In the text Dee, Maggi’s sister comes back to the house and wants Maggie’s two quilts. Maggie didn’t want Dee to have them because that was a part of Maggie’s heritage. Maggie needed the quilts because it was a part
There were three types of characters in this story; Dee was the static character who remained unchanged throughout the story, Mama was the dynamic character who caused a change in others, while Maggie was the dynamic character who changed during the story. The fact that Mama knows the inner thoughts of her daughters makes her a limited omniscient narrator. She begins telling the readers that she and Maggie will wait in their comfortable clean yard for “Her” to come. By using the word her to describe the character before stating her name, Mama makes her larger than life; someone other worldly of a higher status. Mama then goes on to describe how nervous Maggie will be until her sister leaves, “standing hopelessly in corners”, “eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe.” She then goes onto reminisce about a dream she had in which she and her daughter Dee, were reunited on a talk show.
Although the quilts at the present moment in the story were stored, they were being saved as a wedding present for the younger Maggie. When Dee showed up in the story and started requesting (demanding) to have certain pieces of Mama’s (and Maggie’s) house, it rubbed me the wrong way. This character in the story is introduced as the long lost sister/daughter who basically shunned the family homestead but is now coming back to gather the same memories, not for the tools that they are, but for decoration. Although it can be argued that her intentions may be good, and in trying to keep
Maggie has a close relationship with her mom; they seem to share a lot of the same views. Maggie has learned to appreciate her heritage and does not wish to change it. To Maggie, the quilts are anything but simple scraps of clothe sewn together, they have so much more meaning. Maggie shows in the story that she does not want the quilts as merely just a reminder of the important people in her life, she wants them because they are a representation of who she is and her past. Maggie wants them for sentimental value, she admits to putting them to "everyday use."
The two quilts were pieced together by Grandma Dee and Big Dee, the narrator’s mother and sister, and made with the scraps from the dresses of Grandma Dee and bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell’s shirts and Great Grandpa Ezra’s faded blue piece from the uniform he wore in the Civil War. The mother must decipher which daughter is deserving of the quilts based on her daughter’s plans of use. Dee in the story planned to
In the story by Alice Walker, “Everyday Use", the mother, Mrs. Johnson, is telling the story of the day her daughter, Dee, came home from college to visit with her and her younger daughter, Maggie. The sisters both want a family heirloom that their grandmother made, a quilt, but both have different ideas about what the heritage means. At the beginning of the story, Mrs. Johnson explains how Maggie and her prepared for the arrival of Dee, they cleaned up the yard like it was part of their living room. She describes herself as large, uneducated, and with manly-type hands. Maggie was burned in a fire when their first house burned to the ground and Mrs. Johnson begins to thinks back about that day, she can’t help but feel that Dee had something
Karen Robinson Mrs. Barbara Allen English 100 22 September 2013 Everyday Use In “Everyday Use”, Alice Walker creates a graphic setting that draws the reader into the feelings of two sisters Maggie and Dee who have different values for the family quilts. Dee states “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” (181). One would say that Dee meant that Maggie wasn’t as smart as she was to see the true meaning of the quilts and the heritage that was behind them, but in reality Maggie appreciation for the quilts stemmed deeper than Dee could ever imagine. Maggie appreciated the quilts, because it was part of their mother Mrs. Johnson, Grandma Dee, and Big Dee. The quilts for Maggie represented all the hard work, labor, fabrics that was used,
Heather Skinner-Lucas English 1302.09 Mrs. Heinzelman 24 April 2012 Being Educated does not imply one knows his/her Heritage “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker that was published in the collection In Love and Trouble in the year 1973. The narrator of the short story is "Mama"; Mama is an African American young woman who lives with one of her daughters within the Deep South. Everyday Use humorously shows the distinctions between Maggie, her introverted younger daughter Maggie and Dee, her educated daughter. Dee returns from college after a long time away; there is a disagreement between Mama, Dee and Maggie over heirloom family belongings. Dee prefers to be referred to as Wangero and ridicules her present ancestry for a pretentious "native African" personality (Walker, 445).
To start, I think that mothers would side more with daughters who are culturally sympathetic because your culture is what shapes you and political stance can change at any time. Cultural sympathy would make a mother feel proud because it shows that her daughter takes pride in her culture. In “Everyday
Everyday Use – Feminist Perspective LaVeetra Bartley July 13, 2012 Composition II / Literature Instructor: Professor Rodriguez South University Online In Everyday Use, Alice Walker does a great job presenting the conflict between women. The story involves a mama, Mrs. Johnson, and her two daughters, Dee and Maggie. All three women have different views on life. Dee and Maggie are total opposites and look at their heritage and culture differently. The mentioning of the quilts can be used to show how each girl feels about her heritage and culture.