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Everyday Use By Alice Walker Analysis

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In Alice Walker’s classic short story, “Everyday Use,” the narrator tells a story of her two daughters, Dee and Maggie, and their conflicting ideas about identification and ancestry. Walker uses the difference in education and importance of family tradition to showcase conflicts between Mama and her daughters. Through these differences, Mama is forced to question the kind of women her daughters have become and ultimately choose one to take care of a significant piece of their family history. Mama is a gentle, but stern, strong female figure. “I am a large, big- boned woman with rough, man- working hands” (1531). She lives a tough life but provides for her family and does what she has to do. Through monologue, it is easy to see a glimpse of Mama’s unconditional love for her daughters despite her brutally honest, and sometimes critical, comments of them. While getting to know the narrator, the reader is …show more content…

The quilts are most valuable to Mama and Maggie who view them as practical household items and not just art to hang on the wall. Dee claims that she wants to preserve the quilts and protect them from any harm Maggie could do if they were in her possession. “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts! She’d probably be backwards enough to put them to everyday use” (1536). In this moment, Mama realizes just how materialistic and distant Dee has become. 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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Dee is asking for the quilts to pay “homage” to her heritage. But she is also stripping this heritage from her sister by taking the quilts. Maggie is the sister who never derived from her home and true culture where the quilt was fabricated. Instead of

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818 Words | 4 Pages

The quilts are the main portion of the story because they represent Mama’s family heritage. The quilts are composed of “scrapes of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra’s uniform that he wore in the Civil War” (Walker 152). They also represent coming together and healing.

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The family leads a hard working, simple and minimalistic life that allows them just enough to get by. Mama is described as a “large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands” (Walker 418). Her day to day life doesn’t allow for the high standards of her eldest daughter Dee. Dee is described by Mama as being unappreciative and bratty. Mama makes is clear that the family’s socioeconomic status would never be good enough for the eldest daughter.

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She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use” (Walker 6). This quote clearly shows, there is a competition between sisters for their mother’s love and who will get the quilts. What Walker really means is that Dee see these quilts as a symbol of materialism and there are not quilts for everyday use but to exhibit in someone’s home as a decoration. Another conflict in the story is when Mama confronts her daughter Dee and tells her

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1338 Words | 6 Pages

“the quilts are the central symbol of the story representing the connectedness of history and intergenerational tries of the family” (“everyday use”). This means that the quilts mean heritage and remind the daughters of grand mom dee. The quilts are fought over at the end of the story because of the meaning of them. One daughter wants them for everyday use and one wants them just to have them because it means heritage to her. The mother at the end of the story agrees that they should be used for everyday use.

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725 Words | 3 Pages

Mama will not let her have it because she already promised to Maggie that she was going to give them to her. Dee arguing with Mama “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” she said. “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” (Walker 6).

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958 Words | 4 Pages

The Symbolism of Quilts in Everyday Use Alice Walker’s 1973 short story, Everyday Use, is about a rivalry between a mother and her daughter, and how they have a complicated relationship in regards to their heritage. The two characters named Mama who narrates the story and Dee who was the annoying, selfish one have a complex relationship. The issues both of them had was that Dee cares about her life and being smarter than caring about her family, and Mama became upset. Mama with the help of her sister, and mother has decided to create clothing called quilts. The quilts were handmade, used for bedding, and portrayed the artistry of the family.

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992 Words | 4 Pages

Dee attempts to take an old, sentimental quilt, and

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The quilts have a different value for each daughter. In Maggie case, “it was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt”, her mother promised her the quilts after she was married, and because they were meant to be used and appreciated. Maggie hints that she thinks of the quilts as a reminder of her aunt and grandmother when she says, “I can ‘member Grandma Dee without the quilts” (321 Walker). Dee/Wangero sees the quilts as “priceless” (320 Walker). Before she went away for school, her mother offered her a quilt, but she said “they were old-fashioned, out of style” (320

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This new outlook on her life caused Dee to place different values on the items with which she had grown up. She wanted to take the items as things to put on display like art hanging on a wall. Dee even wanted the cherished quilts to “hang them” (Walker, 1973) instead of using them as blankets. As she saw it, to use the quilts for their original purpose would destroy them, or as she said, “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they 'd be in rags” (Walker, 1973).

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629 Words | 3 Pages

With determined ambitions and education resulted in a lack of sensibility in heritage, history, and self identity, which only family can implement. Dee presents herself almost as a weird, intimidating individual foreign to what her family has ever known. The conflict that Mama and Maggie are confronted with is that Dee is does not care about anything but herself. When being rejected to have possession of the quilts Dee stated “But they’re priceless! She was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper.”.

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Mother-little girl connections can be mind boggling, yet in addition loaded with empathy and love. In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker the narrator is the

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The short story, Everyday Use, is written by Alice Walker. This short story tells about the narrator, mama, and her daughter Maggie wait for a visit from Dee, mama’s older daughter. Throughout this short story, the reader can see the distraught relationship between mama and Dee. The reader can see how Dee is different than mama and Maggie; she thinks that she knows way more about her heritage than mama and Maggie, when she really does not. In the short story, Everyday Use, Walker uses imagery, symbolism, and point of view to show that heritage can only be understood when one is true to their roots.

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802 Words | 4 Pages

When Ms. Johnson snatches the quilts away from Maggie the quilts are more of a symbol of Ms. Johnson 's voice rather than the object itself. The quilt can be looked at as the right to defend the culture against the superficial need of Dee. Maggie 's tone is more of disgust and irritation rather than envy. Dee is representing someone who is living the opposite lifestyle of Ms. Johnson and Maggie. Dee is still wanting this part of her heritage to ignite her ego even more.

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742 Words | 3 Pages

The accentuation on the physical qualities of the yard or their extended living room, the pleasure in it points to the attachment that Mrs. Johnson as the narrator and Maggie have to their home and to the everyday routine of their lives. The narrator being aware of her standing and culture is also aware with her daughters’ characters despite of their differences. Mama describes herself as “a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. 　　　

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