Everyday Use Message

Have you ever met someone who always got everything they wanted? Usually, they aren’t the most generous people. In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, there’s a family with two daughters who do not get treated evenly. To me, the message that is being conveyed is that you don’t always have to get what you want. Dee is the daughter that gets everything she wants all the time. Dee manages to always look fashionable and keep up with the latest trends. Mama tells us that Maggie “thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of her hand, that ‘no’ is a word the world never learned to say to her.” She seems to be very materialistic and thinks she can have anything that she decides she wants. In lines 186-187, Dee says “That’s it! I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have.” Dee knew the answer would be yes before she even asked. “And I want the dasher too,” Dee says. She just came home to visit, and she’s already wanting stuff. It also bothers me how in lines 231-233 Mama says, “Dee moved back just enough so that I couldn’t reach the quilts. They already belonged to her.” I think that’s very disrespectful to her mom, and always getting what she wanted has affected her a lot.

In line 1, Mama says, “I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday morning”. It seems like Maggie doesn’t mind helping out her mom. Also in line 77, Mama says “Sometimes maggie reads to me.” I get the feeling that Maggie is a genuinely sweet person. Although, Maggie may have a little jealously deep down for Dee. In lines 7-8 Mama says “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in the corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe”. She has probably always kind of felt like her sister was better than