Everyday Use
In Alice Walker's short story Everyday Use, assuming the role of the narrator is an older Southern black woman faced with a tough decision. Between her two daughters, she must decide who will be given two antique quilts that have been passed down from one generation to the next in their family. Dee, her eldest daughter visiting from college, perceives the quilts as popular fashion and believes they should be given to her without a doubt. Maggie, her youngest daughter, who still lives at home, follows family tradition, and who has a greater appreciation for her family heritage, had been promised the quilts years before. Dee insists that it is she who deserves these heirlooms of family heritage, while Maggie is forbearing and allows Mama to make her own decision as to who should receive the quilts. Throughout the story Dee shows a lack of respect, appreciation, and a distancing behavior towards her mother and sister. Ultimately, Mama decides to give the quilts to Maggie an! Mama recognizes Dee's contrasting style of life and the lack of appreciation her character displays. Her mother states, "I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee a quilt when she went away to college. Then she ha
d told me they were old-fashioned, out of style." Dee, apparently, has no appreciation for things unless they lead to her own self-gratification at the time. After being away at college, she demands to be given the quilts that her grandmother and aunt had made, for she now sees these precious items as fashionable objects. "Dee wanted nice things. At sixteen she had a style of her own and knew what style was." The fact that she wanted nicer things sharply contrasts with Mama's conservative nature. Mama was not the type to focus on what she wanted, but rather what she needed to get by. She learned about life by way of hard work as she recalls, "I was always better at a man's job. I used to love to milk till I was hoofed in the side in 49." By virtue of! her life of hard work, Mama is intimately acquainted with labor and can relate to the arduous work that putting a quilt together entails. This form of understanding bears heavily on Mama's decision as she gives the quilts to the daughter who she thinks will appreciate them the most. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dee is clearly distancing herself from her mother, sister, and on a larger scale, her own heritage. She goes so far as to change her name from Dee to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, stating, "I couldn't bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me." Yet, she wants the quilts that are made by the very people that carry such names as her own. Although without any sort of formal education, mama is not so ignorant
Some common words found in the essay are:
Leewanika Kemanjo, Ultimately Mama, Dee Maggie, Alice Walker's, Naturally Mama, Mama Maggie's, Dee Dee, quilts daughter, appreciate quilts, Dee Walker, Mama Dee, mama's decision, dee maggie, mother sister, quilts dee, family heritage, life hard, quilts maggie, mama dee,
Approximate Word count = 1045
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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