Out With the Old And In With the New in Everyday Use Essay

Out With the Old And In With the New in Everyday Use

In the short story, Everyday Use the conflict between Mama and Dee helps to reveal the stories theme. Mama is very old fashioned and hard working, while Dee is young, arrogant, and educated. Mama and Maggie are content with tradition because that is all they know, but Dee has the opportunity to go to college and lets it go to her head. She seems to forget where she came from and takes the blessings in her life for granted.

This story was written in the early 1970s and describes the old African American traditions conflicting with the new African American generation. Mama is the old generation; she is traditional and doesnt mind hard work or getting dirty. She is a strong, rugged woman that can work as hard as a man. In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man (65). In the story Dee seemed to have never been content with tradition and always wanted to get away and rise above Mama and Maggie. I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of; a look of concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red-hot chimney. Why dont you do a dance around the ashes? Id wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much (66). Dee looks down on Mama and Maggie because she sees them as weak and uneducated. You really cant blame Dee for wanting to better herself and get an education. It just seems that she forgets her heritage and where she came from. She doesnt appreciate her heritage or her mother and sister as much as she should. I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised the money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school (66). Dee is a strong willed, confident young woman who wants to have a better life, but in reading the story I cant help but feel sorry for poor Maggie. Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that no is a word the world never learned to say to her (65). She is the opposite of her sister Dee, timid, shy, and self-conscious. She appreciates what she has and knows her heritage. Although, we know that inside she wishes she could be like Dee and have the opportunities she has had. Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks (65).

So Momma is telling the story as her and Dee are waiting for Dee to come visit home from school. As they are waiting for Dee to arrive they are feeling excited and nervous. They are happy that Dee has gotten an education and the opportunity to make something of herself, but they also have some resentments because of the way she has treated them. I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Dont ask me why; in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do know. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but cant see well. She knows she is not bright (66). Momma and Maggie feel insignificant to Dee; almost forgotten.

Dee arrives in a car with man, Momma and Maggie are nervous as she gets out of the car with a flashy new dress. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes (67). Dee now wants to be referred to as Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, Wangero for short and the man she arrived with is Asalamalakim or Hakim-a-barber for short. The story doesnt say whether Hakim-a-barber is African American or not, but he is Wangeros new boyfriend and Momma and Maggie dont know a thing about him. From the other side of the car comes a short, stockyman. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like kinky mule tail (67). Momma and Maggie dont know if they got married and dont want to ask either.

They sit down at the table to eat dinner and Wangero remembers her daddy had made the benches they were all sitting on. I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints (68). Next, she notices the churn that her Uncle Buddy had whittled and asks Momma if she can have the churn top and the dasher. You can tell Momma isnt thrilled about it, but she gives it to Wangero anyways. After dinner Wangero is looking at the quilts in Mommas trunk. The quilts were made by Grandma Dee and Big Dee. One was in the Lone Star pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrells paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the piece of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezras uniform that he wore in the Civil War (69). Now Momma has had enough, Dee (Wangero) graces her and Maggie with a visit from her and her new man; and now she is asking to have the quilts that her mother and grandmother had stitched by hand. Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that I couldnt reach the quilts. They already belonged to her (69). Momma tells her that she has already promised the quilts to Maggie. Wangero is angry and insists that Maggie will probably put them to everyday use and have them to rags in no time. Dee insists they are priceless, but I didnt want to bring up how I offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style (69). Maggie creeps into the door way and tells Dee that she can remember Grandma without the quilts.

At this point Momma has somewhat of an epiphany or is just fed up and stands up to Wangero and for Maggie. When I looked at her that something hit me in the top of the head and randown to the soles of my feet. Just like when Im in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangeros hands and dumped them into Maggies lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open (70). Momma tells Dee she can take one or two of the other quilts, but she just turns her head and starts walking out the door. She does stop before getting into the car to tell Maggie that she just doesnt understand. When Maggie asks what she doesnt understand, Dee says, Your heritage (70). She kisses Maggie and says, You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. Its really a new day for us. But from the way you and Momma still live youd never know it (70). Dee puts her sunglasses and is gone; Momma and Maggie stand there trying to make sense of what just happened. Momma asks to bring her a dip of snuff and the two of them sit in the yard enjoying it.

Momma and Maggie represent the old-fashioned way of living and are content with what they have. While Dee was never content with what she had and always to rise above it. Before Dee got the chance to go to school, she disliked everything about her heritage, from the old house to the old quilts. But after returning from school she thinks she has risen above what she came from and now even though she says the quilts are priceless; she just seems to want to have them as a souvenir to remember what she overcame.

Work Cited

Walker, Alice. Everyday Use. An Introduction to Fiction. X.J. Kenned and Dana

Gioia. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 2007. 64-70.