Themes and Symbols in Everyday Use - Research Paper Example

s the assignment is due Everyday Use Introduction An idea from an external environment that may get ‘seeded’ into an author’s mind could output in the form of creative works including books, novels and short stories. That ‘seeding’ of an idea could be initiated by some events or people or culture, etc, etc., which will be visible in the environment around the author. Thus, an author could come up with works based on what he/she sees, hears and feels in his/her environment. The author influenced by various happenings in his/her lifetime as well as before his/her lifetime would come with works, completely basing on those events or just using it part of the work, fictionalizing the other parts. There have been many American writers who have created works on this basis with Alice Walker being one of the prominent ones. She came up with her short story, “Everyday Use” after being influenced by various events related to racism during her lifetime. Alice Walker was heavily influenced by the Black Power Movement and she brings out those influences in her work. “Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” contains several important parallels to the author’s own life. Born in 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, Walker grew up in an environment much like that described in the story” (Wilson). When doing so, various authors will incorporate various historical and cultural elements as part of the plot, and Walker did that in her work. So, this paper focusing on various historical themes and cultural symbols in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” will compare it with other works including Walker’s Color Purple, Chinua Achebe’s “Dead Men’s Path” and Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”. 2. Themes and symbols in “Everyday Use” In “Everyday Use”, Mrs. Johnson or ‘Mama’ is the name of the mother while Dee and Maggie are the two daughters. 'Mama' introduces herself as "a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands". So, the Mama could be constructed as women with good physical strength. 'Mama' always exhibited a lot of care and responsibility to both her daughters and tried her best to give both of them a better life. As both the daughters were different in every aspect, all theirs friction were handled with care by her. Dee and Maggie are extremely contrasting both physically and mentally. The elder sister, Dee is portrayed as a beautiful and successful, however at the same time an arrogant woman, who does not have any pride for her culture and heritage. On the other hand, Maggie is shown as a disfigured and lethargic, however at the same time a simple girl, who has a lot of pride in her heritage. "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" (Walker 25). Although both the girls had a different personality and different affiliation towards their culture, their relationship was a smooth affair, until the cultural symbol of quilts entered the picture. The mother, Mrs. Johnson and Maggie lead their lives following their culture to their heart, and without compromising on any of their cultural traditions. It is only the elder daughter, Dee in the family who has changed her lifestyle and distanced herself from her culture. The influence of modern living and deterioration of culture is evident when Dee arrives home with her boyfriend, Hakim-a-barber. Dee, who is going to a college outside her state in the North, surprises her mother and sister with her changed behavior. She, because of the influence of Black Power movement, changes her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo in an attempt to detach from her culture. Mrs. Johnson and Maggie felt very uncomfortable with the name change, attitude and actions of Dee. "When Dee and her friend use strange words to greet the mother and Maggie and when they announce their names…this is not the culture of the mother- nor perhaps of Africa either. (Guerin 295). Along with her name, Dee discards her lineage and cultural identity. While mother Mrs. Johnson and her younger daughter Maggie wants to protect and preserve their culture. This conflict in their priorities gets reflected in their interactions leading to confrontations. Dee vehemently argued in support of her decision to change her name, even blaming both of them for living in the past traditions and cultures. Then, Dee asks for a quilt, sewn by her ancestors and kept by Mrs. Johnson as a wedding gift to Maggie, to use it as a decorative object. This gives rise to another bout of confrontation, with Dee's intentions questioned and Maggie's association with culture rewarded. 3. Comparison between The Color Purple and “Everyday Use” The Color Purple is an applauded novel by the American author Alice Walker. This novel is a fiction but as it is influenced and based on real people, places and events, it falls under the genre of “Historical Fiction”. The writer of this novel Alice Walker attempts to capture the culture, spirit and social conditions of her times through her work like she did in “Everyday Use” through the character of Dee. The time period, in which the novel was set, segregation between Blacks and Whites was a major thing and was enforced legally. Anyone violating this segregation was ostracized and punished through legal and also violent means. For example, when the mayor’s wife Miss Millie wants Sofia, an African American woman, to work as her maid, Sofia refuses. This leads to further altercation, and Sofia was arrested and sentenced to work for 12 years in the maid’s house. Within the white society, men had high status was expected to control the society and the family. However, the African American males unlike their white counterparts, was humiliated everyday on basis of his skin color. This aroused their frustration and as an outlet many African American males mistakenly turned their anger towards the women in their lives. The key thing that is visible in the novel, is that this anger against and suppression of women, including African American women is a universal thing, which is visible in Africa as well. In the letters, Nettie shows African women were also suppressed and ill treated. The racial and cultural conflict and oppression that Nettie encounters in Africa is clearly parallel to the smaller scale abuses that Celie experiences in American. (“Sparknotes The Color Purple” 13). This view of Africa also being a place where racism and oppression of women being highly prevalent, and that it is not an idealistic place is in total contrast to Dee’s view of Africa. In the short story, “Everyday Use”, Dee changes her name to a African name and wants to follow the African culture dumping her African American culture mainly because she views African culture and way of living as an idealistic one. However, from the view of Nettie, it is clear that Africa is also not an idealistic place, and does not provide any major improvement than America. 4. Comparison between Dead Men's Path and “Everyday Use” It is through the characters of the stories, that the theme of cultural conflicts is presented. In the story "Dead Men's Path" by Achebe, the protagonist Obi is a headmaster who believes in modern thinking. He modernizes the school by improving the teaching standards and also by developing a beautiful garden in the school compound. However, he is outraged to see an old woman walking through the hedges and marigold flower bed in the garden. Upon inquiring about the path, he comes to knows about the role of the path in the lives of the villagers. "The path," the teacher said apologetically, "appears to be very important to them. Although it is hardly used, it connects the village shrine with their place of burial." (Achebe 477). Being a person with modern thinking, he mocks at beliefs of the villagers and orders to block the path. However, Obi has to face the consequences for disregarding the culture and traditions of the villagers, as they destroy the garden and the building of the school. This makes him very because Obi tried to eradicate such irrational beliefs and other superstitions at least among the future generations, through that school only, but it was destroyed. For him, education was meant to eradicate such superstitious beliefs. "The whole purpose of our school,' he said finally, 'is to eradicate just such beliefs as that. Dead men do not require footpaths. The whole idea is just fantastic. Our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such ideas." (Achebe 478). However, in “Everyday Use”, the concept of education is viewed as a negative thing, which can overthrow the age-old cultures and traditions. Walker’s short story brings the impacts of education on the thinking of young woman, who start looking at her culture as an outmoded thing. The character of Dee represents a group of educated persons who think that the cultural beliefs are illogical and one should discard them. They fail to understand that culture is necessary for an individual to connect with his/her cultural roots. For her, cultural beliefs are irrational thoughts that hinder the progress of the person. What Dee fails to realize is that culture provides the strength to an individual to cope with realities of life. Thus, both these stories look at the education’s role in ‘consuming’ age-old culture and traditions. 5. Comparison between “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Everyday Use” Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a sort of personalized story in 1891, basing it on her struggles with mental illness. Walker also incorporated personal elements in “Everyday Use”, as she modeled the sisters’ characters of Dee and Maggie basing it on her own life and her ideology. Her self-conscious attitude during the early stages of her life and her disfigurement due to an accident got reflected in Maggie’s character. On the other hand, her rise from poverty due to education and her participation in Civil Rights movement was seen in the character of Dee. The unnamed female character in “The Yellow Wallpaper” had to fight “temporary nervous depression — a slight hysterical tendency” and her dominative Physician husband. (Gilman 2). When she was fighting the mental condition, she gets no help from her husband as he locks her in solitary confinement in an isolated house. There, her mind gets affected even further, and when she sees the intricate patterns on the wallpaper, she was ‘consumed’ by it causing bad ramifications. Like the case of quilt in ““Everyday Use””, the wallpaper in “The Yellow Paper” takes the plot in new directions. That is, in “The Yellow Paper”, the object of wallpaper creates serious problems for the female protagonist. Likewise, in “Everyday Use”, the object of quilt causes a lot of damages between the relationships of sisters as well as mother. The setting of the lonely house, solitary confinement and the nursery room with “The Yellow Wallpaper” all clearly contribute to the aggravation of mental illness. 6. Conclusion Being an educated woman, Dee looks down upon her culture and considers it to be obsolete. For her, quilt is not meant for everyday use. On the other hand, her sister, Maggie wants to keep the quilt, in memory of her grandmother and also as a continuation of her family culture as well as heritage. Walker wrote “Everyday Use” sprinkling her life experiences in various parts of the story. She also did that in her other work, the Color Purple, which focused on how the segregation between African Americans and Whites in the first half of the 20th century impacted the lives of the central characters. The other key component, which was incorporated by the authors in their works, is particular cultural elements. These cultural symbols or motifs are exhibited as key themes through the novel. Walker did this in “Everyday Use” through the use of quilts. Other authors also have did that including Chinua Achebe in “Dead Men's Path”, with the central protagonist, Obi rejecting certain cultural symbols, leading to repercussions. When these cultural elements are brought into the written works, it can correlate to women’s status in the society and how they are treated. Walker through the symbol of quilt brings out various perspectives about women’s rights, and that is visible in Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” as well Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. “A Dead Man's Path.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. London: Longman. 2005 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. New York: Forgotten Books, 1973. Guerin, Wilfred L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. Oxford University Press US, 1999. “Sparknotes the Color Purple.” Spark Notes, 2002. Web. 4 May 2011. Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use”. Contributed by Barbara Christian. Rutgers University Press. 1994 Wilson, Kathleen. “Everyday Use” Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Thomson Gale. 1997 Read More