Summary of Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” is the story of a mother and her daughters. When the oldest daughter, Dee, wants a quilt that Mrs. Johnson has already given to her younger, plainer daughter, Maggie, the worth of something is put to the test. Dee comes home for a visit from college, with her new husband. Mrs. Johnson, who has always wished to have more of a connection with Dee, learns that her daughter has changed her name. When they go into the kitchen for something to drink, Dee gets up and starts packing the butter churn that her mother still uses.
At the first time we read this story we didn’t get what Alice Walker means with “Everyday Use” and what it has to do with the story. But then we made a conclusion that the author refers to the quilt which both Dee and Maggie wanted. Dee planned to hang them, but not to know the history that comes with it, so that she could show them off to her friends what her heritage was and be proud because the quilts were "all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand." (Walker, ) which symbolize an important part of heritage to Dee-while back when she was growing up, she said they were “old-fashioned, out of style”.
All entwined together with her family quilts, each their own ideas of what heritage means to them through the quilts. While waiting for her refined daughter Dee to arrive for a visit. The mother runs her thoughts of how entirely different her two girls are through her head. She begins to see a whole new side to each of her extraordinary girls. After seeing her girls together once again, combined with all her thoughts together, she now sees both her girls in a whole new light.
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.
Sister had the little black girl help her, and she made her help her haul her objects from the house to the Post Office where she worked. (PP1) It took her many trips. Sister did not seem to care how many trips the girl made. She had the thought that that is what she was there for. When Sister was making some green tomato pickle she made the comment that “Mama had turned the niggers loose” (45).
Ulrich used Ballad’s diary to open Ballad’s life to light so everyone could know. On the film they showed her doing all the cleaning at her home and going out the garden to plant. Also when Ballard was at Mrs. Howard’s home watching and taking care her son because the boy was ill and needed medication. The film opened my eyes because Mrs. Ballard did everything to take care of her own children and struggled through her life, living through the chaotic decades and the American Revolution. Also that the Historian Laurel T. Ulrich spent eight years going through research about Martha Ballard’s diary and making her life light up to show everyone what a women went thought in the 18th Century.
She moves out of the honey house and into the Boatwright house and Lilly is left with her thoughts. This is a good thing for Lilly cam now absorb all that's happened to her, all she learned and process her own thoughts and has a metamorphosis of sorts and is given the time to form into a new person. A young woman. when Lilly dose eventually find a skeleton in her mother’s closet and she spirals into a depression ans spends a lot of time in the woods by the Boatwright house all day, every day until “ Rosaleen would come find her bearing a tomato sandwich, she’d wait until she’d gone and then throw it in the river. even with this rejection r, small as it may be, Rosaleen never stops looking out for
Process Paper #4 The Century Quilt serves to connect the speaker’s life to her diverse background. First of all, the quilt brings her back to her youthful days. The speaker describes her dreams of “wrapping [herself] at play with [the blanket’s] folds and [play] chieftains and princesses.” This quilt connects her to her past and thus to her family. She reminisces about her first blanket, which serves as a doorway to her past experiences and emotions. She wants a blanket to “have good dreams for a hundred years.” The speaker makes a connection with Meema, who “dreams of her yellow sisters” and “about Mama.” She recalls her father coming home from his store and the family cranking up the pianola.
Essay 1: What is the Meaning of Heritage? Should heritage be a part of daily life or merely a memory of ones past? Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” presents a story of how the meaning of heritage drastically differs between a mother and her daughter. In this story an impoverished mother sends her oldest daughter away to college. Unfortunately, in the process of obtaining an education Dee abandons her family heritage replacing it with a new “modern” way of life.
Zach Hicks 20th Century American Literature Character Analysis 11 July 2013 Mama in Everyday Use Everyday Use by Alice Walker is story of heritage, ancestry, and true meaning behind them. In fact, Walker even dedicated her short story "for your grandmama" (Walker 1). The narrator, a big-boned woman, known simply as Mama, seems to be more at home on a large farm, seeing to all of its responsibilities, instead of in the house, cooking or reading. The story's main focus is on the confrontation between Mama, whose identity and character is rooted in a deep appreciation of her heritage, and her daughter, Dee, who felt the need to join the Nation of Islam in order to get in touch with her roots. In addition, throughout the story, the reader gets to know Mama as a self-aware and self-accepting woman who is quite frank about those around her.