A Rhetorical Analysis Of 'Everyday Use' By Alice Walker

Walker’s essay shows the dehumanization and abuse that black women have endured for years. She talks about how their creativity was stifled due to slavery. She also tells how black women were treated more like objects than human beings. They entered loveless marriages and became prostitutes because of the injustice upon them. Walker uses her mother’s garden to express freedom, not only for her but for all the black women who had been wronged. Walker described her mother as radiant when she was planting, her work outshining the wrongdoings done to her and the people before her. The garden was where her mother could make truly make “art.” The garden was also a representation of the creativity of the women who hold a talent close to their heart

Everyone has their opinions on a subject. In the short fictional story,”Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker, we see how different personalities equal these different thoughts. We see this in Maggie and Dee who have different opinions on their African American heritage. Dee and Maggie both grew up in a poor household. They have different views as they grew.

Dee is a girl who lived with her mom and her sister Maggie, but she wasn’t like them at all, she was different than her sister and her mother. Mama was collecting money to take Dee to school in Augusta. Dee liked to be fashionable, she always wanted nice things.

Most people struggle with figuring out who they really are. The short story "Everyday Use,” written by  Alice Walker, emphasizes this aspect of individuality. It is about an African- American mother and her two daughters. The story concentrates on the lives of two sisters named Maggie and Dee(Wangero). Maggie is portrayed as a homely and ignorant girl, while Dee is portrayed as a beautiful and educated woman. For some of my family the search for individuality is an ongoing process. In fact, my family and the family in “Everyday Use” share similarities and differences when it comes to actions of young people, the treatment of children, and relationships between family members.

In brief, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker contains literary elements that draws back to a heritage. Walker wrote this short story to explain how each character saw their heritage. Some are proud, awed, but others are ashamed of their

The IAT Harvard survey consisted of multiple topics regarding race, genders, thoughts on sexuality and so on. One topic was if one prefers European Americans over African Americans. Surprisingly, the results were that most people strongly prefer European Americans over the other. Why is that? Maybe it’s because many people place stereotypes and other ideals towards another individual, whether they have a different skin tone, whether they are male or female, as well as other characteristics one may notice. Author and editorial writer, Brent Staples acknowledges this issue as well as experience many situations in which people distinguish him from others. Brent Staples message in his essay titled “Just Walk On By” is conveyed to the audience through many rhetorical devices in which he suggests that stereotypes of race and gender can impact someone 's life in the easiest ways.

The story takes place at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in America, when desegregation is finally achieved. Flannery O’Connor’s use of setting augments the mood and deepens the context of the story. However, O’Connor’s method is subtle, often relying on connotation and implication to drive her point across.

The short story, Everyday Use, is written by Alice Walker. This short story tells about the narrator, mama, and her daughter Maggie wait for a visit from Dee, mama’s older daughter. Throughout this short story, the reader can see the distraught relationship between mama and Dee. The reader can see how Dee is different than mama and Maggie; she thinks that she knows way more about her heritage than mama and Maggie, when she really does not. In the short story, Everyday Use, Walker uses imagery, symbolism, and point of view to show that heritage can only be understood when one is true to their roots.

African Americans have always been discriminated in some way. In result, many still feel they are mistreated. Alice Walker’s short story Everyday Use shows many people that African Americans sometimes don’t even get a chance to speak about what they feel is right and just about their position in society. Society ranks people either for good or for bad. They show many people if they are cool or not. For example, pop and movie stars, new fashions, and other things that may set trends for other people around the world. They show people what they should and shouldn’t believe. If people don’t believe in what media says, than they are put as the outcasts in society. This is when Everyday Use comes into play. Alice Walker knows how to put into play

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.

Maggie in Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” plays the role of being the nervous and ugly sister of the story, however she is the child with the good heart. Maggie was nervous ashamed of her scars “Maggie was nervous… she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs”. Living in a house with a pretty sister and being the ugly sister with scars could be the reason why she picked up on a timid personality, being ‘ashamed’ of her own skin shaping her in a way that she degraded herself from everybody else. Maggie was not this way before the fire, her mother stated, as it is quoted that she had adopted to a certain walk ever since the fire. She now walked looking down looking down as she shuffles

The setting of Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” reveals important aspects about the family in many ways. Without the enriched setting provided to the reader by Walker, this story would have had no foundation on which to be built.

In Sociology, stereotypes are described as "pictures in our heads" that we do not acquire through personal experience. I believe that stereotypes are a mental tool that enforces racial segregation and self-hate. As well justification for dehumanizing minorities. Such as Black women are "Mammy", "Welfare Mothers", "Uneducated", " Inferior", and "Poor". White women are "Pure", "Desirable", "Affluent" and "Superior". These stereotypes are labels that evoke images of oppression, segregation and exploitation of minorities in America. Meanwhile reinforcing the dominance in a social hierarchy.

Alice Walker was a social activist, born in 1944. She is very popular for her novel “The Color Purple” that was published in 1982. Before that, she wrote “Everyday Use” in 1973. It is a short story about a family that branches out in their own way throughout the years. She shows us that the daughters were being directed into two different pathways. The prettiest daughter had a life outside of where her mother was located. The less attractive daughter stayed with her mother and that was probably the best choice for her. “Everyday Use” allows readers to see the conflicts on how culture can be twisted and viewed differently by generations through the theme, characters and symbols.

First, the observations of how “Everyday Use” relates to the struggles that African Americans had. For example, Everyday Use is about how African Americans waste things that some people wish that they had. Some people wish they had food to eat, clothes to wear, and place to live but they don’t and the people that do have those things do not make the best use out of those things. People