Annotated Bibliography Baker, Houston A., and Charlotte Pierce-Baker. "Patches: Quilts and Community in Alice Walker's" Everyday Use"." The Southern Review 21.3 (1985): 706. The two writers use symbolism to convey the message in that it is an indication of fullness to stand as a sign of condemnation or rather the act of judging, the quilter patch is a fragment. A patch may have the capability of a showing off some level poverty. Daily quilts, pieced wholes without a defined pattern had a direct address to women who were considered as Alien due to their endless fashionable desires. Sculpting, weaving, shaping so as to create multi-colored and short-lived array paramount in leading to the emergence of unsettledness or rather peace and harmony. Such doings or activities saw the need to apply some or the needed survival tactics. Crafted wares, tattered clothes, and patchwork coverlet had the basics to …show more content…
"Alice Walker-Everyday Use." (2005). Timpe mainly introduces the reader to certain dynamic philosophies of walker’s writing, especially on black concept heritage by deducing her short story “Everyday Use”. Before the interpretation of the story, the reader learns about Walker’s biography. A brief summary and structure informs one on the main topics to be understood. Walker revisits her homeland through fiction in what may be centered on a protagonist who returns home. The way life in the community was perceived is in plain and black and straight forward. The two daughters take divergent paths as Maggie is less educated and it is in her mother’s opinion that she will soon be married to have her own house. She is humble, takes life in an easier and simpler way. On the contrary, Dee has been ambitious yet determined and risen above their humble background. Having desires to move to even higher levels. This truly scares her mother. Generally, Timpe simplifies the works of Walker for easy understanding. Several other works are as well cited and thus
The quilt tells a fictional story of the past histories of modernism, African-American culture, and an autobiography of the artist’s experiences. Ringgold struggled to be recognized in the past where the art world was dominated by social norm traditions and male artists. Her narrative quilt discusses the race and gender biases during the 1980s. Since Ringgold struggled to be an artist herself during the beginning years, she always recorded those realities throughout her quilts. And characteristics are
Civil rights issues stand at the core of Anne Moody’s memoir. However, because my last two journal entries centered on race and the movement, I have decided to shift my focus. In her adolescent years, Anne Moody must live with her mother, her mother’s partner Raymond, and her increasing number of siblings. As she reaches maturity, she grows to be a beautiful girl with a developed body. Her male peers and town members notice, as does her step father Raymond.
We feel that we must give meaning to everything and everyone. However, this is impossible. A person’s skin color or disability does not define them, their health, or their abilities. Consequently, Maggie represents the minority of individuals who are invisible to society and have no voice due to their race, disability, or other features that cause them to upset the social norms. While Maggie’s character was merely a memory for the main characters, she personifies both Twyla and Roberta’s conflicting companionship and the skewed expectations brought on by our culture.
The Century Quilt was written by Marilyn Nelson Waniek and she tells us about the history of her families quilt. The meaning of the quilt is expressed through literary devices such as symbolism, vivid imagery, and tone. The author used symbolism as a major technique to get the meaning of the quilt across to the reader. The author uses flashbacks to describe the past she has with the quilt.
Nella Larsen’s Passing is a novella about the past experiences of African American women ‘passing’ as whites for equal opportunities. Larsen presents the day to day issues African American women face during their ‘passing’ journey through her characters of Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry. During the reading process, we progressively realize ‘passing’ in Harlem, New York during the 1920’s becomes difficult for both of these women physically and mentally as different kinds of challenges approach ahead. Although Larsen decides the novella to be told in a third person narrative, different thoughts and messages of Irene and Clare communicate broken ideas for the reader, causing the interpretation of the novella to vary from different perspectives.
Occasion: Alice Walker writes the story to draw attention to the mindset of the minorities. Walker was an activist. “Everyday Use” is a short story within a collection documenting the stories of black women, such as Alice Walker herself. Audience: Walker writes the story for everyone to read.
Maggie’s quilts can also symbolize the respect she has for culture. According to Alice Walker, the quits were sewn by Dee and Maggie's grandmother, and while Dee only wants the quilts to show them off, Ma chose to give them to Maggie because she knows she will respect and use them. There is also symbolism in their old home including the fire that burned it down and Maggie in the process. The house fire symbolizes the family being separated or destroyed, as evidenced by how Dee treats her family and why Maggie often seeks her sister's approval. Despite this, while fire symbolizes destruction, it also symbolizes purification, which Alice Walker uses to show Maggie's kind-hearted and caring nature as she is uncorrupted by selfishness.
In conclusion,Alice Walker used two characters to carry out a deeper meaning of a short story. It showed similarities and differences to my family, and the family in “Everyday use”. Also it show how maggie and Dee are two very different characters. Maggie and Dee didn 't share a bond with each other throughout their,but I am glad my brothers and I
Dee’s transformation is more external than it is internal. She shows her transformation in the way she speaks, the clothes she wears, and her judgement. Mama’s transformation is more internal. She begins to see Dee’s real thoughts, and she stands up against her. When she takes the quilts away from Dee, she doesn’t only stand up for herself, but Maggie, as
Archibald John Motley Jr.’s painting, “Mending Socks”, illustrates an elderly woman sitting in a rocking chair. She has a scarlet blanket loosely hung around her shoulders and is wearing a lace-bordered white apron. Above her on the wall is a wooden cross. In the painting she is repairing socks, hence the piece’s name. On the periwinkle table to her left is a small pile of olive green socks.
Alice Walker the author of the Flowers”, was inspired to write this story because of the tragedy that has happened to multiple black Americans and how it has affected their human rights. This story describes scenery that may have happened around South America starting off with a girl named Myop, a ten-year old girl who explores the world around her, unaware of the secrets the world beyond holds. In the first paragraph, Alice Walker clearly emphasises Myops purity and young innocence with the quote “She skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen.” This demonstrates how happy Myop is in this setting, we can identify she feels safe here, “ She felt light and good in the warm sun.”
Alice Walker wrote what Mama said about Dee or Wangero, “Dee wanted nice things.” Mama describes Dee as a lavish person who is only interested in herself and her fulfilling’s. Dee had changed her name to show that she is not accepting that a “white person” named her ancestors in way, so it can be passed down. Walker describes Mama as someone who is satisfied with what they have. “I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon,” Walker demonstrates how Mama is pleased with nature where her life takes place in.
Everyone defines and identifies themselves in different ways. Whether it’s by our names, our religion, or our sexuality, we all have something different that make us unique and that we identify ourselves as. In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” an African American woman tells the story of her daughter Dee’s long awaited visit. Upon her arrival the mother and her other daughter, Maggie, discover some drastic changes in Dee: she has changed her name to Wangero, she has also arrived with a mysterious man who calls himself Asalamalakim, and has adopted an African style of dress; all of this in an effort to depict what she sees as her heritage. During the course of her visit, Dee tries to take several items important to her family’s heritage.
What ideas and issues bring us together like a family that can be broken through dispute? Anna Quindlen’s A Quilt of a Country describes the United States as a broken yet unified nation that is built of many different parts and bits of the world and all its nations. Quindlen uses symbolism with the symbol of a discordant quilt to develop her central idea of “America [being and] is an improbable idea”(Quindlen pg.3). Discordant as we are, America will always have its issues but we will remain fractured and unified.
Having done so, she goes on to highlight the ‘womanist’ culture. Afro-American tradition, for Mama, is symbolized by churn. It is a tradition of bonding, of mutual nurturance. Similarly, the symbol of quilt for Mama is not just a utilitarian item but a living tradition. Alice Walker, in fact, uses the imagery of the quilt to suggest what womanism is all about.