Everyday Use

Abstact

• This story is about a mother who is reunited with her daughter, Dee. She has another daughter who is less attractive than Dee named Maggie. She has scars and burn marks from the fire of their first home. The mother imagines her reuniting to be something like from a t.v. show. She thinks it will be tearful, and her daughter will be so happy. She then looks at Maggie who is approaching her. The scars and burn marks remind her of the house fire, and the mother had to carry Maggie out of the house after being burnt really badly. The mother used to believe that Dee hated Maggie. Dee later went to a school in Augusta. The mother never went to school beyond 2nd grade because the school was closed down, and Maggie barely could read, so Dee read to them when she would return from school. Maggie is to wed John Thomas soon, and then mother will just sing church hymns. Dee eventually arrives, and she is wearing inappropraite clothes. Her mother doesn't approve of her boyfriend either. Dee imforms them she has changed her name to another name because she is african. Dee begins to look through her mothers stuff. She finds three quilts made by her mother, aunt, and grandmother. She asks if she could have them. Maggie hears from the other room, and she gets mad. The mother suggests she takes something else because she promised them to Maggie. Dee argues that she would take better care of them because Maggie isn't as smart as she is. Maggie enters and says she can keep them. Then mother is struck by something, and she takes a quilt away from Dee and gives it to Maggie. Dee desides to leave and informs her mother she doesn't know her own herritage.

Analysis

• This story can be look at from a historical critism. People would not understand that black people were not treated differently than white people if they didn't know anything about the civil war and other things in the past that are related to that. Dee is trying to break the barrier of black and white people by changing her name to an original African name, and she also goes to school. Alice Walker is an African American woman and when she wrote this story, black people were still trying to break the barrier. I also read that she was permitatly blind in one eye because of an incident. I think this could relate to the book because of the incident with Maggie. She is a proud of her herritage, and I think that is why she wrote this story about African Americans.