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Everyday Use

Introduction  

In the story, 'Everyday Use', Alice Walker tells us about what true inheritance is and who has the real right of receiving it. In the story, there are two hand stitched quilts that represent true inheritance and are the reason of conflict in the story. Like a quilt, a human being's world is also made up of various events, influences and circumstances that define how he views the world and responds to it.

Traditions, as we see in the story are very important to both, Dee and her mother, but their perceptions about these traditions are different. For Dee's mother and her sister Maggie, traditions are based on the foundations of hereditary objects and the ways of thinking, but for Dee, traditions are something that cannot be put to everyday use and are corrupted by history.

The story is set in the early sixties and seventies, during the time in which the Americans and the Africans were working hard and struggling to characterize their identities in the terms of culture. There were many blacks who were aiming to revive their African roots and basis and were willing to reject and do away with their American heritage that was full of stories of pain, hurt and injustice. Therefore in this story Alice Walker argues that an African American is both, an African as well as an American and to work towards denying the American side of their heritage is not so respectful of their ancestors instead, it's harmful. She tells the story through the main characters of Mama, Dee and Maggie to be clearer about her idea.

     

Discussion

The story 'Everyday use' tell us about the cultural differences in the American society of the fifties and sixties that was caused by racial conflicts. It tells us about how a person's culture and heritage can be viewed from different angles and points. This story focuses on the cultural conflicts that are present between two sisters, Maggie and Dee. Their characters are very clearly contrasted in the story by Alice Walker. (Walker, 1997)

The character of Maggie has been presented as someone who is physically inferior to her sister and intellectually slower than her too. Her inferior character in this story depicts about the African American people who are viewed physically and mentally injured but who still hold strong values about culture and heritage. Maggie has been presented in the story as someone who is retarded physically as well as mentally, but she has high soaring ideals. Whereas Dee, who is Maggie's sister has been presented who is physically more attractive than Maggie is with nicer hair and fuller figure. In contrast to Maggie, the character of Dee has been presented as the character which represented that part of the African Americans who were large in number in the 1960s, who thought about themselves as the new generation of black people in American. She has been represented in the story as someone who is always favored over everyone and everything, but she has ...