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. During this Mama, reveals how she knows her physical appearance is less than desirable but she makes no apologies for being a, “big-boned woman with rough, man working hands.” The two daughters are like night and day when compared to one another. When the reader first meets Maggie, she is portrayed as shy, awkward and self-conscious do to the scars she received when
When Dee finds out that the quilts were already given to her sister, Dee gets furious and believes that she deserves the quilts more than Maggie and that Maggie would not take care of them as well as she would. Poor Maggie says to her mother "She can have them Mama...I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts". Maggie is used to never getting anything. Throughout the entire story, it says that Maggie gives up many things so Dee can have what she needs or wants. Dee is quite ungrateful.
In Alice Walker’s short story, “Everyday Use”, the mother of two daughters undergoes a very significant change. The book starts out depicting her as a push over to her oldest daughter, Dee, giving her anything and everything Dee wanted. However, Mama’s attitude towards Dee changes as she begins to see what a cruel and spoiled child Dee really is. Mama’s changes throughout this story make her a perfect example of a dynamic character. Mama is an uneducated, yet practical character.
Mama notes how nice and wavy the ground looks, intentionally to impress Dee. Reflecting her own thoughts as Maggie’s, she tells how Maggie will be nervous until her sister leaves. Mama says, “she will stand hopelessly in the corners and shamed…She thinks her sister has always held life in the palm of one hand, that no is a word the world would never say to her.” (Walker). Leaving the reader to not know how Maggie really feels about Dee at all. Mama daydreams of meeting on a T.V.
Then there is Dee, the older sister, which is out spoken and thinks she is the best looking girl in the world. As for Maggie, she is ok with the way they live, however Dee does not understand why they still live the way they do. The older sister thinks she can take and do as she wishes, as Maggie lets everything go without a fight. If they could just get along, they could change a whole lot in each other’s lives and be allot more understanding of each other. If every person in this world would stop judging, and start listening to each other, there may not be as many wars and deaths.
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
In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” the use of symbolism is an effective tactic. The most obvious symbol is the two quilts, which the central characters Dee and Maggie both want as their own. The narrator, who is also Dee and Maggie’s mother, has an interesting dilemma on her hands. She must choose which daughter is deserving of inheriting the two quilts. 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.
For example, in this passage we understand that Norah is struggling with the grief of her lost daughter and doesn't want to let go of her memory, "Phoebe she would keep alive in her heart." (88) It helps us understand the reasoning behind her actions of drunk driving, dreams of lost things, and escalated emotion at random as well as other actions the character demonstrates through out the novel. The deception of her daughter effects Norah and explains why she bought the camera,"...So he'd capture every moment, so he'd never forget. "(88) Norah doesn't want her husband, sister and not even neighbours to dismiss her daughter as unimportant. Norah's great pain because of the "death" of her child causes her to be scared of change, she wishes she could capture a happy moment, and stay in that moment-perhaps forever. "
In contrast to Cindy’s new found self esteem, her mother seemed to uphold a strong lack of confidence in her daughter and in herself as well. By the same token, in the second article “The Thrill of Victory … The Agony of Parents”, the author presents the opposition through her mother. Jennifer Schwind’s mother appeared as an embarrassment to her publicly and emotionally. “In a voice so screeching that it rivaled fingernails on a blackboard, she told him that he was a disgraceful coach and that he should be ashamed of himself” (Pawlak 3). While in her mother’s eyes, she only supported her daughter and craved the absolute best for her child.
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,