Short Story Everyday Use Mama - 906 Words

In, Alice Walkers, Everyday use mama is waiting around for her daughter Dee to arrive. Here we learn a little about herself and her daughter Maggie, but we hear a lot about Dee; who seems to be very praised. Still Mama knows that Maggie will be uneasy during her sister’s visit, she still imagines her reuniting with her daughter just like on television. Mama starts to remember their life, how Maggie got her scars in the fire, and sending Dee off to school and coming back forcing her beliefs on everyone. Mama wants this to go great and wants her daughters to get along until she meets Dee’s boyfriend and sees her new appearance. After everything starts to get a little better, Dee asks her mom for special quilts from her trunk, which upsets Maggie as she storms off. This is when Mama defends the use for the quilts which is really the right thing to do because Dee does not understand her mother wants Maggie to have them because she doesn’t know the meaning behind them , while Dee argues that she should learn more about her heritage, African-American heritage. Mama finally got to see that her heritage is in, Maggie not Dee. Everyday Use symbolizes their family heritage. The quilts are a part of their family’s heritage because they were made by the mama, her sister, and her mother, who used clothing worn by generations of family members instead of fabric they bought because they were not wealthy. The quilts were a way of bonding which signifies Africans Americans who lived duringShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Walker s Everyday Use863 Words   |  4 PagesAnalysis of Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use† The short story â€Å"Everyday Use,† by Alice Walker, contains multiple different literary elements. History and heritage play a key role in the development and conclusion of this rather intriguing story. Although history and heritage are important, the driving factors of this story are the literary elements. In particular the elements of symbols, characterization, and point of view in this story are significant. The use of symbols in this short story provide a deeperRead MoreAlice M. Walker s Everyday Use890 Words   |  4 PagesWalker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and activist and wrote the short story, Everyday Use in 1973. Mama is in the yard with her daughter Maggie. They had spent the day before cleaning the yard that they call â€Å"comfortable† and â€Å"an extended living room† to prepare for their estranged daughter Dee that they have not seen in many years. Mama says that Maggie will be nervous throughout the stay of her sister due to her scars from the house fire. Mama foresees an idealistic reunionRead MoreCharacter Uses In Alice Walkers Everyday Use1095 Words   |  5 Pages The short story â€Å"Everyday Use† by Alice Walker begins with the narrator, Mama, and her daughter, Maggie, sitting in the yard that they both prepared and cleaned the day before. They were waiting for Dee, the oldest daughter, that is returning from co llege in Augusta after seven years of education. Maggie is going to be nervous for as long as Dee stays because of the scars and burns marks she got from the fire in their previous house. Maggie thinks that Dee has a much easier life than herRead MoreThe Importance Of Family Heritage By Alice Walker1100 Words   |  5 Pagesa black person (Whitted). One of Walker’s fundamental short stories is titled â€Å"Everyday Use.† It is set in the rural south during a time when African Americans were searching for their own identities. One of the characters, Dee, represents the Black Power Movement. She is intelligent, superficial, and assertive with her desires. She is also attempting to escape from the stereotypes that have defined her (White). By the end of this short story, the reader understands the meaning of undeniable heritageRead MoreEssay on Everyday Use by Alice Walker1097 Words   |  5 PagesSarah Benesh Dr. Susan Dauer English 1102 2 Febuary 2011 Analyzation of â€Å"Everyday Use† by Alice Walker In 1972, Alice Walker published â€Å"Everyday Use† in a collection of short stories In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black women. As better known â€Å"Everyday Use† stood out of the collection, it has become one of few short stories about the conflict black Americans faced after the Civil Rights Movement; The struggle to maintain traditions, whilst embracing new-found freedom, and where the twoRead MoreThe Color Purple By Alice Walker1444 Words   |  6 PagesOctober 2014 RadaRada Alice Walker Alice Walker as a writer, artist, short story author, dissident and women s activist has constructed a well-known notoriety around the world. Her exceptionally acclaimed novel The Color Purple turned out in 1982, won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1983 and the American Book Award, the first African American lady to win these two grants. (Alice) Everyday Use is one of her famous and grand short stories in which she addresses the problem of African and Americans who wereRead MoreEveryday Use By Alice Walker1111 Words   |  5 PagesIn some stories, characters can face conflicts in their culture. Alice Walker highlights and distinguishes the dissimilarities and clichà © of country African American women with the actualities that make up their lives. Characterized by short, compound sentences, with long adjectives and use of literary elements, her style is eloquent conversational and authentic. Alice Walker’s short story, Everyday Use is stylistic, ironic and narrates profound interpre tation of unique views and approaches to African-AmericanRead MoreEveryday Use By Alice Walker1031 Words   |  5 Pages The short story, â€Å"Everyday Use†, was written by Alice Walker. She has a well-known reputation worldwide from being a novelist, poet, short story writer, activist and feminist. Many of Walkers writings discuss issues facing African Americans. For her short story, â€Å"Everyday Use†, Walker focuses points on African Americans lacking understanding for their heritage. She uses a quilt as a symbol of heritage for her characters, Mama, Maggie and Dee. Alice Walker was the youngest of eight of aRead MoreEveryday Use Analytical Essay973 Words   |  4 Pagesheritage in the short story â€Å"Everyday Use,† by Alice Walker. The author shows the way of living, of a family to display the reader the way heritage is forgotten and, or ignored. In this short story the author uses a mother, and two daughters, Dee and Maggie, to demonstrate how different the thoughts are between a family and how they honor their heritage. Maggie is used in the story to show the reader how heritage is still followed and respected in a family. The narrator, Mama, describes Maggie’sRead MoreThe Meaning Of Heritage In The Color Purple By Alice Walker771 Words   |  4 Pages1973, she released the story collection In Love and Trouble which included the short story â€Å"Everyday Use.† Alice Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use† displays the theme of the meaning of heritage through irony and symbolism. Walker uses irony, which results in conflict, to display that Dee has not grasped the true meaning of heritage. Dee had so badly wanted to escape her past that she had created a life of her own away from Mama and Maggie. When she returns from college she explains to Mama she had changed her