A short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker was first published in her storybook In Love and Trouble in 1973. In the story, Mama, the narrator, anticipates the arrival of her eldest daughter Dee. Dee comes to get in touch with her roots, but her ideas about reality are so distorted that the main characters fail to reach an understanding. This paper aims to compare the distinctive features of the main characters of the story and find out what could cause these differences.
Upon arrival, Dee declares that she changed her name to a more ‘authentic’ one – Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Noteworthy, Dee was named after her ancestors Grandma Dee and aunt Big Dee (Walker 51). Dee-Wangero behaves rather odd: after saying hello in the Kenyan language, she starts taking pictures of her mom and sister – and her old house behind them. During the dinner, Dee admires the benches and churns and finally demands that Mama give her quilts handmade from scraps of clothing worn by Dee’s ancestors. Dee wants to hang quilts on the walls and exhibit them in her house and says that Maggie is “so backward that she will utilize them in everyday use” (Walker 54). To which Mama replies that she really hopes for it since she kept the quilts as a dowry for Maggie. Mama refuses to give the quilts, as she sees how much Dee is mistaken in her ideas about succession. Dee accuses her family of not appreciating their heritage and leaves.
Egoism and Altruism in the Context of Different Life Paths
The differences in the characters have particular reasons and should be discussed to understand the main idea better. The first thing that catches the reader’s eye is Dee’s egoism, which contrasts with the milder character of Mama, on behalf of whom the narrative is conducted. It looks like this egoism is an insurmountable wall between Dee-Wangero and her family. However, the reason for it is not only the innate nature of the girl, but also the fact that she has taken a different path in life, and therefore had to form other life values. One can even say that Mama and Maggie were ultimately more fortunate, because, unlike Dee, they were not torn from their roots and, therefore, were not doomed to loneliness. The softness of their characters is partly innate and partly dictated by the fact that they live a relatively quiet life, and are not encountering the challenges of modern civilization.
Superficiality and Depth of Characters
The shallowness of Dee’s character should also be partially justified. Based on the context, we can assume that Dee is no more than 24 years old, while Mama is in her 40s, and Maggie is about 14. Mama’s reasoning that Maggie “will marry John Thomas one day” indicates that Maggie is still too young to marry (Walker 48). At the same time, at the beginning of the story, Mama imagines how she would come to television with Dee, in a beautiful dress, with shiny hair, and “100 pounds thinner” (Walker 46). Mama also says that she is strong enough to kill a boar mercilessly.
Mama compares Dee to Maggie, noting that Maggie is more devoted to family traditions. But it should be mentioned that at this age, children are much more attached to their parents, and their opinion mainly coincides with the advice of their elders. At the same time, Mama herself cannot afford superficiality since her life circumstances have never given her such a chance. Mama has a house and a household; she is the head of the family, and part of her responsibilities is to pass on her inheritance to the children, as she sees fit.
Attitude to Heritage
The central theme of the story is the attitude of the characters to heritage. At the very beginning of the story, Mama reckons that Dee never loved her house and was glad when it burned to ashes in an accident (Walker 47). It is later mentioned that the quilts that unexpectedly became so priceless in Dee’s eyes were rejected by her when Mama wanted to give her one when Dee left for college (Walker 54). Mama also says that when Dee learned to read, she began to despise the life that surrounded her. For Mama, her heritage is part of her life, and she cannot imagine the quilts hanging on the wall and not used in everyday life, for which they are intended (Walker 54). Maggie also believes that the quilts are for everyday use, and Mama notes that if they turn into rags, Maggie will be able to sew new ones, since Grandma Dee and Big Dee taught her this.
The Main Idea of the Story
To understand the main idea of the story better, one needs to turn to literary criticism, which allows putting a typical tale into a broader context. According to scientists, Walker wanted to describe the situation that was characteristic of American society at that time. Hoel notes that the Cultural Nationalism movement whose members sought to revive the African heritage and return to the ‘roots’ was popular in the 1960s and 1970s (34). However, in reality, the nationalists knew little about African culture, and it was difficult to take them seriously.
Therefore, Walker draws attention to this phenomenon, giving Dee a rather catchy appearance. Her unnatural bright style is aggravated by the fact that Dee incorrectly uses traditional elements introduced into her personality. In particular, she mispronounces her name – Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. The name Wangero does not exist in any of African languages, but there is the Kenyan name Wangari – “a Kikuyu clan name indicating honorary acceptance into the Leopard clan” (Hoel 37). The same goes for the name Kemanjo, which is actually Kikuyu’s name Kamenju. The scientist also notes that long fitted dresses are part of West African culture, while most of the slaves were brought from East Africa.
Other scholars draw attention to the unjustified change in attitude to religion, which was characteristic of many participants in the popular pro-African movements of that time. Cowart mentions that “her choices follow the trends in African American cultural definition of an Islamic alternative to the Christianity that black America had hitherto embraced” (172). The scientist also supports Hoel’s claims that according to the author’s idea, Dee’s character is superficial, which becomes the reason for her alienation. Scholar says that “in her name, her clothes, her hair, her sunglasses, her patronizing speech, and her black Muslim companion, Wangero proclaims a deplorable degree of alienation from her rural origins and family” (Cowart 172). Thus, Walker not only presents the story of one family but also draws attention to the soreness of popular trends of the time.
To summarize, although the character of Dee-Wangero has many drawbacks, the author’s aim was not to condemn these qualities but to draw the reader’s attention to the problematic socio-political issues of that time. Therefore, mild and respectable Maggie and Mama, and eccentric Dee are members of one family, pieces of one puzzled society to a much greater extent than just antagonists. Nonetheless, it is evident that, according to the author, Mama’s and Maggie’s attitude to the traditions is much more realistic and worthy than Dee’s momentary impulses and fantasies.
Works Cited
Cowart, David. “Heritage and Deracination in Walker’s “Everyday Use.” Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 33 no. 2, 1996, pp. 171-184.
Hoel, Helga. “Personal Names and Heritage: Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use.” American Studies in Scandinavia, vol. 31, no. 1, 1999, pp. 34-42.
Walker, Alice. In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women. Open Road Media, 2011.