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Everyday Use By Alice Walker Identity Essay

824 Words4 Pages

Identity is found throughout history, from the Renaissance, the world wars, the modern day, and in this short story, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. The Author, Alice Walker, writes from the perspective of a mother in the 1960s; the mother's family consists of her, Mama, and two daughters, Maggie and Dee. The story follows the mother as she relives her past and watches her daughters grow up and face similar struggles of being an African American woman in the 60s. In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” the theme of identity is demonstrated through the setting, Mama, Maggie, and Dee/Wangero.
Before the story's events, the characters suffered a severe house fire. The reader can notice a flashback where Mama relives a moment of the fire. …show more content…

However, she constantly compares herself to her kids, believing they are mentally stronger than her. “Who can imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye?… I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight… Dee, though, would always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature.” (Walker 1). This allows the reader to see that Mama is proud of her kids, as she speaks highly of them. Mama is very “manly” in her own way while keeping and maintaining a soft side through her kids, even though she believes that they are more confident and strong-willed them she ever …show more content…

Dee is strong and confident, and while she is still figuring things out, she holds her ground and keeps a solid will to do so. “She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time… she had a style of her own, and knew what style was.” (Walker 2). Here Dee would hold her ground to anything, the reader can see that Dee is super strong-willed and won’t stop for anything, but in this following quote, Dee is no longer “Dee.” “‘Not ‘Dee,’ Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!’ ‘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 4). Some people could argue that Wangero knows who she is, but as the reader keeps reading, Wangero is wrong about her past. With her being bad about her past, it is hard to say what her identity is, but one thing is for sure, she is very, very confident about what she says and believes in, and doesn’t let anyone change that even if she still hasn’t found her

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In author Alice Walker’s short story, “Everyday Use,” her character, Dee Johnson (later called Wanjero), is well explained to the audience by Walker’s use of characterization to show that Dee is educated, exacting, and entitled. Walker makes sure Dee’s knowledgeable behavior is kept as it is a core part of the story. For example, she went to college, unlike the rest of her family as shown by her knowledge on African American history. She has also “...burned us with knowledge,” according to her mother. In addition to that, Dee constantly displays her exacting ways.

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Jordan May Molly Thornton ENGL 2310 1 December 2016 The New Beginning in “Everyday Use” In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker from the very beginning of the story it is shown by the narrator that Dee or Wangero is a very smart but yet a very stubborn girl who is used to getting her way. She has moved away from home to attend school and try to make a better life for herself. While she is leaving behind part of her past, she makes clear when she gets home that by changing her name from Dee to Wangero that she is no longer going to be named after the people who oppressed her.

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As Dee hold an alternative person when she renamed herself as Wangaro her mother rejected a traditional gender role. She sometimes turn her back on the house because it confess

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In attempts to reconnect with her African roots, Dee has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Dee has also taken an interest in embracing her African heritage and has dressed in traditional African clothes to visit her mother. Her mother knows that Dee’s intentions are not genuine. Worrying more about taking pictures of her mother and collecting items that represent the African culture to take back home, Dee neglects to spend time with her family. Her mother notices that Dee, “Lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me.

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Dee breaks this rule by saying, “But they’re priceless!” Furiously; for she has a temper. “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!”(67). Dee is very upset that she is losing and as a result, she loses her temper and says mean things about maggie which mama is not ok with.

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It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you’d never know it" (6). While Dee was at school, she learned about her heritage, and because she got that education that Mama and Maggie didn’t get, she thinks she is superior to them and knows more. Dee also thinks that they need to be exposed to the outside world and see how much it has changed. As you can see, since going to school, Dee has become a more confident character and thinks she knows the most about their heritage out of everyone in the family.

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Be it the quiet Maggie or prideful Dee of “Everyday Use”, one can see traces of Alice Walker in them and where they diverge into their own characters. To begin with, like Dee, Walker too changed her name, but the only difference lies in the reason that Walker did it in honor of her great-grandmother and grandmother, becoming “Alice Tallulah-Kate Walker” in 1941 (Walker xvi). On the other hand, Dee changed it to incorporate her heritage, which ends up being facetious and insult to the African culture seeing as “Wangero is not a Kikuyu name, but Wanjiru is” (Hoel 37). To add on, Dee’s middle name is a mixture of names “representing the whole East African region. Or more likely, she is confused and has only superficial knowledge of Africa and all it stands for” (Hoel 37).

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To further support this, when Dee finally greets her mother she gives her a kiss on the forehead instead of embracing her with a hug, thus demonstrating once again her superficial attempt at embracing her culture while keeping her distance. In his analysis of the story, Sam Whitsitt states, “she wants to frame the world, define its borders, give it a wholeness which then allows her to handle it without being a part of it” (Whitsitt 448). With this statement, it is seen how Dee does not appreciate her heritage enough to fully immerse herself in it and how she lacks the desire to do so. She manipulates her mother and Maggie by taking the photographs with the house included and makes them believe that she is finally ready to accept their roots when in reality she does not have those intentions.

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