home. She immediately takes a picture of the house with her family in the photo, but does not bother to ask her partner to take the photo for her to be in frame with her family; distancing them as mere

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794 Words | 4 Pages

Often in literature, character relationships change and evolve. In “Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker is about a mom and her two daughters, Maggie the quiet one and Dee the one who's stuck up and full of herself. Dee exploited her mother because she could not say no to her. Her mother believed she sabotaged their house by burning it down because she was embarrassed of the way they lived. Mama and the church had raised enough money to send Dee to college; when she came back she had completely changed her name and her view on her heritage.

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1271 Words | 6 Pages

In Alice Walker’s short story Everyday Use, readers are given a look inside the thoughts of Ms. Johnson as she is reunited with her daughter Dee or “Wangero” as she now calls herself. What makes this short story thought provoking is the way Walker depicts Ms. Johnson’s reaction to Dee’s new found identity and new found appreciation for a life she once despised. Ms. Johnson noted that as a child, Dee hated their previous home which burned down years ago: this also resulted in Maggie’s burn scars. The purpose of this essay is to explore the symbolism embodied in the family’s yard, Maggie’s burn scars, the trunk with quilts and Dee’s Polaroid camera. It is obvious in this story that Dee has untasteful intentions for the use of her family’s heritage for vain purposes.

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1091 Words | 5 Pages

“Everyday Use By Alice Walker” Heritage is an important factor of, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. Given that that heritage is very important because it represents where people come from. It gives the reader an understanding of how people portray what heritage means and what it actually really means in the story. The family which represent the “concept of heritage as expressed by the Black political movements of the 60s”(Hoel, 1). Throughout the story the narrator's point of view, creates characters and setting which create theme and conflict between Dee and Mama.

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792 Words | 4 Pages

Character Analysis of the Protagonist in “Everyday Use” Like an onion, the protagonist (mom) in Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” has many layers to her character. As a single parent the mom has to solely provide the necessities of life for her kids, being the only emotional support and dealing with daughters whom are both needing their mother’s wisdom. Her daughter Dee/Wangero, an exceptionally beautiful young woman blessed with “her feet …always neat-looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style” (111), is having an identity crisis as well as being used to getting what she wants. These character traits of Dee/Wangero ultimately creates a conflict within the family dynamic. Maggie is the complete opposite of her sister, while Dee/Wangero is beautiful and smart, Maggie is disfigured and simple-minded.

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830 Words | 4 Pages

The point of the quilts is to be of everyday use to their family. Just like Dee’s name that was passed down, and she changed, the quilts represent generations of their family history. Despite her poor education and lack of worldliness, especially compared to her daughter, it is Mama who is able to see just how shallow Dee’s motives really are. The quilt is a connection between generations that is supposed to be strong and, ideally,

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This is also evident from the character of Dee who has chosen to change her given name and then also connect with her provided roots of Africa while her mother is also seeing herself as been within the network of her immediate family traditions. Dee also depicts the idea that how she lacks the given understanding of her own heritage. She has rejected the idea of her immediate family but however puts the values which the quilts have made. She also

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1244 Words | 5 Pages

Maggie and Mama chose to identify with the people that are in their area and settle with the cards they were dealt. Dee choses to identify with the African American culture and really starts to understand the culture she came from. These family dynamics present a learning opportunity on both sides. Dee needs to recognize that her roots are not necessarily from the African American cultures that she is submerging herself into. On the contrary, Mama and Maggie should recognize that Dee is attempting to educate herself on a culture that her family emerged from.

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706 Words | 3 Pages

When Dee arrives at her family home, she is dismissive of her mother's home, referring to it as a shack, and is critical of her sister, Maggie's appearance. Even though her family has a rich cultural heritage rooted in their African American history, her mother and sister value their origin's practical and functional aspects. This attitude shows a lack of appreciation for the practical and functional aspects of her culture, which are just as important as the artistic aspects. The conflict between the sisters is ultimately resolved when Mama decides to give the quilts to Maggie, who plans to use them in her everyday life rather than keep them as a symbol of her cultural heritage.

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339 Words | 2 Pages

In Everyday Use, Alice Walker illuminates systemic racism through one of the characters Dee. Dee does appreciate her heritage as her sister Maggie does. Dee dresses differently as it is described when she comes to visit her Mama from the college trip. Dee changed her name and her we realized she has changed. Your name is what represents who you are and by changing it you are changing your background.

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610 Words | 3 Pages

Characterization in “Everyday use” In “Everyday Use” Alice Walker creates the characters of Mom, Maggie, and Dee in order to explore the appreciation and values of African American culture and what it stands for. The story grows around one daughter Dee coming back home to visit her family. As one is introduced to the characters in “Everyday Use”, it becomes noticeable that the two sisters, Maggie and Dee, are very different. Maggie is portrayed as a homely and ignorant girl, while Dee is portrayed as a beautiful and educated woman.

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721 Words | 3 Pages

Dee is a girl who lived with her mom and her sister Maggie, but she wasn’t like them at all, she was different than her sister and her mother. Mama was collecting money to take Dee to school in Augusta. Dee liked to be fashionable, she always wanted nice things. Dee changed allot in the story, she changed after she went to study in school.

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1029 Words | 5 Pages

And, womanism here represented through Mama, calls for a critical relatedness to the heritage. The narrative articulates the shallowness of Dee’s

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