Everyday Use by Alice Walker

Everyday Use by Alice Walker

Author's Background

♦Alice Malsenior Walker (February 9, 1944)

♦An American author and an activist. She wrote the critically acclaimed novel, The Color Purple in 1982 for which she won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.

About Everyday Use

♦From Mama's information, the reader learns that Dee was never happy at home. Maggie was burned in a home fire. Dee seems to look down at Maggie and her mother. The church paid for Dee to go to college.

♦It is also evident that Mama is proud of Dee in her intelligence and looks.

♦Everyday Use is a widely studied and frequently anthologized short story written by Alice Walker.

♦Dee/Wangero - Eldest daughter of "Mama" and sister to Maggie. She is very "educated, worldly, and deeply determined"; she doesn't let anything get in the way of getting what she wants.

Plot

♦Hakim-A-Barber - Dee/wangero's boyfriend, possibly husband. He is referred to as "Asalamalakim", which is a Muslim greeting, by mama because he is Muslim. He is short and stocky and has long hair that reaches his waist and a long, bushy beard.

Characters

Rising Action

Exposition:

♦The story is told in first person by the "Mama", an African American of woman living in the Deep South with other two daughters.

♦It was first published in 1973 as a part of Alice Walker’s short story collection, "In Love and In Trouble".

♦Maggie – A very innocent and humble character; Dull and unattractive (as described by her Mother); She leads a simple and traditional life with her mother in the South while her elder sister, Dee, is away in school.

♦Dee arrives with her boyfriend wearing an "African outfit" and sporting gold earrings.  She has changed her name to an African name Wangero.  Dee was named after her grandmother, so to drop the name was to drop part of her heritage.  To Mama, Wangero says that "Dee" is dead.

♦Maggie and Mama wait in the yard for Dee to arrive. Both of them are nervous because they perceive Dee as better than they are although no one voices that opinion.

♦The story is told in first person by "Mama", an African American woman living in the Deep South with one of her two daughters. The story humorously illustrates the differences between Mrs. Johnson and her shy younger daughter Maggie, who both still adhere to traditional black culture in the rural South, and her educated, successful daughter Dee, or "Wangero" as she prefers to be called, who scorns her immediate roots in favor of a pretentious "native African" identity.

♦Mama – Acts as the Narrator of the story; Also known as Mrs. Johnson. She is a middle-aged or older African-American woman living with her younger daughter, Maggie.

Climax

♦Mama finally realizes that Dee has come back for more than just a visit.  She wants to have some of the things that have been made or used in the family for generations.  When Mama discovers that Dee merely wants to use them as decorations to prove her African heritage, Mama does not like the idea.  

♦Finally, when Dee wants the homemade quilts that the Grandmother Dee and she made, Mama tells her "no" for the first time.  She has promised the quilts to Maggie, and they are hers.  Dee makes the remark that Maggie will ruin them by using them everyday. 

Conflict:

♦In the short story "Everyday Use" the main conflict appears to be over which daughter will get the quilt. However, the underlying conflict is the two daughter’s competition for their mother's love. The quilt is a symbol of the mother's love and acceptance of her child and of the value that is placed on the relationship.

Falling Action

♦Maggie offers to give the quilts to Dee.  However, Mama will not allow Dee to take part of her family legacy just to show off and decorate her apartment. If she ruins them, they will make more.

♦Maggie remembers when the quilts were made, and the importance of them to the family. 

Denouement

Additional/s

Setting:

♦Dee angrily gathers herself and tells Maggie that she needs to learn about her heritage. She also advises her to make something of herself. 

♦In a rural place somewhere in Africa.

♦Homeland of Mama, Maggie and Dee (Wangero).

Theme

♦Dee is possibly emulating the Cultural Nationalists, artists and writers who wore flowing robes and sandals and emphasized the development of black culture as a means of promoting freedom and equality. 

♦They were particularly interested in the aspects of African heritage that had survived centuries of slavery and were still present in African American culture. 

♦The time period in which “Everyday Use” takes place was also an era when groups of all ideologies—some peaceful, some militant—emerged. The Black Panthers and Black Muslims were groups created to resist what they saw as a white-dominated society.

The Meaning of Heritage

♦Angered by what she views as a history of oppression in her family, Dee has constructed a new heritage for herself and rejected her real heritage. She fails to see the family legacy of her given name and takes on a new name, Wangero, which she believes more accurately represents her African heritage. 

Histo-Biographical Content

♦Ultimately, Walker’s story is a critique of individuals who misapplied or misunderstood some of the ideals that black consciousness groups promoted during that time.

♦When Mama looks at Maggie and realizes that this daughter is the one who needs her and loves her,  she realizes that Maggie appreciates her mother and the real family heritage.  The story ends with the mother for the first time showing Maggie affection.

♦The two of them sit down in the front yard and begin to dip snuff.  

♦“Everyday Use” is set in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s, a tumultuous time when many African Americans were struggling to redefine and seize control of their social, cultural, and political identity in American society.