Jealousy In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” the central conflict between the members of the Johnson family⸺Mama, Dee (Wangero), and Maggie⸺is complex. However, the character who clearly fulfills the role of the antagonist is Dee, Mama’s eldest daughter. Dee is a swan among a family of ducks: she possesses a beauty, an intelligence, and a sort of dominance over everyone around her. All of these are qualities which have not graced Mama and Maggie. Naturally, Dee is an object of jealousy in her family. Not only is Dee aware of this fact, she revels in it. Dee possesses many positive qualities, however, they are overshadowed by her negative ones. Even though Dee is incredibly selfish, arrogant, and entitled...she is not evil; therefore, I feel that it is rather unlikely that Dee burned down her family’s first home. …show more content…
One could argue that perhaps the determined young Dee had decided that if she could only destroy her mother’s house (that she’d apparently hated so much) she could escape the roots that she would later reject, and the simple life that she had always been contemptuous of. Although this is not an irrational thought, credit must be given where credit is due. Even in childhood, Dee was rather competent⸺wouldn’t she have realized that setting the house of her economically disadvantaged mother on fire might only result in her family being forced to move into a much less aesthetically pleasing home? (Which is exactly what happened, according to Mama’s narration and description of the second house where the events of the story take