Everyday Use Essay

important because people can trace back to family’s history and memorize the past by it. In the story of “Everyday Use”, Dee and Maggie both think the heritage is significant, but from different aspects. For example, Dee wants to show off the heritage and emphasize her African root. However, to Maggie, heritage is more like a representation of who she is and her past with family. “Everyday Use” is a story that happened in 1960s to 1970s, in which there were numerous movements about black…

some pieces to show it. Some pieces that were “Everyday Use” and “An Indian Father’s Plea”. Culture has made an impression since Birth. In the Letter “An Indian Father’s Plea” Robert Lake (aka Medicine Grizzlybear) says: “So I realize he may be slow in grasping the methods and tools that you are now using in your classroom, ones quite familiar to his white peers, but I hope you will be patient with him. It takes time…

when Dee realizes how amazing the benches are, on which they are sitting. She describes the "rump prints" (879) they feel. She describes the butter churn in a similar way with the thumb prints in the top. Both of these images convey the thought of the use of these…

In “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker tells a story of a mother who does the best she can to raise her 2 daughters in the south at a time where it was necessary to try to instill her culture and her heritage in their lives. She had a very rocky relationship with them. The daughters grow up to be two different individual with each embrace what they think is important to their well being and their identity. One grows to be well educated and could not see her embrace and associated with the old life…

One would rightfully assume two sisters raised by the same mother in the same household would be quite similar to each other but this is most definitely not the case in “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. It is clear that the sisters in the story, Maggie and Dee, are complete contrasts of each other. To begin, the most obvious difference between the two is their appearances. Maggie is a fragile, awkward girl who seems to have little to no self-esteem. In the beginning of the story, their mother…

these elements. Thus, culture always influences the way one views others and the world because it impacts beliefs, values, habits, and expectations. To begin, culture influences one’s assumptions and opinions of the world. In the short story, “Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker, the author demonstrates how the narrator’s daughter, Dee, experiences a change in her beliefs, after being immersed in a different culture. She believes that artifacts of culture represent parts of heritage that…

The theme of this story is about the struggle of keeping family tradition in modern times. In modern culture, many family traditions are crumbling and falling apart due to modernization. In Everyday Use by Alice Walker, we are introduced to Mama, an African American woman with “big bones and rough man working hands.” Mama acts as both the mother and father in the story, doing motherly acts such as seeing her daughter’s outfits, but also “working outside all day” and even “knocking a bull calf…

A family’s identity is defined by their heritage -- the objects that are passed down through the generations. Alice Walker's “Everyday Use” explains how these precious artifacts must be protected as they are passed down from generation to generation. The story follows an African American family living in the mid-1900s during the Black Nationalist Movement. Additionally, the short story highlights the dichotomy two sisters: the apprehensive, timid Maggie and the self-assured, outgoing Dee to…

appreciative child. Maggie probably wouldn’t have cared about those quilts and would of gave them to Dee because she was more of a humble person. “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” she said. “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” (6) The mom prefers that Maggie keeps the quilts that her grandma used to own then to give it to Dee to hang up on the wall. She felt like she didn’t understand why Dee wanted these quilts instead of the Wangero she offered when going to…

After Dee left and never came back, Maggie got married; it was ten years down the road when Dee was trying to get in contact with Maggie and their mom. Little did she know that their mom passed away about two and half years later after she left? Maggie wanted to tell Dee but she never knew how to get in contact so she just never tried to find her. Maggie always thought that the day Dee left and never came back was just her way of saying that she wants nothing to do with them. After their mom…