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Point Of View In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

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The point of view in the story “Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker plays a big part. Throughout the story, one of Mama’s daughters came to visit. The way Mama and Maggie see her is not in a very pleasant way. In fact, they are scared to tell her no when it comes to anything. From Mama’s perspective Dee seems like this rude, stuck up, spoiled child because she had the opportunity to go out and expand her education, while Mama and Maggie continued to live their lives on the farm. On the other hand, if the point of view was switched to Dee, the way the reader views her, has a possibility of changing. Throughout the story, the speaker, which is Mama, is recalling when Dee came to visit. When the point of view of the story changes and is then told from Dee’s point of view, you are now able to have access to the thoughts she has throughout this visit. In an article about point of view, the author stated, “For example, …show more content…

When you look at it from Dee’s point of few she just seems to be pushing her family to expand their education and have a better life. Dee doesn’t want her family on a farm and raising cattle because that isn’t what she likes. She has an open mind about things and sees them as more than just what they are used for, hence the title, “Everyday Use.” Dee may seem like a rude, spoiled girl, but looking at it from her perspective, all she wants is for her family to live the way she does. Changing the point of view from Mama to Dee would make a major difference. Looking at the story with Dee telling it would allow access to her thoughts so that the reader can understand why she is the way she is. It would allow the reader to access the deeper meaning to certain actions she takes and why she says the things she says. The point of view in a story determines so much for the reader including their feelings towards a certain character, in this case,

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In the short story Everyday Use the character Dee shows the character traits of greed, over confidence, and uptight. One example, of Dee being greedy is how she wanted to take the quilts that her grandmother made. This example shows how Dee is greedy because Maggie deserved the quilts more because she acts like part of the family. An example, of Dee being uptight is when she takes pictures of her family and their house, but does not include herself in the picture. Furthermore this shows how Dee is uptight because she is too embarrassed to include herself in the picture.

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Dee still has yet to educate her family but counties to make fun of them and chastise them about not having the cognitive ability that she us. Dee moved toward other traditions and went again her own traditions involving her on family, in resulting in quest if trying to link into her “African

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Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes.” Her dream shows how the mother dreams of a better relationship with her daughter than the one she has. Dee seems to be embarrassed by her mother and where she comes from. The author shows this when she talks about the burning of their house. She seemed happy to see her house burn down, “Why don’t you do a dance around the ashes?

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The Dee’s mother who is known as, “Mama”, in the story attempts to understand and accept Dee for the path she has chosen, but doesn’t know how. Mama is poorly educated and doesn’t know much about anything outside of the south. Furthermore, Mama meets her Dee’s partner who is a muslim, however Mama doesn’t know what a muslim is. When he greeted Mama by saying the universal greeting by most muslims, “assalamualaikum”, she thought is was his name. Dee and Mama do not see eye to eye and have multiple differences between each other making a direct conflict.

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Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” illustrates Dee’s struggle for identity by placing her quest for a new identity against her family’s desire for maintaining culture and heritage. In the beginning, the narrator, who is the mother of Dee, mentions some details about Dee; how she “...wanted nice things… She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts… At sixteen, she had a style of her own: and (she) knew what style was.” Providing evidence to the thesis, she was obviously trying exceptionally hard to find for herself a sense of identity. She wanted items her family couldn’t afford, so she worked hard to gain these, and she found a sense of identity from them, but it also pushed her farther away from her family.

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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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Dee doesn’t truly know what her culture represents, but instead she tries to use everything from college to apply to everyday life. Dee never appreciated her roots as a child, and she still don’t. Mama and Maggie used the churnand dasher daily with care, and all Dee wants to do with the churn and dasher is “think of something artistic to do with it” ( Walker 273.) She sees the churn as a project she can work on; on the other hand Mama and Maggie see it as a churn with a lot of meaning behind it. Maggie and Mama cherish the handmade quilts that were made by Grandma Dee.

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Dee is one of the two daughters in the story, the other one is Maggie, Dee is show as the perfect daughter because she is educated, but her sister Maggie is show as an ashamed and homely person. At the beginning of the story, before Dee enter to her mom’s house she the took a picture of Maggie and her mom in the yard trying to show us that she is caring the memory of this house through the time because it represents her heritage. In the story, we can see how Dee is dressing in a particular way as the Africans used to “There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun” and she is trying to speak the native language saying words like “Wasuzoteano”. In addition, she changes her name Dee to Wangero “No, Mama,” she says. “Not

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Also, by making the story told by Mama it gives an entirely different meaning then it would if it had been told from Dee’s perspective. Dee would be telling the reader that they should hang up, or put on display all their heirlooms, and never touch them. Finally, she would tach the reader that heritage is less about the people, and more about the illusion of heritage the items create. So having Mama tell the story with her own thoughts make the message more sincere and

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Throughout the Story, “Everyday Use”, Alice Walker used conflict in between the main characters in order to contrast good and evil. Throughout the story, it is apparent that there was a difference in the way that Maggie and Dee were raised. Dee was given a lot of opportunities whereas Maggie wasn’t given much of anything. The author explains how Mama used what little money their family had left to send Dee off to schooling. Despite giving up everything for Dee, there was nothing given back in return.

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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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While Dee seeks to better herself by embracing her roots, she nevertheless subjugates Mama and Maggie by suggesting that they do not know the value of their own culture - one in which they still

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Characterization in “Everyday use” In “Everyday Use” Alice Walker creates the characters of Mom, Maggie, and Dee in order to explore the appreciation and values of African American culture and what it stands for. The story grows around one daughter Dee coming back home to visit her family. As one is introduced to the characters in “Everyday Use”, it becomes noticeable that the two sisters, Maggie and Dee, are very different. Maggie is portrayed as a homely and ignorant girl, while Dee is portrayed as a beautiful and educated woman.

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Dee is a girl who lived with her mom and her sister Maggie, but she wasn’t like them at all, she was different than her sister and her mother. Mama was collecting money to take Dee to school in Augusta. Dee liked to be fashionable, she always wanted nice things. Dee changed allot in the story, she changed after she went to study in school.

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Throughout the story Mama describes both of the girls and how she feels about their differences, even though they are sisters and grew up in the same house. Maggie and Dee are different in their

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