A Comparison Of Maggie And Dee In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

In the beginning of the story, Maggie portrays an array of jealousy towards Dee. Because of Dee being educated and full-of-life in comparison, Maggie feels as if she has always been placed on the back burner and is one step below Dee. In her early years, Maggie underwent the devastation of a fire. In a result of that, she acquired an inexperienced education and an awkward, introverted mentality. Maggie bacame a burn victim in consequence of the fire and had countless

Heritage; is a great value that has been passed down from generation to generation. It is of great value and although it can be worth very little to other people, to your family it is priceless. Alice Walker wrote the story, “Everyday Use”, to show an importance of Mama’s and Maggie’s heritage. There is also Dee who has that heritage too, but she thinks that they of no good use and think they are not important. Also in “Everyday Use “Mama and Maggie have Family Conflicts with Dee. The family conflict ties up with the heritage because Dee thinks very little about the valued things in her family, but Maggie and Mama thinks highly of them and they want to put them to great

While Dee is asking for the quilts, her mom remembers a time when she offered Dee the quilts before leaving and she replied ," They were old-fashioned, out of style"(Walker 64). This allows the reader to acknowledge that Dee does not fully comprehend the true meaning of the quilts, viewing the quilt as if it was just another object in the world. Later in the story, Maggie becomes upset when Dee was about to take the quilts. The author illustrates Maggie putting snuff in her bottom lip giving ," her face a kind of dopey, hangdog look"(Walker 65). This exemplifies to the readers that through the mother's eyes, Maggie was so extremely upset that Dee was once again going to win by taking the quilts because Maggie truly understands the meaning of the quilts and deserves to not be defeated by Dee. The author also reveals Maggie through her mother's eyes and how she already was going to give Maggie the quilts. While the mom was talking to Dee she fortifies that ,"I promised to give them quilts to Maggie"(Walker 64). This depicts how the mother grasps the fact that Maggie is particularly familiar with the family's heritage and culture that surrounds the meaning of the quilt. The mother believes Maggie recognizes the quilt's importance to the family by it symbolizing the family's heritage and the pride and memories it

Maggie is also oppressed by society and Dee, and, though to a further degree than her mother, her view of herself attacks her equality compared to the rest of the world. The subject is immediately introduced. The story begins with Maggie and her mother waiting for Dee. They waste their time in order to be available to Dee as soon as Dee

Take Aunt Dice and Mama, for example. They are well bonded and we can tell this because of the quilts they made together. Dee and Maggie on the other hand, are opposites. No words are said between them. But, between Mama and Dee, readers can tell that they have a bad relationship, because Dee has no idea on where she or her family came from.The quilts are the main symbol for the reason that each character has different views on them and their meaning, just like the readers.Near the end, the mother needs to choose whom to give the quilts to, to keep. Both of them have quilts with opposite views on what their use will be. Dee only wants to just hang them up, while Maggie wants to appreciate their appearance. I conclude that Alice Walker wanted Maggie to have the quilts because she thinks would actually mean something. As she looks at her quilts, Mama remembers that a certain patch came from her grandfather's paisley shirts, that some pieces came from dresses that Grandma Dee wore 50 years earlier, and even that there was a very small piece of her great-grandfather's Civil War uniform. From this, we can all see how and why they mean so much to her. To Dee, the quilts are a quaint "primitive" art. To Mama and Maggie, they represent more than that. They are family memories, very personal and very special mementos of loved ones who are gone. To Mama and Maggie, they represent more than that. They are

Dee and Maggie are two completely different people. Dee has different motivations than Maggie. In the short story Mama states: “Dee… at age sixteen had a style of her own: and knew what tyle was.” pg. 105. Dee knew what fashion was and wanted to pursue a career in the industry. On the other hand, we have Maggie. In the short story Mama states: “... for when Maggie marries John Thomas” pg. 108. Unlike Dee, who is very independent,

First off, Maggie is quiet and shy. She is ashamed about how she looks.The story stated,”She will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs …” Maggie doesn’t know how to be outspoken. She hides herself. When it comes to conflict she wants everyone to be happy. Giving Dee her grandma’s quilts stopped a conflict. She knew this would make Dee happy.

Maggie is smaller than Dee and she is always nerves and very shy, when she was a child their house got burned at that time she was very scared maybe that’s what makes her nerves and shy and that also hides her personality what she looks from the inside she hides it from the outside. Maggie lives at home with mama, she never spends time in the outer world she always stays at home and mama protects

In the story “Everyday Use” I find Maggie to be the most sympathetic. Maggie’s older sister, Dee, makes Maggie feel inferior to her. Maggie has burn scars and marks on her body, that makes her feel like she doesn’t look good. Dee always receive what she want and Dee is also smart. While Maggie isn’t so smart and doesn’t have the money or style to get what she wants. Alice Walker might find Dee most sympathetic. Alice relate to Dee more than she relates to Maggie. Alice knows what Dee went through to get where she’s at. Both Alice and Dee came from poor families trying to make it. Both went to college and made something out of themselves.

In “Everyday Use,” two sister Dee and Maggie have different views on how they should preserve and honor their heritage. The story is told from the point of view of their mother, Ms. Johnson, and it is from her that we learn about the difference in the sister’s characters. Dee, who changes her name to Wangero, is outspoken and is the educated sister. Maggie is shy and appears to be ashamed of the burns on her skin. “[Maggie] thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that ‘no’ is a word the world would never learn to say to her” (Walker 6). This is important because, in the end, Dee does not get her way. Dee is the educated

In the beginning of the story the narrator who is the mom is waiting for her daughter named dee. She waits in the garden with Maggie. She knows that Maggie and dee do not get along. She imagines a big nice family reunion in her head. Maggie is described as a large big boned woman with rough man working hands. Dee is described

Maggie's isolation from the riches of society in the world offers a stark contrast with her sister, Dee. Where Dee is ostentatious and loud, Maggie is almost silent and shies away from any flux of social activity. She's is repeatedly skittish and she cannot even bear to be hugged. “He [Hakim-a-barber] moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right up against the back of my chair. I hear her trembling there and when I look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin." She is completely at loss at how to approach Dee and her companion. Dee, however, completely takes over the social situation. She instantly adjusts the spotlight to her with her clothes, hair, and attitude toward her family. "A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A

A constant comparison and contrast between Maggie and Dee is prominent structural feature of the narrative. This structural strategy helps in conceptualizing the plurality of female experience within the same milieu. This strategy encapsulates another dimension of womanism, viz., womanism refuses to treat black woman as a homogeneous monolith. Unlike feminist position, womanism is sensitive to change with time. This womanist conceptualization is shown by a nuanced destruction by Dee’s response to the quilt, which is the main metaphor in the story. A typical political rhetoric is represented in the character of Dee. This is a rhetoric which is more aggressive than mature, showier than subtle. Dee ends up in simplifying and commodifying culture, instead of relating it to any meaningful way. She comes out as a being who takes activism as a fad rather than a commitment. And, womanism here represented through Mama, calls for a critical relatedness to the heritage. The narrative articulates the shallowness of Dee’s

On page 59 she mentions TV shows where it shows parents congratulating their very successful child, and how Dee (her daughter) has become successful, but the reality of it doesn’t really meet her standards. Dee grew up in the same household as her sister and her mother but had different experiences, goals, and ideas of what was the correct way to grow up. This caused her to have very different feelings about her families’ culture and to grow into her own. She doesn’t like the idea of actively living like the rest of her family had for years, but she wants to be able to choose what aspects of it to take with her. Her culture, to her, is more of something to show off than to live in. This causes disparities between her and her family, with the most notable one being about a quilt. Her mother had been planning on giving a few handmade quilts to Maggie, but Dee really wanted them, in order to hang them, instead of use them (page 63). When offered some quilts that weren’t handmade instead, Dee got upset, and insisted on having the handmade ones. She claimed that she deserved the quilts rather than Maggie, as she could appreciate them better

As we read the similarities in the lives of both the daughters and Alice Walker, like Maggie after being burned, Walker was disfigured growing up and she could not see through one eye after getting shot by a BB gun (p. 2714). For this reason, Walker stays away as much as possible from society and so does Maggie because of her burns. While with Dee, which is oldest sister, compares to Walker because they make it to college and start a new life on their own away from racially separated neighborhood. (p. 2714) Maggie was just a girl who lived with her mother and not looking to have more in her life. She follows more towards her African American heritage. Even though because of the message of this story, maybe Walker relates more to Maggie. The