Critical Analysis Of Everyday Use and A Clean Well Lighted Place Essay

Analysis of Everyday Use by Alice Walker and A Clean Well Lighted Place by Earnest Hemingway.

There is always a natural propensity to view oneself in a brighter light than the rest of the world and these short stories delve deep than that narcissistic nature of human interactions. These authors explore how we as humans can develop simple and often irrational reasons based on perceptions of things, time and physical attributes to influence our relationship with others.

Hemingways waiter has the same superior attitude as Dee, in Walkers story. They see others as inferior, for reasons that any outsider could argue as unjust. In A Clean Well Lighted Place, the item in question is simply time. The Waiter sees the Old Mans time as less valuable because in his eyes, the man is wasting the hour away getting drunk on brandy at a bar. The Waiter says the last hour before 2AM is More to me than him (Kennedy, p176), referring to the old man. He justifies closing the bar an hour early and kicking the deaf Old Man out by seeing himself at home, with his wife ,in bed being a better use of that hour. He doesnt know, or care enough to inquire as to why the Old Man chooses to come out to this particular caf, at this particularly late hour into the night, sit in the one spot where the tree leaves block the glow from the electric light and drink glass after glass of brandy. The Waiter seemingly finds everything about himself as superior to the deaf Old Man, including the fact that he still has the ability to hear.

The character Dee, in Everyday Use (Kennedy pp102-109), also finds everything about herself superior to others. I find Dees case to be more infuriating the Waiters, because she treats her own mother and sister with the same disrespect. Dee, like the waiter, found something about herself to justify her superiority. Hers was the ability to read, unlike her mother and younger sister. But it was thanks to her Momma and sister, Maggie, for raising the money to send her to school that gave her that superior ability. In contrast to time, the desired in Dees story is materialistic. Specifically quilts that were stitched by Dees Grandmother, made of pieces of dresses she once wore that were passed down to her by her mother (pp108p60). Dee treated her family like they were a different, considerably inferior, breed than herself. It seems She didnt really to come visit to see them, only to collect antiques and artifacts from the heritage she had never even accepted as her own. She argues that her use of the quilts, hanging them on the walls for decoration (and some could say false pride) , will be better than Maggies, who has been looking forward to inheriting the quilts and having them keep her marital bed warm (in a house I assume will not have a/c or heater). To each girl, the way the quilts will be used is equally important, yet because Dee sees herself as superior and projects herself as such, she expects to get her way. She doesnt care about how Maggie feels about the quilts or just the fact that it is something she had to look forward to.

Just as Maggie looks forward to receiving the special quilts, The old man looks forward to enjoying the quiet, lack of static sound of the night. The old man sees the caf as a rare ,comforting and pleasant place to be. The waiter does not appreciate the caf as much as the old man and the older waiter, because the caf serves a different purpose to him. The deaf Old Man looks forward to the few hours he can sit in peace and drink his brandy. It seems like the only things the Man has left in his life are his brandy and his few hours every night to look forward to. The Waiter shutting the caf early for no good reason is just like how Dee wants the quilts for her walls.

The young waiter and Dee are very much alike in these stories. In Hemmingways story, the young Waiter sees himself as superior to the Old Man because he has his youth, confidence, a job, and a wife at home waiting for him (Kennedy p107).He sees the deaf old man as a nasty thing and shows no restraint on letting it be known. He feels he deserves to spend his next hour at home in bed with his wife, instead of the old man deserving to spend that hour in the shadows of the leaves outside the caf.

The Old Man in the caf and Maggie are alike in the way that they know they are being treated unfairly, yet they allow it to happen. Maggie reluctantly offers the quilts to Dee, despite the assumption that those quilts have been promised to her for a long time and will probably be the only thing Mama can give her for her wedding. While Maggie submits to Dees ways, it seems she does so not just in fear but for acceptance from this superior being. While the old man at the caf submits to the waiter with no emotional ties connecting them. It Is almost as if, sadly, he is used to this inferior treatment.

Both of these stories really bring light to a common cruelty that has been going on forever. The juxtaposition of these stories reveals the human tendency to promote ones own valuation over another.

Works Cited

Hemingway, Earnest. A Clean Well Lighted Place. Literature: An Intro to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 9th ed. New York: Longman, 2005. 174-178.

Walker, Alice. Everyday Use. Literature: An Intro to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 9th ed. New York: Longman, 2005. 102-109.