The Mothers views in Alice Walker's Everyday Use - Essay Example

Yet the Mother could also face tragedy in her life, like when her daughter was burned. This is proven by the quote, “Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie's arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes (Walker, 1998).

She did not sugarcoat the events in her life by making them appear better or more tragic than they were. This view of her life makes the Mother’s narrative believable. The Mother’s choice of words when describing herself and her daughters also make the narrative plausible. When describing herself, she is far from flattering by saying, “In real life, I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man working hands” (Walker, 1998). Her daughter Maggie, who had been burned in the fire, was described as “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” (Walker, 1998).

The Mother’s other daughter, Dee, receives more of her venom. She is illustrated as pretentious, always wanting to be better than her Mother and Maggie. These descriptions are blunt, so make the story more credible. Using the descriptions of her daughters, the Mother makes the reader feel sorry for Maggie and contemptuous of Dee. When relating Maggie’s acceptance of her fate, by marrying a local boy because of her self esteem being damaged by her burns, the reader admires and pities Maggie.

On the other hand, when Dee comes home with a new African name, trying to relate to her African roots, her Mother is disgusted. Dee’s real roots were there at their home with the Mother and Maggie, but her exaggerated ways make the Mother’s contempt spill over onto the reader. Since the infusion of the Mother’s feelings to the reader is so delicate, the reader can come away believing her feelings were, in reality, their own. It is important in any narrative for the narrator to be reliable.

If there is no reliability, the reader loses interest. This story has such a convincing narrator, she can persuade the reader to believe not only in her story but also in her views. The reliability allows the narrator to taint all of the characters for readers to come around to her point of view. This story leads readers to believe the narrator is right because she is realistic.