In the excerpt from “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, Wangero tries to convince her mother to let her have her grandmother's quilts, instead of her sister Maggie. These quilts were made from the clothes of her grandmother, so they have a special importance to Wangero. She uses several persuasive strategies including anger, and belittlement in order to persuade her mother to let her keep the quilts. Through these characters and persuasive moves, Walker is saying that belittling others will end up hurting you in the long run. One of the ways Wangero tries to persuade her mother is by belittling her sister to make her seem stupid, and foolish. Wangero states “(Maggie would) probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” This strategy ultimately backfires when her mother tells her “(I’ve) been saving ‘em for long enough with nobody using ‘em. I hope she will!” What was meant to be a reason why Maggie shouldn’t have them, turned out to be Mama’s reasoning of why Maggie should have them. …show more content…
When her first technique failed, she tells Mama, “But they’re priceless!” The use of the word “priceless” is used to help Mama see more of a significance to these quilts. To Wangero, these quilts have an equivalent importance as something that could be found in a museum. She tells mama that “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags”. Wangero thinks that the quilt should be hung, while mama thinks that using it would be more
The ways Wangero fails to show why this is effective. In the story, the mother decides to give Maggie the quilts anyways (Walker 22). This is done for many reasons, but the main one is the difference in their status. From the descriptions we get of them earlier in the chapter, we can infer that Wangero is more of a white-collar type of person, and her mother is a blue-collar, working-class woman. We also see that Maggie is aligned with her mother’s status.
Mama ultimately decides that she wants to keep the quilts for their sentimental value and to pass them down to future generations. Mama makes an effort to counteroffer and convince Dee to take some other quilts that have less sentimental value. Dee declines, “No, I don't want those. They are stitched around the borders by machine,” and instead asks for “pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear,” (Walker 320). Her decision to keep them symbolizes her desire to maintain the family’s traditions and protect their history.
Have you ever tried to convince someone to give you something? In the excerpt “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, Wangero is trying to convince her mother that she, and not her sister Maggie, should own the quilts made by their late grandma. Wangero fails to convince her mother to let her have the quilts because she has a bad temper. She hates the idea of her sister using the quilts and believes they should be preserved because they are priceless. The message Walker conveys in this short excerpt, is that you shouldn’t let other people walk all over you and to not sell yourself short.
Maggie is very privileged and has never been told no, this is why she says, “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts! She’d be backward enough to put them to everyday use.”(65)
Since Dee is already taking other stuff, this is selfish and further shows that Dee is spoiled. Maggie, being used to Dee’s spoiled attitude, says, “‘She can have them, Mama,’ she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her” (Walker, 771). When the narrator notices Maggie’s upset look, she finally decides to stand against Dee’s selfishness. According to the narrator, “...snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero’s hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap.
After Wangero asks for the quilts for the first time, Mama shares that she promised to give them to Maggie at her wedding. Upset by this response, Wangero quickly attempts to convince her mother that Maggie isn't worthy of having the quilts. In paragraph 12, Wangero claims “maggie can't appreciate the quilts” and “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” She was trying to appeal to her mother's love and attachment to the quilts. She wanted to explain to her mother that if she gave maggie the quilts, they would get ruined so instead she should let Wangero have them so they could be preserved.
"Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use." ( 351). Dee feels her younger sister's intention of the use of the quilts is not as important as hers.
Maggie valued her family quilts differently than what Dee thought they meant. In the passage Dee states Maggie’s use of the quilts, “Maggie would put them on a bed and in five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!” little did Dee know that the purpose of these quilts were intended for everyday use. Maggie was taught to quilt by her grandmothers’ and she remembers them by using the quilts.
Maggie and her mother in, “Everyday Use” display the correct way to appreciate the greatness within a quilt. Acosta writes as if she was proving that the past is the past and needs to be experienced. Dee in, “Everyday Use” depicts a person who is just trying to use their heritage as a conversation starter or just to show off. In that way also showing that the education does not further you in the appreciation of your roots. Acosta discounts this in a way due to her saying that as she awoke, she wondered how the quilt was stitched.
She found value in the aesthetic appeal of her heritage. During their meal, Dee mentioned that the chute would make for a good “centerpiece”, but her artistic venture did not end there, as Dee’s final move was to have the quilts to “hang them.” Even Maggie knew, or at least had an inkling, how Dee would use the quilt. Maggie “hung back in the kitchen” then their mother “heard something fall in the kitchen” , and later a “kitchen door slammed” immediately after Dee asked to have the quilts. Yet another instance of Dee shunning practicality was her vexed reaction to the machine stitched quilts.
Dee doesn't think that Maggie should own the quilts because she will put them to everyday use and ruin them, but Momma disagrees and thinks that the quilts should be used. Her emotions shine through as she argues that,“‘... they’re priceless!’ she was saying now, furiously;for she has a temper” (Walker2). By changing her tone and using strong diction such as ‘priceless’, Dee is attempting to convince Momma that the quilts are too important and that by giving them to Maggie she would be making a mistake.
She doesn’t think that it could have significance for Maggie and her mother which it does. Wangero even treats her heritage
Walker conveys this through Wangero as it is written in the text: “Mama, Wangero said sweet as a bird. ‘Can I have these old quilts?’” (Walker 51). Wangero uses a sweet tone of voice in order to alter the way the message is heard by her mother, in this case, to make it sound like she is needy and is begging cutely to get Mama to give her the quilts, however; she fails at doing so due to Mama’s hardened emotions, she does not understand or value the concept of family possessions of the past and physical objects. Through Wangero’s use of a persuasive tone of voice, Walker presents the importance that weighs in a family’s heritage and culture which is filled with emotional and historical
The text structure that she mainly uses is compare and contrast and can be seen throughout the whole passage but one example is in line 14 stating “But they’re priceless! She was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. ” Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags, Less than that.” This example shows her comparing how her sister would use it to the way she would use it. Wangero feels like she deserves the quilts because she would hang them up and take care of them where Maggie would put them on her bed where they would get destroyed easily.
The diction or speech of the story is also centered around how the mother feels tension towards her daughters because they are trying to get her to make hard decisions. In the story they are trying to decide who gets some quilts that are sentimental to the mother, she states, “Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that I couldn't reach the quilts.” Even though this decision doesn’t look like a tough one, it is for her because the quilts are the mothers grandmother’s and she doesn’t want her handicapped daughter to ruin them. The mother, in this African American family, is usually in control, but here it shows that the daughter is because she makes sure that Maggie gets one or more of the quilts that her mother’s grandmother gave to her.