The Theme in Everyday Use - Book Report/Review Example

The Theme in ‘Everyday Use’ ‘Everyday Use’ is a short story with its setting in the rural side of American south where an African-American mother, Mama has conflicting relationship with Dee and Maggie, her two daughters. White notes that the plot of this short story was in the late 1960s or early 1970s, a period where African Americans struggled to define their individual identities according to cultural perspectives. This was the time when most Blacks wanted to rediscover African roots and were willing to reject the American heritage that had a lot of injustices and pain. But the author of this short story, Walker, appreciates that Africa-Americanism is a component of both African and American and denying the American perspective of one’s heritage amounts to disrespecting one’s ancestors. The theme in this short story is propagated with the return of Dee, the educated member of the family, together with her male companion to their home to meet her mother and Maggie, deeply rooted in the African culture. Walker uses characterization appropriately, upholds the African heritage and supports the argument that heritage is part of everyday human life. She therefore uses Mama, Maggie and Dee as the principal characters in propagating the main theme: in everyday life, there is harmony and conflict in Africa-American culture. In the beginning, Walker, the author and narrator, later to be identified as Mrs. Johnson or Mama narrates in first person how they were waiting in the yard with Maggie, her daughter. Whitsitt (447) symbolically views this as a wait for their redemption from lack of education due to being enclosed in their rural surrounding for a long time, with the use of first person making the readers feel like they have to be with the narrator. She moves from describing the yard to talk of how Maggie would be nervous with her sister coming home because of her burn scars. She definitely feels inferior to Dee, her sister who had opportunities in life unlike Maggie. The narrator contrasts these sisters by describing Dee as a guest in a TV show, a sign of her glamour. The narrator describes her dream being congratulated in a TV show in which she appears with her daughter for raising a fine girl like her. This moves from a dream to reality where the narrator portrays this Mama with masculine attributes which sharply contrasts the glittering representation on the TV show hosted by Johnny Carson in a dress with a flower. ‘Everyday Use’ contrasts the lifestyle in urban and rural paradigms to propagate its main theme. Mama points out that the daughter does not appreciate her as what she would like to be – “a hundred pound lighter, skin like an uncooked barley pancake” and have a “witty tongue” (Walker 89). The plot indicates a switched perspective where Maggie came out asking how she looked in red blouse and pink skirt. It would be appreciated that all main characters change in the story which indicates the use of change by Walker to support her theme in the story. In spite of Maggie trying to make herself presentable, the narrator compares her to a lame animal, “perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car” (Walker 89). But she admits that she has a better figure and is lighter than Dee, reminding her of how she got saved from their burning house twelve years ago. Therefore, the plot of this short story gives a clear indication of the tension between the family and Dee because this elder daughter had acquired outside education. This detaches her from the normal usefulness which revolved around the house and land and appreciates education more together with ethereal usefulness. She describes her daughter, Maggie as shy and rather unattractive with scarred soul. Lovingly, she admits that “like good looks and money, quickness passed her by” (Walker 73). In spite of her stumbling as she reads, Mama still considers her a sweet person whom she can sing with in church. Maggie is content with their traditions and honors her ancestors, having learnt quilting from her grandmother. The beginning of the story characterizes Mama as the narrator with her language indicating the relationship between the physical environment and herself as Walker indicates that Mama waits for her daughter, Dee “in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy” (88). This emphasis on the yards physical characteristics points out to the pleasure that this woman obtains from their everyday practice and the attachment they have to their home. Walker indicates that in fact the yard is not just that but an “extended living room” which makes it not only as a property object but also as an expression of herself (71). Mama uses the traditional attributes of an African woman to describe herself as “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” (72). This indicates her comfort and familiarity with her psychological and physical environment and also the rough life and great work they are exposed to. The author contrasts Maggie to Dee, characterizing her with good looks, education and ambition. Education plays an important role in shaping the character of Dee, but also separates her from the family as noted by Mama that “She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice” (Walker 73). She adopts other traditions that are against their African traditions and therefore tries to get herself back through various ways including changing her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo as given during a visit to Africa (Whitsitt 449). But even so, she denies the heritage that Mama and Maggie share. On the other hand, the scars and inscriptions on Maggie’s skin could be symbolically viewed as the ruthless life that she has had to go through. While Dee is described as one who does not get snagged by anything, looking even strange White men in the eye, Maggie always looked onto the ground and Mama who would look up but imagine nothing. The quilt that Mama promises to give to Maggie when she marries her off, “pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee” is highly symbolic of the cultural heritage and traditions of the Johnsons (Walker 76). Unlike Dee, Grandma Dee and Big Dee taught culture and heritage to their offspring. It would be noted that the quilt is made of historical fragments of shirts, uniforms and dresses, each representing those who propagated the values of family culture and heritage as observed by White. Most significantly is the fact that these fragments are gotten from their daily lives; from materials they lived in, a fact that Dee seem not to understand. This is the essence of this short story, that to cultivate and maintain heritage, it has to be necessary to a social group. Works Cited Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 8th ed. New York: Longman, 2002. White, David. “'Everyday Use': Defining African-American Heritage." 19 Sept. 2002. Web. 21 June 2012 . Whitsitt, Sam. “In Spite of it All: A Reading of Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use.”” African American Review 34.3. (2000): 443 – 460. Read More