When Mrs. Johnson tells Dee that she cannot have them because she has already given them to Maggie; Dee gets furious that Maggie could come before her. Dee tries to argue that Maggie will ruin the quilts by using them everyday. Maggie tells Dee that she can just have the quilts, but Mrs. Johnson won’t have it. Dee gets mad that she did not get her way, and says hateful things to her sister and mother as she is leaving. You see, one person’s glamour, may be another’s misery; just as what someone may display, someone else could put to personal everyday use.
Critical Research Essay on Everyday Use by Alice Walker It is argued that Dee Johnson is a shallow, insensitive, self- absorbed daughter and sister. Critics say she passed up her right to her true heritage for a false African heritage all because she has adopted an African name and she has failed to learn how to quilt, a skill that critics will have you believe is vital to Dee’s understanding of her true identity. Her hair and style of dress are called into question as though they are a deliberate slap in the face to her family. Dee is lambasted for wanting to protect and display everyday household items that were handmade by her now deceased relatives. She cannot even take a picture of her family’s house without critics attacking this act as her need to prove where she came from.
Momma feels that she is an uneducated person, she says "I never had an education myself," (157) this creates barriers between her and her daughter Dee who has a college education. She describes herself as "big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands" (157) that wears overalls by day and flannel gowns by night. From momma's point of view we can tell that she favors her relationship with her daughter Maggie more than the relationship she has with her daughter Dee. I think it’s because Dee went off to college so it created a new perspective on life for her, and Maggie on the other hand stayed home, with burned body and no education, so she learned the simple things in life like quilting and farming from her ancestors. Reading this story from momma's point of view creates the feeling that the story is told from a genuine point of view with no biased feeling toward anyone, just the truth.
She compares Bailey’s wife face to a cabbage and criticizes her for not traveling to a place that allows the children to “be broad” (pg 265). The grandmother is an old fashioned lady. “In my time, children were more respectful of their native states and their parent and everything else “(pg266). The grandmother did not like the way the children acted and that is why she wanted to take them to east Tennessee . She did not want them to go to Florida and enjoy themselves.
Maggie deserves the quilts because they were hers to begin with. “I [Mama] promised to give them to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas.” (202) As demonstrated on page 202, Maggie clearly already considered them her own. On this page, Walker implies that Maggie overheard Dee asking for the quilts. Her reaction: “I [Mama] heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed.” Shortly after, Maggie was standing in the door, scraping her feet over each other while listening to the argument (203). It is implied that Maggie is worried Dee will take the quilts away from her, after all, “‘no’ is a word the world never learned to say to her [Dee].” (196) As Dee “held the quilts securely in her arms,” (202) she probably didn’t expect to have to let them go.
"(Walker, ). And at that time, Mrs. Johnson realized that Maggie carries the tradition of quilting as well as the quilts itself. For her and Maggie quilting is more of an important tradition to pass on than to just know how “priceless” it is. And in the end of the story, the mother chose to give the quilts to Maggie, instead of Dee, because by giving them to Maggie, Mrs. Johnson knows the connection of heritage of her family will continue to exist in the future. From the explanation above we could conclude that Dee is someone that wants to preserve heritage and believes that they are objects to be observed and looked upon.
When Anne arrives at Green Gables she is an orphan and has never learned to love anyone but herself, this changes primarily through her relationships with Matthew, Marilla and Diana. Anne’s egotism can be illustrated in the initial chapter’s when Anne is meeting Matthew and Marilla she asks them if they will call her “Cordelia” because “It’s such a perfectly elegant name.” (Montgomery p24) Anne can’t seem to find any romance in her name and romance is very important to her. She settles on Anne, but it must be Anne spelled with an e because “It looks so much nicer.” (p25) The “Cordelia” reference also illustrates narcissism through the reference to Cordelia, in Shakespeare’s King Lear. In King Lear, Cordelia will not give in to her father’s (King Lear) narcissistic demands for love and Anne identifies very closely with this heroine. Anne substitutes her victimizing orphan situation for her imagination and identification with heroines such as Cordelia.
Yet after her mother tells her the story of Rose's maternal grandmother, who never knew worth until death, the formerly weak-willed Rose becomes determined to assert herself. When Ted comes for the divorce papers, she tells him that he can't just throw her out of his life. She fights for possession of the house and their daughter, and eventually wins her husband back (The Joy Luck Club, Answers.Com). The film shows how Rose has been “unfree” upon entering the marriage with Ted. From the very beginning, Rose has been struggling because of an “external force” that she cannot control.
The writer reveals through several female characters that women make many sacrifices. Nora’s nanny has to abandon her own children in order to be able to provide for herself. She accepts a job as Nora’s nanny in order to do so. The Nanny considers herself propitious, being “a poor girl who’d been led astray.” (Isben pg 55) Mrs. Linde has to leave the love of her life Mr. Krogstad in order to marry someone who is able to support her financially. ”My mother was alive then, and was bedridden and helpless, and I have to provide for my two younger brothers; So I did not think I was justified in refusing his offer.” (Isben pg 20) Mrs. Linde has to make this sacrifice because she is required to support her mother and two brothers.
The narrator states the mother’s resentment of Connie’s beauty because “her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie.”[451]. Connie doesn’t make the situation between the two any better by instigating her mother with curt answers and rude responses. “Her parents and her sister were going to a barbecue at an aunt’s house and Connie said ‘no’, she wasn’t interested, rolling her eyes to let her mother know exactly what she thought.”[453]. the only time Connie fully admits that she truly did love her mother was when she was crying in the phone for her. Connie’s father is a quiet bystander when it came to his wife and daughter heated arguments.