African American Roots in Everyday Use Essay

Alice Walkers 1973 short story Everyday Use, was written during the 1920s when segregation exists and they were trying to gain racial equality. After reading Alice Walkers short story, I learned that she was concerned that African Americans would not lose the concept of their heritage and identity.

The story Everyday Use, is about a poor, black mother (Ms. Johnson) and her two daughters Dee and Maggie. Dee who also grew up poor was able to attend college in Augusta with the help of her mother and the church. She comes back home with this attitude that she is better than her mother and sister. The other daughter, Maggie, still lives at home with her mother. When Dee arrives she is accompanied by a male friend (apparently her boyfriend) and from then on it was very clear that the differences they had in the past has become worst than they already were. She had changed her name from Dee to Wangero and criticizes her family for the way they still live. The climax of the story takes place when the mother refuses to give Dee some old quilts because they were already meant to be a wedding present for Maggie. The quilts are the main focus of the story because it represents their heritage. The mother decided that she would not give the quilts to Dee because she did not cherish their heritage like Maggie did.

Dee and Maggie have different characteristic, Dee is successful and beautiful, but very arrogant, where Maggie is simple, disfigured and slow. Both of the daughters are loved by the mother, but Dee has always stood out from Ms. Johnson and Maggie as the independent one of the family. There are two main points to this story: The first point is when Dee is about to arrive, it gives an excellent vision on the family past and it describes their relationship with one another. The second point is when Dee actually arrives until she departs again.

The story is being told from the mothers point of view. She describes herself as a large, big-boned women with rough man-working hand. Although her education was cut short because the school was closed down when she was in second grade and she could not read, but the author gave her character something a lot of us are missing today and that is strength: She can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man, she can work outside all day, she can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog, and she is good at a mans job. While the author showed the mothers physical strength, she also showed the mothers mental toughness side: She went to the church and raised money to send her gifted daughter to school in Augusta and she could clearly understand a dream from reality. She dreams of being brought together with Dee again. The arrival of Dee reminded the mother of her weakness like when she said she could never look a strange white man in the eye, that she has talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them are some examples of her weakness, while Dee on the other hand would always look anyone in the eye.

Maggie reminds me of Cinderella and Dee is the wicked stepmother. She is the youngest of the two daughters and total opposite of Dee. Maggie has a thin body, severe scars on her arms and legs from a fire that burned down the Johnsons house in the beginning of the story to the ground and she know that she is not bright. She does not have any confidence and it shows in the way she walk with her head hung down all the time and the way she looks at her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She is like her mother uneducated although the mother tells us that Maggie sometimes reads to her. Even though Maggie did not have the good looks, education and money, she had something that Dee did not have and that is the love for her family, their history and traditions.

Dee is bright, confident and a beautiful woman that acts like hesitation is no part of her nature. She is total opposite from her family, because she cares much about her outer appearance. The author said that at the age of sixteen she had a style of her own and knew what style was. Since Dee left home to attend college, she has a negative attitude towards the black traditional family. Despite her good education she is blind when it comes to seeing the value of her American roots. Dee is portrayed by the author as an arrogant and selfish person, and because of those traits she hardly ever had any friends.