Preview

What Is Everyday Use Maggie's Heritage

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
626 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Is Everyday Use Maggie's Heritage
Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" is the story of a woman, referred to as Mama, and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. Mama and Maggie live together in their small home in a rural area. Dee has gone to college in a big city and is coming for a visit. Maggie is painfully self conscious, "chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle" with scars on her body from a house fire. Dee has always been scornful of her family's simple way of living and has been greatly influenced by her time away. Walker uses Maggie to explore the ideas of a family's heritage and history and, by contrasting her with Dee, voices a concern that in our search for our roots perhaps we are losing important aspects of our heritage. The reader first sees Maggie's understanding
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Everyday Use Maggie And Dee Comparison
    • 64 Words
    • 1 Page

    Everyday Use Maggie And Dee Comparison

    In Alice Walker’s short story, Everyday Use, there are many characters with contrasting personalities. There are two sisters named Dee and Maggie who are polar opposites in both appearance and character. Dee is more upstanding and proud, while Maggie is humble and respectful, so they don’t get along. Although most of Dee’s and Maggie’s characteristics contrast so much, they do share some of characteristics.…

    • 64 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Eveyday Use
    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Eveyday Use

    In the short story, "Everyday Use," Alice Walker teaches us lessons on true inheritance; what it is and who can receive it. Two hand stitched quilts become the center of conflict in the story. They are also used to symbolize the true inheritance. Like a quilt, a person's world view is made up of events, circumstances and influences that shape how they see and respond to the world. "Everyday Use" is a story of two worlds in conflict. Mama, acting as the narrator, guides us through the interaction of the two very different worlds embodied in her daughters.…

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Everyday Use Analysis Essay Example
    • 1709 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Everyday Use Analysis Essay Example

    Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" is a short story about the clash between a mother and daughter. Dee is the child returning home to visit. The visit is not exactly pleasant and ends after a stand-off between her and Mama. Many readers see Mama as finally standing up for her own ideals while also refusing to conform to the rules Dee wishes her to follow. Dee follows different rules of society and religion than her mother does in order to become her own person. The rules Dee follows are shallow compared to the old-fashioned ways of her mother.…

    • 1709 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Symbols In Everyday Use
    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Symbols In Everyday Use

    “Everyday Use” is told from the perspective of Mama and takes place deep in the South sometime around the 1960’s. It is about a hard-working mother and her two daughters Dee and Maggie, and how she had to give each of them different paths to follow in life. Dee is the older sister. These paths both demonstrate how their heritage plays a role in their everyday lives. These routes resulted in Maggie having a better relationship with Mama than Dee had with her.…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Everyday Use By Alice Walker Heritage Essay
    • 467 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Everyday Use By Alice Walker Heritage Essay

    Walker finds her voice through her homelife as a child and what she had to overcome. (Cummings 1). Even though Maggie, Dee, and Mama lived through poverty, they did not have to be “Born into a world marked by racism, sexism, and poverty” as the article “Alice Walker” describes (Cummings 1). In the short story, Maggie and Dee were able to go to school to learn skills such as reading unlike Mama (Walker 21). Walker experienced school, she just had to overcome different more severe obstacles. In the short story “Everyday Use,” Mama has two daughters who develop conflict with the family quilts and who will receive them, although in reality, Walker has at least seven children. Walker may have changed the gender of the children to give a more realistic outlook to her stories because boys are not going to fight over the quilt as much as Dee was over Maggie because they won’t see as much value in them as the sisters did. A newspaper article explains, “Walker stresses not only the importance of language but also the destructive effects of its misuse” (Tuten 125). Along with language, Walker stresses heritage and culture in her short story “Everyday Use” through her use of the quilts from her ancestors. Through Walker’s writings, and her personal experiences and life, there are many differences throughout both of…

    • 467 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Alice Walker Heritage
    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Alice Walker Heritage

    Through contrasting family members and views in "Everyday Use", Alice Walker illustrates the importance of understanding our present life in relation to the traditions of our own people and culture. Using careful descriptions and attitudes, Walker demonstrates which factors contribute to the values of one's heritage and culture; she illustrates that these are represented not by the possession of objects or mere appearances, but by one's lifestyle and attitude. In "Everyday Use" Walker personifies the different sides of culture and heritage in the characters of Dee and the mother (the narrator). Dee can be seen to represent a materialistic, complex, and modern way of life where culture and heritage are to be valued only for…

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Contrasting Ideas Of Heritage In Everyday Use By Alice Walker
    • 822 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Contrasting Ideas Of Heritage In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

    Family history and heritage are things that are seen differently through each person’s eyes’ and they can even affect the way families live. “Everyday Use” is a short story that tells about a mother, her two daughters, and the differences in their values and how they live their lives. In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” she uses characterization, imagery, and setting to clearly demonstrate the theme of her story. Throughout the story she continuously uses these literary elements to show her theme of contrasting ideas of heritage.…

    • 822 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Everyday Use
    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Everyday Use

    The short story “Everyday Use”, by Alice walker, begins with a family of three: Maggie, Dee, and “Mama”(there mother). The author never reveals her actual name. However Dee being old enough to attend college leaves off to college. When she comes back from college, she begins to express herself in different ways, a way that is more liberal. By the authors description she is dressed differently, she talks differently, she even changed her name to Wangero. However she starts gathering things that her mother and her sister, Maggie, owned to express her heritage, she has the wrong idea of heritage, her heritage lied in her own name passed from her grandmother to her aunt to her. the name that she carried, Dee, was passed along for three generations, which she didn’t realize. The author shows symbolism and point of view throughout the story through the family’s name,Dee, the quilt, the house, and the mother explains the story where the author uses point of view. The objects that make Dee the person she is, are disrespectful, selfish, and self-centered.…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Alice Walker Heritage
    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Alice Walker Heritage

    In “Everyday Use” Alice Walker shows the hardships and conflicts of African Americans lives during the late twentieth century. The story takes place in the 1960’s, and shows of the social differences that blacks would experience during this black power movement. Many blacks in America don’t think or care about their heritage and ancestry, but some focused on connecting with past roots. Alice Walker shows through the story of the two different ways of dealing with African American pasts and heritage.…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Alice Walkers Tale Vs Tale
    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Alice Walkers Tale Vs Tale

    In “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker depicts the protagonist, Dee as a selfish, African girl who turned her back on her family and…

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Everyday Use By Alice Walker Analysis
    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Everyday Use By Alice Walker Analysis

    In "Everyday Use," Alice Walker tells a story of a mother's conflicted relationship with her two daughters. At face value the story tells of "Mama" gradually denying the superficial values or her elder, more socially accepted, daughter "Dee," and begins to favor the more practical views of her less fortunate daughter "Maggie." As clear a story as this may seem, there are many undercurrents open to a deeper interpretation. The story as a whole, was a good one, and seemingly aimed at an African American audience. I personally thoroughly enjoyed the story, both for its rich characterization, and the ideals which it represents.…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Everyday Use
    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Everyday Use

    In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use”, an African American woman living in the deep south known only as “Mama” narrates the story of the relationship between her daughters and herself. The story illustrates the difference between Mama and her shy younger daughter Maggie and her older educated daughter Dee. Dee has moved away from her family and is back with her fiancé to spend some quality time with them. Mama and Dee still cling to traditional black culture in the south while Dee disregards her lineage to adopt a “native African” selfhood. Alice Walker demonstrates the struggle between embracing one’s heritage and making one of your own as Dee shows how disconnected from her family she really is.…

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Alice Walker "Everyday Use"
    • 1103 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Alice Walker "Everyday Use"

    Alice Walker illustrates the significance of heritage in material objects by contrasting the family members in the story "Everyday Use". Walker uses Mama and Maggie, the youngest of the two sisters, as an example that heritage travels from one generation to another through experience and learning. However, Dee, the oldest daughter, possesses a misconception of heritage as material. During Dee's visit, contrast of characters becomes a conflict. Dee says that the mother does not understand her heritage. But is Dee right by making that comment? Dee misplaces the significance of heritage in her hope for displaying her racial heritage. Rejection of the family history, appreciation of only good material things and selfishness is what makes Dee's understanding of what true heritage wrong.…

    • 1103 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Short Story Reaction Paper
    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Short Story Reaction Paper

    Everyday Use, a short story written by Alice Walker, brings the reader into the lives of a mother and her two daughters. The daughters grew up in the same home but had two very different paths. Mama and the church raised money for Dee to attend school in Augusta and Maggie stayed home. Although Dee went on to further her education in Augusta, Maggie learned other valuable life skills from Mama, her Aunt, and her grandmother. These differences growing up give both Maggie and Dee different views of where they came from, where they are now, and the direction of their future.…

    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    An Analysis Of Everyday Use By Alice Walker
    • 1144 Words
    • 5 Pages

    An Analysis Of Everyday Use By Alice Walker

    Generally, mothers and daughters are bound together tightly and cannot be severed. Sometimes, however, can create a serious conflict between the generations, whether the daughters who accept the new culture or the mothers who deeply rooted in the traditional concept can lead the spiritual discordance to their relationship. In the story Everyday Use wrote by Alice Walker, the story is lead by “mama” who is a black woman has two daughters Dee and Maggie. Dee had better education, yet full of confidence and ambition. In contrast, Maggie is described as an unattractive girl. The climax of the story is the belonging of the quilts which represents the heritage of the family. In Maxine Hong Kingston’s No Name Woman, the narrator’s mother told her…

    • 1144 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More

Related Topics