Maggie Receive The Quilts In Everyday Use By Alice Cooper

It is impossible to be considered a family without having been in an argument or disagreed about something before. So naturally, a disagreement takes place within the family in Everyday Use; however, this argument reveals much more than the average family squabble. Everyday Use is a short story written by Alice Cooper and published in her collection of short stories titled In Love and Trouble. Everyday Use focuses on quilts that have been handcrafted by several generations of the family and how these quilts should be used. One of the sisters in the family, Dee, argues that she should get the quilts so she can hang them up and admire them, while the narrator argues that Dee’s sister, Maggie, should receive the quilts so she can put them to use. In Everyday Use, the contrasting values placed on the quilts, in the form of precious items representing …show more content…
The narrator and Maggie value the quilts most for their everyday us, which reflects the hard work and struggle that they have to endure to get by in life during discriminatory times. The narrator in this story is the mother of Dee and Maggie, and she ultimately decides the fate of the quilts. She is a rough woman who is used to working very hard and this is evident in the fact that she does jobs and labor that is normally done by men. For example, the narrator states, “I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man” (Walker 1531). She is an uneducated woman and she knows it, as she states, “Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue?” (Walker 1531). The narrator has not had an easy life, this is displayed when the narrator hints that Dee has “made it”, which entails that Dee has