“Everyday Use” helps the readers understand that heritage is very important and will affect one’s life. There is a conflict between Dee, mama, and Maggie. The family has traditions and heritage in which the three characters understand in their own way. In “Everyday Use,” mama changes her life around and wants to do the same for mama and Maggie. “Everyday Use” will show how to put heritage and tradition into using it every day. Through conflict, theme and characterization, Alice Walker portrays Maggie, Dee, and Mama as women from different generations and their heritage. First of all, through several external and internal conflicts, Walker describes that the arrival of Dee will affect Maggie. One conflict, when Dee asks mama if she can have …show more content…
Dee wants mama to change her appearance and the way she dresses herself. “In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands” (Walker). Mama is expressed as a strong, hardworking, and a loving mother. She has an unconditional love for both her daughters Maggie and Dee. Mama is characterized as a mother that let Dee slip through her fingers in letting her leave town. Whitsitt says "Everyday Use" begins with women waiting: Mama Johnson and her daughter Maggie, waiting at home, in the deep rural South, a place they had never left, for a visit from Dee, the daughter who had not waited, the daughter who could not wait to leave home (Whitsitt). Mama and the town raised enough money to help Dee leave so she could have a better life. Mama regrets letting Dee leave but she will not commit the same mistake with Maggie. “I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake” (Walker). Mama expresses herself as a woman that shows her appearance the way her daughter would want her to look. Mama loves both her daughters and would do anything to please them both. Even though, mama sometimes is threatened by her daughters. Mama is also a gentle and stern woman who has given Dee a better future than herself and