Everyday Use

In the story Everyday Use by Alice Walker she tells of a story of a hard working women who tired to get her daughters the things they needed in life.  A fire burns down the first house they lived in and the younger daughter is burned from it while the older daughter looks like she is rejoicing the house was burning down. the older daughter Dee who changes her name Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo doesn't want anything to do with her family she left for college and told her mother she would come back one day to visit. You can tell from the beginning the mother seems excited to be seeing the older daughter where the younger sister is afraid of her sister coming home. This could be cause they dont have the really nice things the sister always made know that she wanted. The mother who tires to accommodate the daughters finally takes a stand and tells the brat of an older daughter no at the end of the story. The older daughter storms off leaving them behind without a care in the world because she didn't get her way like she always does. 

I believe that at the end of the story when the mother finally told her no take some of the other quilts instead of giving her everything she wanted she saw her daughters true colors. The daughter didn't want anything to do with them, she even expressed that she was embarrassed by them she was just there to see what she could get and nothing more.

Comments

  1. Esin OzildizNovember 7, 2019 at 7:50 AM

    Yes, the daughter seemed like she was to good for her mother and sister, even trying to change her name and her identity. The quilts were an important family heirloom that Dee did not appreciate.

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  2. Carolina KhaninNovember 11, 2019 at 8:41 AM

    This was a very conflictive family. Dee seems not to fit in. Dee came to take with her things as relics, but for the mother and Maggy they were part of their daily life.

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  3. Tom LavazziNovember 17, 2019 at 11:03 AM

    all on right track here. "true colors" interesting and ironic way of putting Dee's attitude==esp since she dresses so colorfully--what are her "true colors? for this perspective, and why might her dress be a kind of "false color" that indicates the truth of her attitude--and some lack of self-awareness (consider, for eg, how her dress--symbolizing a superficial, intellectualized connection to one sort of "heritage"--contrasts/conflicts with her own more bodily connection to the other concept of heritage, which seems to be valorized by the narrative (notice the dinner scene--how/what Dee eats...) Not "appreciating" quilts or churn also interesting---perhaps she "appreciates" them--again, form a certain distance--as what--while a careful look at details of the scene suggests she has not real connection --"personal" connection--to these items as Maggie and Mama do... yes, she is, in a sense, like the GM in "a Good Man..." a "misfit" in certain sense, while also, like the GM, somewhat in denial about her deeper connection to the heritage she rejects...

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