Everyday

Alice Walker’s short story, “Everyday Use” presents a pragmatic perspective of heritage and family. Taking place during the civil rights movement, while centering on the experiences of an African American family, the setting has great relevance in constructing underlying themes. This short story composes a theme which examines social structures part in shaping a person’s identity. Moreover, acknowledging family’s role as a social structure, as well as Walker’s background, will contribute to…

further African American liberation – Cultural Nationalism. While the movement had many supporters, critics within the general Civil Rights campaign were not afraid to challenge the trend. One of these critics, Alice Walker, used the short story Everyday Use to demonstrate why the Cultural Nationalist actions belittled African culture, rather than praising its diverse traditions distinct in language and customs from other areas of the world. She accomplishes this through the character’s varying…

taken to the hospital and given the horrible news of being diagnosed with cancer? Would you accept the fact that you may die and let cancer win? Or would you try your hardest to beat cancer and live your life to the fullest? In Stuart Scott’s memoir, Everyday I Fight, Scott takes the reader through his entire life and explains how he physically and mentally dealt with cancer, all while trying to live his life the best way he can and become one of…

at the mercy of a professional forgetting to perform a task they previously intended to complete such as removal of surgical hardware or proper placement of plane devices before takeoff. In Dismukes’ article, Prospective Memory in Workplace and Everyday Situations, he discusses the demand for further laboratory research on prospective memory tasks to evaluate the reasons behind memory task failure and better propose effective tools to enhance one’s memory to perform future tasks. He proposes…

The short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker analyzes the complex relationships found between and among family members, more specifically between two sisters and their mother. The two sisters, Maggie and Dee, come from an African American heritage. The mother of the two sisters is seeing how each of her daughters will preserve their heritage by their actions. Not only through their actions will the mother see but also by their personalities and ideas concerning their heritage. The mother used…

In the short story "Everyday Use", Alice Walker, the author, writes about an African American family of low economic and social class. When the mother talks about her two daughters she describes them having totally opposite qualities. Dee's pride and confidence is seen when her mother mentions that "She would always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature" (Walker). Dee appears to have no insecurities which has helped her be extroverted; however, her pride has also led her…

Through the detailed works of Erving Goffman’s: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life compared to Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality, assessed the daily social occurences of everyday life that create the basis of people’s behavior through social interactions. The extensively observe the interactions of people in a variety of scenarios as their learned behavior is applied to those certain situations. Their observations reveal how the social interactions of…

The stories of Richard Rodriguez and Dee shine a light on how education can change an individual perspectives on life. Alice Walker, the author of Everyday Use describes in little details on how education change Dee’s life compare to Richard Rodriguez , The Achievement of Desire; he gives more detail information on when he realize education separated him from his family life. Rodriguez refers to himself as a scholarship boy; a boy who separates the classroom from his home life. Dee story was…

Often in literature, character relationships change and evolve. In "Everyday use" by Alice Walker a mom and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee, live in a run down house. Dee is embrassed of the way they live and is used to getting what ever she wants. She goes off to college, and when she comes back she had changed her name and completely adopted a new cultural identity. She tries to take quilt sewn by her grandmother but dee's mom finally tells her no. Dee is shocked by what she was told and…

The point of view in the story “Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker plays a big part. Throughout the story, one of Mama’s daughters came to visit. The way Mama and Maggie see her is not in a very pleasant way. In fact, they are scared to tell her no when it comes to anything. From Mama’s perspective Dee seems like this rude, stuck up, spoiled child because she had the opportunity to go out and expand her education, while Mama and Maggie continued to live their lives on the farm. On the other hand, if…