Self Identity In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

The mother refuses to give the quilts to Dee, due to the fact she doesn’t care about the sentimental meaning of the quilts. The mother wants Maggie to have the quilts instead. Dee is frustrated and shouts “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” (Walker 1229). Dee also shouts, “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” (Walker 1229). The mother feels shocked, and takes the quilts away from Dee.

It was Education that separated Dee from her family, but it has also detached Dee from a true sense of inner self. With arrogant ideals and educational opportunities, one can loss the sense of heritage, family, and self. These feelings can only be provided by family. What was problematic is the story was that Dee has no admiration for anything around her but herself. This resulted in the alimentation from her family and ancestral roots.

The poem wraps up in a remorseful manner. She says, " If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none; And for thy mother, she alas is poor, which caused her thus to send thee out of door (22-24). Begging for forgiveness from her readers she suggests that she just did not have the talent to amount to her own expectations. Most could never imagine the feeling of your soul; unfiltered and genuine being displayed for the world to see and criticize. Anne Bradstreet 's poem gives a unique innuendo into both her personal character and our own.

In the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. Dee thinks it is okay to separate from her family heritage. Dee shows ignorance and shame to her culture. She abandons her past with her family by changing her name, telling her family ”Not Dee, Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!”(61) She had no appreciation toward anything she had growing up. She thinks that she is too good to admit her true heritage to anyone.

Everything was done in the cheapest way.” (O’Neill 948). Mary was very much ashamed of her home and her husband hated calling people and receiving them. She also states that her husband never wanted a home so she never had no place to attached herself to and a place to be comfortable

Ammu begins to look for ways to regain control over her own life, such as her relationship with Velutha. However, because of the events that transpire from the relationship, she begins to resent her children even more, once even shouting at them that “If it wasn 't for you I wouldn 't be here! I would have been free!" (240). This event showcases that when Ammu begins to focus on her own wish to be free of society’s constrictions, she no longer can prioritize the needs of her children, and in fact begins to view them as a

But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over” (Hurston 72). Janie figures out that Joe is not the man she had married when the “image of Jody tumbled down” she begins to understand that Joe was not at all significant to her because he never cared for her and instead he was a bad influence. Janie figures out that he “never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams” the life she desires of with Joe Starks, is an allusion and Janie’s dreams are once again crushed. Janie is deceived by Joe because he represents empty dreams for Janie, he was a “drape [for] her dreams” Joe took advantage of Janie and manipulates her to do excessive labour for him in the store and constantly silences her.

The imagery of the ‘sour air’ encompassing her represents a miasma of rejection from society, who pressure her to conform to a single way of life. Whilst some say that looking through a Bell Jar gives her a distorted perception of society and the pressure she receives is a fiction of her own imagination, one must look only at her relationship with her mother to realize she is victimized by her harsh society. In specific it reminds us of the toxic environment set up by her mother who tells her "I knew you'd decide to be all right again". It’s shocking to the reader who is able to sympathize with Esther’s clear internal struggles, yet her own mother sees it only as a nuisance. The extended metaphor within this novel and the fragmentary structure we so often see in Plath’s work presents the depth of mental disorder but more importantly brings a harsh light to the society that never understood or even tried

By this point, Ophelia has lost her father and Hamlet. It becomes clear she is questioning her choices at this point and deeply regrets certain actions taken. Allison A. Chapman, in her article titled “Ophelia’s ‘Old Lauds”: Madness and Hagiography in Hamlet,” discusses Ophelia’s spiral to demise. Chapman points out that “trying to submit to her father and to be a good potential wife for Hamlet has brought her nothing” except “shattering grief and madness” (Chapman 123). Looking back, Ophelia remarks, “how should I your true-love know/ From another one?” (4.5.23-24).

She then wish her “babe had ne’er been born”, this phrase suggests how regretful and sorrowful the woman is as she was unable to work, and no welfare was provided at the time. She also couldn’t ask her friends for help as the society was very rejecting towards single mothers. Instead she needs to weep and beg “on a stranger’s knee”. However, the main reason she regrets having the child is due to the state and condition she is currently in. The child would not be be nurtured in a decent living standard and may be harmful to the child’s childhood.