Irony In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

Mama dreams of reconciling with Dee on a television program where she embraces her “with tears in her eyes” (494). Although Mama’s dislike of Dee grows throughout the story, she never tells lies about her. In fact, she tries to make both daughters happy in the end, giving the home-made blankets to Maggie and telling Dee to “take one or two of the others” (499). In addition, the reader gains much insight into Mama’s character when she shares her feelings before snatching the blankets from Wangero: “When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I’m in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout” (499).

Alice Walker in “Everyday Use” uses the symbolism behind the guilt to demonstrate character perspectives and values. In my primary source “Everyday Use” Dee speculates that Maggie doesn't even admire the quilts as she does, in the short story Dee states on page 320, line 66-67, “‘Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!’” This is an assumption that Dee makes, to make it seem like Maggie doesn't have the amount of appreciation she has for the quilts. In reality, Dee is just being selfish, and not taking the moment to understand why Maggie may want these quilts. Dee’s perspective on this is, she believes that she should have the quilts, and to do so, she will make up things about Maggie. In secondary source, Kathleen Wilson describes how Maggie holds the quilts close to her heart.

Mama was not happy about the request and suggested other quilts. Mama promised the quilt to Maggie. Mama wanted to ensure the family treasure would be used for everyday purposes and not put on display. Mama’s beliefs and decisions in the story were compelling and added to the complexity of the relationships between the characters. Mama, Maggie and Dee wanted to preserve the family heritage, but in different

In the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, a change in her daughter, Dee, causes Mama to grow a new appreciation for her often overshadowed daughter, Maggie. While Dee has returned to her home more educated, she has become ignorant to who she really is, causing a change in the attitudes of the characters towards each other. The new background that Dee has created for herself presents a sense of irony as her rise in education has resulted in her loss of knowledge about the world that she grew up in. After Mama refuses to allow Dee to take her grandmother’s old quilts because she promised them to Maggie, Dee claims that “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts... She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use” (926). From the

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.

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.

She comes with a new attitude and news she has changed her name form Dee to Wangero. She changed her name because she thinks her family doesn’t value their heritage, so she changed it to keep it alive. She also comes back to ask her mother for quilts when it had already been promised to Maggie. Dee thought Maggie can’t appreciate the heritage behind it, but their mother hopped that Maggie would use it for everyday use, exactly what Dee didn’t want. In the end of the story Maggie and her mother sits outside on the yard watching Dee drive away.

“Everyday Use” is a short story written by Alice Walker that is about a mother that has two daughters and she is waiting one of the daughter’s to come visit. The mother just goes by the name Mama but the daughters are named Maggie and Dee. The narrator is the Mama in which she gives a vivid explanation about their life in her point of view. Alice Walker uses imagery, allegories, and figure of speech throughout the story to paint a picture into the reader mind of what is taking place and visualize the characters in the story. Maggie seems to be African American.

Dee waned to take the butter churn and use it as decoration in her house however Maggie and Mama’s life depend on the butter churn since they actually use it. “This churn is what I need…artistic to do with the dasher.”(Pg.57, lines 191-201) This shows how much Dee didn’t even know where did the churn come from which shows her ignorance about her own family and she didn’t know its real value but she just wanted it for decoration. Another thing that made the conflict more intense is how Dee considered the butter churn hers without her mother telling her to take it. “When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out.”(Pg.57, line202) This elaborates that Dee already considered the butter churn her property and already wrapped it to take it home being inconsiderate to whether her mother and sister actually use it. Dee showed a prodigious amount of selfishness during this conflict, which only made it worse for her family but in the end she didn’t take

Harriet Jacobs, referred to in the book as Linda Brent, was a strong, caring, Native American mother of two children Benny and Ellen. She wrote a book about her life as a slave and how she earned freedom for herself and her family. Throughout her book she also reveals countless examples of the limitations slavery can have on a mother. Her novel, also provides the readers a great amount of examples of how motherhood has been corrupted by slavery. A Moment is defined as “a very brief period of time” (Google.com).