Everyday Use Essay

In the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, one can infer that this story takes place in the 1960s. Based on the mention of Johnny Carson in the exposition (46), the reader can already assume that the story is at least in 1962, because that is when Carson’s famous “The Tonight Show” would have first aired. Another important part of the same era would be the civil rights movement. It was a “new day” for black people (55), and one religious movement was a large part of it: the Nation of Islam and its charismatic spokesperson, Malcolm X. This is how the idea of black pride is used in this short story. The Nation of Islam, which was founded in the early 1930’s, believed that the blacks had been stepped on by the Americans for far too long. This can be evidenced in the story through Mama; her education came to a halt at the second grade because her school had closed. To put it poignantly, Mama says, “In 1927, colored asked fewer questions” (49). Another important belief of the Nation of Islam was that black people should get rid of their names if they sound too “white”. Elijah Muhammad, the first leader of the Nation of Islam, was originally named Elijah Poole; he changed his last name to that of the prophet of the Islamic faith. Dee does the same thing by changing her name to Wangero; she could …show more content…
On top of the story’s connection to its supposed time period, the same supposed time period had a large effect on the story’s author: Alice Walker. In 1962, Walker had the chance to meet Martin Luther King Jr., another famous (if not the most famous) civil rights movement leader, at his home during a peace festival. Walker’s most famous novel, The Color Purple, has a similar environment of segregation. Therefore, in the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, the time period of the civil rights movement plays an influential part in the way characters