Everyday Use

A conflict between two people can bring out someone’s true feelings about a topic. In the short story Everyday Use by Alice Walker, the main character, Mama, and her daughter, Dee, don’t get along very well. Because of this conflict, Mama expresses her feelings about a couple topics. The most important conflict in Everyday Use is between Mama and Dee because this conflict shows Mama’s true feelings towards Dee and towards her own heritage. Mama’s feelings towards Dee are shown when she…

The character who I sympathize the most from the story “Everyday Use” written by Alice Walker is Maggie. Meanwhile, in the story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan I sympathize the most with Jing Mei’s mother. There are some similarities and differences regarding both characters and stories. In one hand, “Everyday Use” is narrated by a mother of two young women. The oldest daughter came back to visit her family due to her studying far from home. The youngest daughter, Maggie, is the one who inspires pity…

Characters in "Everyday Use" and "Civil Peace" by Alice Walker (Walker) and Chinua Achebe (Achebe), respectively are examined. Alice Walker’s theme revolves around African-Americans personal identities. Chinua Achebe’s work revolves around Nigeria’s civil war and the “civil peace” afterward, a bitter fact in many parts of the world even today (Fortin). Major and minor characters in both stories are compared and analyzed by character type, characterization, and their relationship in relation to…

The battle rivalry of two sisters (Dee and Maggie) for their mother’s attention and validate their identities as a person. This family has a feud over who will inherit a family air loom quilt from generations ago that was passed down from their African heritage. The quilt symbolizes the cultural relationship to those that are no longer living. Dee’s identity of choice did not reflect the cultural heritage her mother desired for her, Dee spent some years away at college and when she returned home…

It was published in 1973 as part of Walker’s short stories collection. In “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker takes up what is a recurrent theme in her work: the representation of the harmony as well as the conflicts and struggles within African-American culture. “Everyday Use” focuses on an encounter between members of the rural Johnson family. This encounter––which takes place when Dee (the only member of the family to receive…

Everyday Drama One thing that seems to be a part of every family is drama. “Family drama [is] part of the human situation” (Derek Brewer). Part of the reason why that may come about is because just because people all live and grow in the same household, they can always turn out genuinely different from one another. In the story “Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker, this struggle is what occurs. A mother has two daughters who come from the same place but presently live in two completely different…

ever escape your past as hard as you try. In the story, “Everyday Use”, Dee got the idea that she could escape her past by changing her name, where she came from, and her future life. Dee lived a life where she was embarrassed of her upbringing such as her homeland and family. Dee hated the way that her and her family lived their life. She wasn’t understanding of the things that her family gave up for her. Perhaps the story, “Everyday Use”, was written to show us how to respect our upbringing…

“Everyday Use” Response In the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker is a story where the author focuses on black heritage. She uses the story to explain what black heritage mean to some in reality. She uses characters to show what culturally defines them. The author grew up in Georgia and was the first college student just like Dee. I thought this story was very interesting and a good reading. The author incorporated good details that grabbed the reader's attention. I think the theme of this…

external. We have read five main stories thus far which presented various conflicts, while each story situation is unique they all share similar types of conflicts. They are 1. “Everyday Use” which outlines both forms of conflict, for instance, the main conflict was about which daughter should receive the quilts and the intended use of the same, external conflicts was evident as mama wouldn’t give Dee the quilts while internally she had if she should let Dee have her way. 2. The story “Two…

Being a victim of prejudice can make people feel unequal to others like in the story “Everyday Use.” Mama imagines herself on a show like Johnny Carson, and asks herself “Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye?” (Walker 149). Feeling like she is unequal to white people, Mama cannot imagine herself doing this because she feels that they are better than her since she presumably has had unpleasant experiences in her past. When this story was written, racism was common, so it…