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Everyday Use

Introduction

"Everyday Use" by Alice Walker is a short story about the struggle for identity and the ability to identity between a mother and a daughter. Taking place in rural Georgia, the story is narrated by the mother when expected to visit his daughter Dee, returning home after a long absence. Since the initial paragraphs, the reader becomes aware of a tension without words between mother and daughter. The mother is excited with the fact that your meeting is done in the style of the show "This Is Your Life" (This Is Your Life), which is carried in a limousine and brought to a celebrity before the meeting is made. Back to reality, we discover that she is, rather, a woman long, poor and working people. It also has another daughter, Dee's sister, Maggie, who was seriously injured and burned years ago when his house burned. Through the memories of his mother, discover that Dee consider more sophisticated and more stylish up before going to school. When Dee finally appears, wearing a colorful dress up in the summer has gold earrings, and bracelets will notice her, comes with a Muslim man whose name his mother fails to pronounce, and changed his own name.

Discussion

I think the story can has different interpretation of mean and themes. But I believe the main theme is about the seemingly complex choice over Dee's personal identity. This is a choice which many African Americans in the 1960's certainly had to make. In that time (& maybe still), African Americans were trapped in a sort dual consciousness between their African heritage and their American citizenships. It's almost like America vs. Africa, and between both cultures, African-Americans were trying to fight - for one identity. The 1960's were very tumultuous in nature. Civil rights of African Americans were being debated. Civil right marches were in full effect and I believe that during this period many African Americans suffered from the aforementioned identity crisis. Alice Walker does a great job, by capturing the details of this dual identity crisis.

How can you have one consciousness with two different perspectives? It's sort of difficult. Walker discus's this struggle over identity and relates symbolically to some of the things that Dee wants from the house. One of the things that Walker uses symbolically is the butter churn. Butter is made from milk, but walker poses a question for the reader. Is it still milk or is it something new? Equivocally, what is the definition of an African-American, are they an American or African? Or are they both? Symbolically this is the assimilation of identities.

Dee wants to take something that has a use and transform it into a ornamental piece. The quilts in her mom's room also have a duality in their nature. They can be used for keeping warm when it's cold, and also for remembrance of past times with the family. The quilts were sewed from old pants and shirts going back two ...