Everyday Use Literary Analysis

The Merriam Webster definition of family is, “A group of people, usually of the same blood (but do not have to be), who genuinely love, trust, care about, and look out for each other” (Merriam Webster). In Alice Walker’s short story, Everyday Use, she provides a family structure that is lacking the typical family dynamic. The narrator is a mother of two girls, Dee and Maggie. A catastrophic house fire left Maggie with several burns among her arms and legs, but her self-confidence also burned with the fire. Maggie envies her older sibling, Dee, who is a beautiful young woman and rarely hears the word no. When Dee returns to her family’s new house for a visit with a boy, tension between the two siblings reaches an all time high. Dee wants to

Dee has an understanding that the world is changing and refuses to let the world define her future. In spite of the oppression she fears of receiving, she changes her name. She does not want to have a name given to her by the people who repressed her. It becomes apparent that Dee is not at the house to visit her family, but to come to reclaim some of the antics from the past. These are not to remind her of her past, but to show off to the people she surrounds herself with at home. The quilts and other items are all useless to Dee. she sees them as objects that can be tossed aside or thrown out when desired. Dee wants to flash off the items to show her worth. Sam Whitsitt mentions, “Maggie and her mother represent ‘everyday use’ and keeping things at home, whereas Dee represents a false aesthetics which put things out of use…”. This is where the idea of identity comes through. 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. All of the characters gain something from the symbolic scene of Mama snatching the quilts up from Dee. Barbara Christian’s insight says, “Walker’s characters often act in spite of themselves is critical”. Maggie spites herself by offering up the quilts for Dee to take, Mama spites herself by agreeing that Maggie would be ignorant enough to ruin something of value, and Dee spites herself by trying to steal the quilts away. Although they all doing