conclusion essay everyday use

A Summary and Analysis of Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday Use’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Everyday Use’ is one of the most popular and widely studied short stories by Alice Walker. It was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1973 before being collected in Walker’s short-story collection In Love and Trouble .

Walker uses ‘Everyday Use’ to explore different attitudes towards Black American culture and heritage.

‘Everyday Use’: plot summary

The story is narrated in the first person by Mrs Johnson, a largeAfrican-American woman who has two daughters, Dee (the older of the two) and Maggie (the younger). Whereas Maggie, who is somewhat weak and lacking in confidence, shares many of her mother’s views, Dee is rather different.

Mrs Johnson tells us how she and the local church put together the funds to send Dee away to school to get an education. When Dee returned, she would read stories to her mother and sister. Mrs Johnson tells us she never had much of an education as her school was shut down, and although Maggie can read, her eyesight is poor and, according to her mother, is not especially clever.

Mrs Johnson also tells us how their previous house recently burned down: a house, she tells us, which Dee had never liked. Dee hasn’t yet visited her mother and sister in the new house, but she has said that when she does come she will not bring her friends with her, implying she is ashamed of where her family lives.

However, Mrs Johnson then describes Dee’s first visit to the new house. She turns up with her new partner, a short and stocky Muslim man, whom Mrs Johnson refers to as ‘Asalamalakim’, after the Muslim greeting the man speaks when he arrives (a corruption of ‘salaam aleikum’ or ‘ As-salamu alaykum ’). He later tells Mrs Johnson to call him Hakim-a-barber.

Dee then tells her mother that she is no longer known as Dee, but prefers to be called Wangero Lee-wanika Kemanjo, because she no longer wishes to bear a name derived from the white people who oppressed her and other African Americans. Her mother points out that Dee was named after her aunt, Dicie, but Dee is convinced that the name originally came from their white oppressors.

Dee/Wangero now starts to examine the objects in the house which belonged to her grandmother (who was also known as Dee), saying which ones she intends to take for herself. When Mrs Johnson tells her she is keeping the quilts for when Maggie marries John Thomas, Dee responds that her sister is so ‘backward’ she’d probably put the special quilts to ‘everyday use’, thus wearing them out to ‘rags’ in a few years.

Although Maggie resignedly lets her older sister have the quilts, when Dee moves to take them for herself, Mrs Johnson is suddenly inspired to snatch them back from her and hold Maggie close to herself, refusing to give them up to Dee and telling her to take one of the other quilts instead.

Dee leaves with Hakim-a-barber, telling her mother and Maggie that they don’t understand their own heritage. She also tells Maggie to try to make something of herself rather than remaining home with their mother. After they’ve left, Maggie and her mother sit outside until it’s time to go indoors and retire to bed.

‘Everyday Use’: analysis

The central crux of Alice Walker’s story is the difference between Dee and her mother in their perspectives and attitudes. Where Mrs Johnson, the mother of the family, sees everything in terms of the immediate family and home, Dee (or Wangero, as she renames herself) is more interested in escaping this immediate environment.

She does this first by leaving the family home and becoming romantically involved with a man of African Muslim descent. She also looks deeper into her African roots in order to understand ‘where she comes from’, as the phrase has it: not just in terms of the family’s direct lineage of daughter, mother, grandmother, and so on (Mrs Johnson’s way of looking at it, as exemplified by their discussion over the origins of Dee’s name), but in a wider, and deeper sense of African-American history and belonging.

This departure from her mother’s set of values is most neatly embodied by her change of name, rejecting the family name Dee in favour of the African name Wangero Lee-wanika Kemanjo. Names, in fact, are very important in this story: Maggie is obviously known by a European name, and ‘Johnson’, the family name borne by ‘Mama’, and thus by her daughters, doubly reinforces (John and son) the stamp of male European power on their lives and history.

Dee, too, is very much a family name: not just because it is the name the family use for the elder daughter, but because it is a name borne by numerous female members of the family going back for generations. But Dee/Wangero suspects it is ultimately, or originally, of European extraction, and wants to distance herself from this. Dee’s rejection of the immediate family’s small and somewhat parochial attitude is also embodied by the fact that she reportedly hated their old house which had recently burned down.

‘Everyday Use’ was published in 1973, and Dee’s (or Wangero’s) search for her ancestral identity through African culture and language is something which was becoming more popular among African Americans in the wake of the US civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Indeed, a productive dialogue could be had between Dee’s outlook in ‘Everyday Use’ and the arguments put forward by prominent Black American writers and activists of the 1970s such as Audre Lorde, who often wrote – in her poem ‘ A Woman Speaks ’, for example – about the ancestral African power that Black American women carry, a link to their deeper roots which should be acknowledged and cultivated.

However, Walker does some interesting things in ‘Everyday Use’ which prevent the story from being wholly celebratory off Dee’s (Wangero’s) new-found sense of self. First, she had Mrs Johnson or ‘Mama’ narrate the story, so we only see Dee from her mother’s very different perspective: we only view Dee, or Wangero, from the outside, as it were.

Second, Dee/Wangero does not conduct herself in ways which are altogether commendable: she snatches the best quilts, determined to wrest them from her mother and sister and disregarding Maggie’s strong filial links to her aunt and grandmother who taught her how to quilt. The quilt thus becomes a symbol for Maggie’s link with the previous matriarchs of the family, which Dee is attempting to sever her from.

But she is not doing this out of kindness for Maggie, despite her speech to her younger sister at the end of the story. Instead, she seems to be motivated by more selfish reasons, and asserts her naturally dominant personality and ability to control her sister in order to get her way. The very title of Walker’s story, ‘Everyday Use’, can be analysed as a sign of Dee’s dismissive and patronising attitude towards her sister and mother: to her, they don’t even know how to use a good quilt properly and her sister would just put it out for everyday use.

We can also analyse Walker’s story in terms of its use of the epiphany : a literary whereby a character in a story has a sudden moment of consciousness, or a realisation. In ‘Everyday Use’, this occurs when Mrs Johnson, seeing Maggie prepared to give up her special bridal present to her sister, gathers the courage to stand her ground and to say no to Dee. She is clearly in awe of what Dee/Wangero has become, so this moment of self-assertion – though it is also done for Maggie, too – is even more significant.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Alice Walker’s Everyday Use

Analysis of Alice Walker’s Everyday Use

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 24, 2021

Probably Alice Walker ’s most frequently anthologized story, “Everyday Use” first appeared in Walker’s collection In Love and Trouble: Stories by Black Women. Walker explores in this story a divisive issue for African Americans, one that has concerned a number of writers, Lorraine Hansberry, for instance, in her play Raisin in the Sun (1959). The issue is generational as well as cultural: In leaving home and embracing their African heritage, must adults turn their backs on their African-American background and their more traditional family members? The issue, while specifically African-American, can also be viewed as a universal one in terms of modern youth who fail to understand the values of their ancestry and of their immediate family. Walker also raises the question of naming, a complicated one for African Americans, whose ancestors were named by slaveholders.

The first-person narrator of the story is Mrs. Johnson, mother of two daughters, Maggie and Dicie, nicknamed Dee. Addressing the readers as “you,” she draws us directly into the story while she and Maggie await a visit from Dee. With deft strokes, Walker has Mrs. Johnson reveal essential information about herself and her daughters. She realistically describes herself as a big-boned, slow-tongued woman with no education and a talent for hard work and outdoor chores. When their house burned down some 12 years previous, Maggie was severely burned. Comparing Maggie to a wounded animal, her mother explains that she thinks of herself as unattractive and slow-witted, yet she is good-natured too, and preparing to marry John Thomas, an honest local man. Dee, on the other hand, attractive, educated, and self-confident, has left her home (of which she was ashamed) to forge a new and successful life.

Alice Walker/Thoughtco

When she appears, garbed in African attire, along with her long-haired friend, Asalamalakim, Dee informs her family that her new name is Wangero Leewanika Kemanio . When she explains that she can no longer bear to use the name given to her by the whites who oppressed her, her mother tries to explain that she was named for her aunt, and that the name Dicie harkens back to pre–CIVIL WAR days. Dee’s failure to honor her own family history continues in her gentrified appropriation of her mother’s butter dish and churn, both of which have a history, but both of which Dee views as quaint artifacts that she can display in her home. When Dee asks for her grandmother’s quilts, however, Mrs. Johnson speaks up: Although Maggie is willing to let Dee have them because, with her goodness and fine memory, she needs no quilts to help her remember Grandma Dee, her mother announces firmly that she intends them as a wedding gift for Maggie. Mrs. Johnson approvingly tells Dee that Maggie will put them to “everyday use” rather than hanging them on a wall.

Dee leaves in a huff, telling Maggie she ought to make something of herself. With her departure, peace returns to the house, and Mrs. Johnson and Maggie sit comfortably together, enjoying each other’s company. Although readers can sympathize with Dee’s desire to improve her own situation and to feel pride in her African heritage, Walker also makes clear that in rejecting the African-American part of that heritage, she loses a great deal. Her mother and sister, despite the lack of the success that Dee enjoys, understand the significance of family. One hopes that the next child will not feel the need to choose one side or the other but will confidently embrace both.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” In Major Writers of Short Fiction: Stories and Commentary, edited by Ann Charters. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1993, 1,282–1,299.

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An Analysis of 'Everyday Use' by Alice Walker

Appreciation, Heritage, and the Generosity of Effort

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American writer and activist Alice Walker is best known for her novel " The Color Purple ," which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. But she has written numerous other novels, stories, poems, and essays.

Her short story "Everyday Use" originally appeared in her 1973 collection, "In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women," and it has been widely anthologized since.

The Plot of 'Everyday Use'

The story is narrated in the first-person point of view by a mother who lives with her shy and unattractive daughter Maggie, who was scarred in a house fire as a child. They are nervously waiting for a visit from Maggie's sister Dee, to whom life has always come easy.

Dee and her companion boyfriend arrive with bold, unfamiliar clothing and hairstyles, greeting Maggie and the narrator with Muslim and African phrases. Dee announces that she has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, saying that she couldn't stand to use a name from oppressors. This decision hurts her mother, who named her after a lineage of family members.

Claims Family Heirlooms

During the visit, Dee lays claim to certain family heirlooms, such as the top and dasher of a butter churn, whittled by relatives. But unlike Maggie, who uses the butter churn to make butter, Dee wants to treat them like antiques or artwork.

Dee also tries to claim some handmade quilts, and she fully assumes she'll be able to have them because she's the only one who can "appreciate" them. The mother informs Dee that she has already promised the quilts to Maggie, and also intends for the quilts to be used, not simply admired. Maggie says Dee can have them, but the mother takes the quilts out of Dee's hands and gives them to Maggie.

Chides Mother

Dee then leaves, chiding the mother for not understanding her own heritage and encouraging Maggie to "make something of yourself." After Dee is gone, Maggie and the narrator relax contentedly in the backyard.

The Heritage of Lived Experience

Dee insists that Maggie is incapable of appreciating the quilts. She exclaims, horrified, "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use." For Dee, heritage is a curiosity to be looked at—something to put on display for others to observe, as well: She plans to use the churn top and dasher as decorative items in her home, and she intends to hang the quilts on the wall "[a]s if that was the only thing you could do with quilts."

Treats Family Members Oddly

She even treats her own family members as curiosities, taking numerous photos of them. The narrator also tells us, "She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house."

What Dee fails to understand is that the heritage of the items she covets comes precisely from their "everyday use"—their relation to the lived experience of the people who've used them.

The narrator describes the dasher as follows:

"You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood."

Communal Family History

Part of the beauty of the object is that it has been so frequently used, and by so many hands in the family, suggesting a communal family history that Dee seems unaware of.

The quilts, made from scraps of clothing and sewn by multiple hands, epitomize this "lived experience." They even include a small scrap from "Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War ," which reveals that members of Dee's family were working against "the people who oppress[ed]" them long before Dee decided to change her name.

Knows When to Quit

Unlike Dee, Maggie actually knows how to quilt. She was taught by Dee's namesakes—Grandma Dee and Big Dee—so she is a living part of the heritage that is nothing more than decoration to Dee.

For Maggie, the quilts are reminders of specific people, not of some abstract notion of heritage. "I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts," Maggie says to her mother when she moves to give them up. It is this statement that prompts her mother to take the quilts away from Dee and hand them to Maggie because Maggie understands their history and value so much more deeply than Dee does.

Lack of Reciprocity

Dee's real offense lies in her arrogance and condescension toward her family, not in her attempted embrace of African culture .

Her mother is initially very open-minded about the changes Dee has made. For instance, though the narrator confesses that Dee has shown up in a "dress so loud it hurts my eyes," she watches Dee walk toward her and concedes, "The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it."

Uses the Name 'Wangero'

The mother also shows a willingness to use the name Wangero, telling Dee, "If that's what you want us to call you, we'll call you."

But Dee doesn't really seem to want her mother's acceptance, and she definitely doesn't want to return the favor by accepting and respecting her mother's cultural traditions . She almost seems disappointed that her mother is willing to call her Wangero.

Shows Possessiveness

Dee shows possessiveness and entitlement as "her hand close[s] over Grandma Dee's butter dish" and she begins to think of objects she'd like to take. Additionally, she's convinced of her superiority over her mother and sister. For example, the mother observes Dee's companion and notices, "Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head."

When it turns out that Maggie knows much more about the history of the family heirlooms than Dee does, Dee belittles her by saying that her "brain is like an elephant's." The entire family considers Dee to be the educated, intelligent, quick-witted one, and so she equates Maggie's intellect with the instincts of an animal, not giving her any real credit.

Appeases Dee

Still, as the mother narrates the story, she does her best to appease Dee and refer to her as Wangero. Occasionally she calls her as "Wangero (Dee)," which emphasizes the confusion of having a new name and the effort it takes to use it (and also pokes a little fun at the grandness of Dee's gesture).

But as Dee becomes more and more selfish and difficult, the narrator starts to withdraw her generosity in accepting the new name. Instead of "Wangero (Dee)," she starts to refer to her as "Dee (Wangero)," privileging her original given name. When the mother describes snatching the quilts away from Dee, she refers to her as "Miss Wangero," suggesting that she's run out of patience with Dee's haughtiness. After that, she simply calls her Dee, fully withdrawing her gesture of support.

Needs to Feel Superior

Dee seems unable to separate her new-found cultural identity from her own long-standing need to feel superior to her mother and sister. Ironically, Dee's lack of respect for her living family members—as well as her lack of respect for the real human beings who constitute what Dee thinks of only as an abstract "heritage"—provides the clarity that allows Maggie and the mother to "appreciate" each other and their own shared heritage.

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Everyday Use

By alice walker, everyday use essay questions.

What is Alice Walker’s purpose in writing Everyday Use ?

Many critics argue that the character of Dee is modeled after Walker herself. In the 1960's, Walker, the daughter of sharecroppers, was attending university and, like Dee, felt that black Americans were finally finding their own voice. But Walker also shares traits with Maggie - a childhood accident left her self-consciously scarred and shy. Dee and Maggie are on opposite sides regarding how their identity. Dee seeks to fetishize and reject the existence that comprises Maggie's everyday world. Maggie knows the inherent value of objects beyond signifiers for a culture; she recognizes the traditions and heritage that are still active. The sisters are sides of the same coin, having opted diverging paths newly open to them in the 1960s. That Walker shares characteristics with both of her characters illustrates her aim in writing the story. While Maggie and Mama are cast in a "good" light at the end of the story and Dee comes off as selfish, Walker's women give voice to the myriad interpretations of identity in an era of Civil Rights.

What is the significance of Mama's dream, in which she reunites with Dee on a television show?

Although Mama seems to accept her reality, her day dream vignette has her conforming to a much more socially accepted definition of beauty. In her dream, Mama is light-skinned, thinner, and witty: she displays all the traits that white middle class America find desirable in a "pre-Oprah" African-American woman. It is worth noting that the woman in this dream is not a product of Mama’s own conception of beauty but rather a manifestation of what Dee would admire in a “beautiful” mother. Although Mama is anxious over the wounds Dee will reopen upon her arrival, she still has the latent desire to be accepted and respected by her eldest daughter, and the world in which Mama believes she exists.

What is the significance of Dee's taking photographs of her family when she meets them in the yard?

After she greets her family, Dee returns to the car to take out a Polaroid camera. Like a tourist on an archeological expedition, Dee takes shots of the dilapidated authenticity of her family’s home. Dee is careful to include Maggie in the peripheries of the picture, like a tacked on artifact that gives added meaning to her portrait of home. Dee is also careful to separate herself from both the pictures and the context of the pictures. Ironically, Dee's camera shots are as much a reflection of Dee’s rebuke of her culture as they are of chronicling it.

Dee/Wangero takes objects from Mama's home because she sees them as being fashionable, and insists that they are priceless items meant to be displayed rather than used. To Mama, however, these quilts serve a more practical and deeper meaning. Comment on the difference between both views.

The old quilts, butter churn, and whittled benches are living manifestations of the Johnson family past. The items are not only meant for “everyday use” but they also contain memories. Each square of old fabric on the quilt represent the lives of family and friends that have come and gone; they are a reminder of times filled with pleasure and pain, the sacred and profane. The butter churn represents the tree in Mama's sister’s yard, the whittled handles contoured with the hand shapes of people who fed the family. The pressed-in smoothness of the wooden benches represents the countless family and friends who sat at the family table. Dee wants these heirlooms as displays of art salvaged from a culture that is dead to her. Maggie and Mama, however, still use these items and, in doing so, keep their culture alive.

Is Dee a wholly unsympathetic character?

At first glance, it is easy to reject Dee as a selfish and insensitive person. Upon closer inspection, one can begin to understand the struggles that led her up to this point in her life. To become the person she is, Dee would have had to overcome many obstacles - namely, the limitations placed on her rural upbringing. Her education has opened up her world, and her success at college is certainly the product of her self-possession and tenacity. Dee is in a transitional phase between childhood and womanhood, so the pretension can be interpreted as the growing pains of maturity. Dee may be selfish, but she is no doubt driven. Ironically it is the parts of Dee’s personality that we might find objectionable that has enabled her socio- economic emancipation. Sure Dee could use a long lecture on empathy, but she was able to transcend the life that was preordained for her.

Is Mama a wholly sympathetic character?

There is much about Mama to admire. She is humble, caring, hard working and self-aware. She keeps her little farm going with the strength and determination that would put many men to shame. She has no illusions about herself or either of her daughters. Mama knows Dee lives in a world outside her own, and she knows that Maggie is destined to live a life that is similarly small. With Maggie, Mama’s pragmatism feels rather pessimistic. Throughout the story, Maggie is described in less than flattering terms. Mama describes her a “lame animal” who, although loyal and affectionate, has no strong qualities. It is even more disconcerting that Mama believes Maggie incapable of acquiring any strong qualities. Mama’s half-compliments of Dee’s natural beauty, “lighter skin”, and clever wit is juxtaposed with her comment about good looks, money, and quickness passing Maggie by. Mama has long been content - or complacent - with her lot in life and projects this same sense of fatalism onto young Maggie. According to Mama, the best Maggie can hope for is to “marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face).” Much like Dee, Mama’s limitations help shape her strengths, but she has trouble seeing beyond her front yard.

Would you characterize Mama as a dynamic character in the story?

Mama has spent her life in the shadow of her own daughter. She has recognized that Dee’s looks, intelligence, and drive will allow her to surpass her upbringing. She has stood by when Dee has objectified and insulted both her and Maggie with condescending remarks and called them ignorant. Dee's homecoming inspires nervous anxiety rather than joyful anticipation. When Dee finally shows up, she is much like an amplified version of her spoiled self. Dee’s dismissal of Mama’s lifestyle and objectification of the items needed for “everyday use” puts Dee into final perspective for Mama. Critic David White argues that “Mama’s pride in the practical aspects of her nature” means that she has not contemplated “abstract concepts such as heritage". Mama knows she has always been refused access into this world and hence knows when she is being manipulated.

Dee’s insistence on acquiring the quilts that are meant for Maggie finally pushes Mama to react. Mama rebukes Dee in the way she should have many years ago - by calling out her immaturity and shifting her care to Maggie. For Mama, the quilts represent both a practical and emotional consciousness that she refuses to let be compromised. Thus, Mama becomes a dynamic character through the changing relationships with her daughters.

What effect does the story being told in first person have on the narrative?

Everyday Use is told in Mama's voice. The reader never learns her name, only her familial title as Dee and Maggie call her. This gives Mama an authority earned through wisdom, age, and position as matriarch. However, her namelessness also strips Mama of identity beyond that which is defined by the home. The first person narration allows the reader to get inside the head of the protagonist, but the narrative is also skewed by that character's thoughts and feelings. We glean that Mama is matter-of-fact in how she describes herself, almost as an omniscient narrator would. We understand the fraught relationship with Dee via Mama's fantasy of being on Johnny Carson's show. These glimpses allow the reader to understand Mama through her thoughts rather judging her based on appearances, or how others see her - but it also colors how we view Dee (dynamic, selfish) and Maggie (sweet, slow). At first, Mama is a passive observer allowing her story - and her daughters' lives - to unfold around her. However, as Dee brings the larger, changing world to her doorstep, Mama becomes a fully realized person in her reaction to Dee's fetishizing their heritage. Throughout, the reader never loses sight of Mama because her voice is the story.

Even though Everyday Use was written over 40 years ago, does it still have relevance today?

Race and racial identity will always be a prevailing theme in American literature despite the increasingly diverse makeup of the populace. The dichotomy between preserving heritage while driving towards an evolving identity is a constant struggle between the past and the future. The artifacts that Dee wishes to collect would now no longer be in everyday use, signaling that the recent past has always been, and will always be, displaced through technological advances. But just as constant are the cultures and traditions that are carried forth through generations. While Dee's story has a very concrete time and place (the Civil Rights era), the Johnson family story is one that can be played out through the future, and the relevance of one's search for identity is perennial.

Everyday Use Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Everyday Use is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Everyday Use by Alice Walker

From the text:

I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down.

In paragraphs 61-72, how does the conversation between Dee and Mama about the quilts develop the theme?

I'm sorry, please provide the text in question.

I saw my brother sneaking out of my room, his (1) movements slow and silent. When he saw me the poor kid was flinching, practically (2) under my gaze. "I was just looking at your CDs," he told me. At least he admitted he had been (3) _. annoyed, I decided

Is this related to the book Everyday use? What are you asking here?

Study Guide for Everyday Use

Everyday Use study guide contains a biography of Alice Walker, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Everyday Use
• Everyday Use Summary
• Character List

Essays for Everyday Use

Everyday Use essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Everyday Use.

• Identity Confusion in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"
• The Black Empowerment Movement within Bambara's "The Lesson" and Walker's "Everyday Use"
• Pride and Heritage in “Everyday Use”
• "Everyday Use" from an Antipatriarchal Perspective
• A Comparison of Dee and Mathilde

Wikipedia Entries for Everyday Use

• Introduction
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Everyday Use, Essay Example

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In Everyday Use , Alice Walker uses a series of symbols to illustrate the life of a mother and her two girls. Throughout the story, the mother focuses on describing the stark contrast between her and her daughters. This comparison is facilitated by the degree of symbolism utilized by the author. While the literal meaning of the symbols are important, the family’s yard, the quilts, and Maggie’s burn scars provide the story with a deeper meaning and reinforce the author’s purpose. These symbols are all important because they emphasize the history of the family and connect these ideas with the changes they must learn to face in the modern world in addition to the parts of their past that they should ensure are kept with them.

The story opens with a description of the family’s yard, which is described as comfortable and a place that holds many family memories. While the main action of the story occurs within the house, mainly everything associated with the yard is peaceful. In the beginning of the story, the mother describes it as “an extended living room”. At the end of the story, she provides the same sentiment, indicating the calming nature of the yard as she watches the “car dust settle”. It is apparent that the mother finds the yard to be her happy place because she is able to make everything perfect there. She is concerned with the organization of the clay and the sand and believes that their proper placement can enhance the peace that she feels while she is there. In the last paragraph of the story, we learn that the yard is a place of comfort for true members of the family, as Maggie feels just as comfortable there as her mom does. It is the one place she will allow herself to be happy instead of scared.

The quilt is an important symbol in the story because it is representative of the family’s heritage in addition to the different ways that this heritage is honored by Maggie and Dee, which demonstrates an important contrast between the two sisters. The quilt is tied together tightly and therefore represents the ties of family. Dee does not recognize the importance of these ties and although she tries to by becoming more understanding of African culture, loses an understanding of her family in the process. On the other hand, Maggie appreciates the true value of the quilt and wants it to be used instead of serving as a form of decoration. This distinction between Maggie and Dee helps their mother gain a greater appreciation for Maggie, who appears to be the “lesser” sister at first but proves herself by the end of the story. Since the mother has a great appreciation for her ancestors and as a consequence the fabric that was used to make the quilt, she is appreciative that Maggie understands its true value.

Maggie’s burn scars are also an important symbol in this story, as it contrasts her as a character to Dee who is described to be perfect. However, we learn that the physical appearance of these sisters is not a reflection of their personalities. While Dee is proud of her looks and attitude and Maggie is shy and homely because of the burns, it is apparent that Maggie has a greater understanding of the importance of her cultural background while Dee does so more superficially. Dee appreciates the importance of items that were held by her ancestors and as a consequence wants to be more ingrained in African culture, but in the process misses the importance of the items to the family. This contrast therefore emphasizes the awareness that Maggie has of her roots compared to her sister, as colonial slavery is just as much a part of their history as their African ancestry.

In conclusion, the author of Everyday Use utilizes symbolism in able to create a contrast between Dee and Maggie in relation to their ability to understand their roots. Maggie, like her mother, fully appreciates the yard and recognizes it as a place of peace. This demonstrates that she is able to understand the struggles that her mother has experienced and believes that the sentiments of the yard should be shared. Meanwhile, Dee is less fascinated with the yard, which shows a disconnect between her and the rest of the family. Next, the quilt symbolizes both the African and American ancestry of the family, even though Dee believes that it is only representative of African life. Both the mother and Maggie recognize that this is not the case, and that it is symbolic of all aspects of the family’s ancestry. Lastly, Maggie’s burn scars create an even greater contrast between Dee and Maggie by emphasizing the difference in both their physical appearance and mental attitudes. These symbols indicate that Maggie is a greater representation of what the family represents than Dee, who only appreciates the surface value of the family’s struggles.

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• Can you use the same Common Application Essay when Reapplying?

So you applied to college before and did not get your desired results. With a fully completed application under your belt, you may ask yourself, how much of the application do you really need to complete all over again? Will an admissions office be able to tell if you are re-applying? 

Yes, most applications ask you to identify if you have applied for admission to the institution previously. If you have applied recently, the institution’s application system will likely automatically show the reader this information on its own. While readers will prioritize your new application, they will in most cases pull up your old application as well. 

Whether you enrolled in a college that offered you admission which was not your dream school or took a gap year while waiting for applications to reopen, you are looking to apply to college again. The first thing to know if that depending on if you took a gap year before reapplying or enrolled in college and began your undergraduate degree, your application format will be different. 

What if you are reapplying as a transfer? 

If you enrolled at an institution and have been a student over the course of the year while waiting for applications to open for the next academic year, you will be reapplying as a transfer student. Transfer applications differ not only in what they ask for but also in the platform. The Common Application for transfer, the Coalition Application, and homegrown applications made by individual universities are the three main ways you will be able to apply as a transfer student. This is important to note because it means you will need to make a new account when applying as a transfer. 

The second thing to keep in mind is that not all colleges require a personal statement or Common Application essay from transfer students. Some universities will instead ask for an essay that explains why you want to transfer institutions along with their supplemental essays. In this case, you will not have the option to use the same Common Application essay because the prompt will be entirely different. 

What if you are reapplying as first-year?

If you took a gap year and did not enroll in a college after applying to universities in your senior year of high school, you will still be considered a first-year applicant. As a first-year applicant, you will be using the same type of application as you did the year before. 

When completing an application that looks extremely similar, if not the same, as your previously submitted one it may be tempting to reuse your old application. This would be a grave mistake. When reapplying you should take advantage of the extra time for completion and reflection to improve every part of your application, from the activity list to the essays. Reusing your application essay from the previous year sends the following signals to the admissions office:

• You do not care enough about the institution to write a new essay.
• Your work ethic is questionable, you were not willing to take the time and effort to write a new essay.
• You did not grow and evolve over the course of the last year. The personal statement is a chance for you to show your character, passions, and experiences, reusing the same essay a year later implies that you haven’t had any important experiences in that time. 

Each of the signs that are sent an admissions reader when an applicant reuses an old essay is negative and hurts the application. Think about it this way, when you reapply to a college you are asking an admissions office to give you a second chance to prove you deserve a spot in their admitted class. Sending the same information is a waste of that chance. If the admissions office did not move forward with your application last year, why would they move the same application forward this year? 

If you are worried about writing a new essay for the same prompt, choose a different one! The great thing about the personal statement is that both the Common Application and the Coalition application allow students to choose from a list of prompts. 

What about your supplemental essays?

Supplemental essays are the unique prompts that each university requires in their application for admission. Rather than being broad personal essay prompts, these questions ask the applicant to identify how they connect with the institution specifically. Supplemental essay prompts may not change every academic year, so you may be answering the same prompts when you reapply. This is not a chance to copy and paste material from your last application. 

While you may still be drawn to the same major or clubs at the institution and it is okay to mention them, you should rewrite your supplemental essays as well. Make sure they are specific to the institution and what they offer. This is your chance to correct any weaknesses in your application.  

Reapplying to College: Next Steps

Now that you know not to reuse essays when reapplying to college and why, you’re on the path of successfully submitting applications for admission! For evaluation of your previous application by admissions professionals and guidance on how to strengthen your admissions chances contact us today!

Alexis Colbert

Former Assistant Director of Admission at Rice University Former Senior Admissions Fellow at Dartmouth College

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Cultural Identity and Heritage in the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker Research Paper

Introduction, claims made in the story, how the author’s background and life experiences influence the theme, literary devices, characters that speak on behalf of the theme, works cited.

Everyday Use is a frequently anthologized chef-d’oeuvre short story by Alice Walker highlighting the problem of cultural identity and heritage among African Americans after the abolishment of slavery. Narrated in the first person, the story revolves around three characters – Mama and her two daughters, Dee (Wangero) and Maggie. Mama is caught up between two clashing views of African heritage held by Dee and Maggie. Walker uses these two characters to show the cultural and heritage dilemma that African Americans had to deal with after slavery and throughout the era of the civil rights movement. This paper discusses how Walker, in Everyday Use, makes a statement about cultural identity and heritage among African Americans.

Walker seems to claim that slavery and its subsequent abolishment created a conflict among African Americans concerning their heritage and cultural identity. On the one side, slavery robbed Africans of both. Immediately after becoming a slave, Africans were required to change their names and forget about their language and culture. Maggie represents the harm that slavery caused to Africans. When describing her, Mama says, “Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks” (Walker 333). She is the aftermath of the destruction that slavery had on Africans and their cultural identity. She is dull, uneducated, and full of both emotional and physical scars.

However, after the abolishment of slavery and the subsequent civil rights movement, Africans were educated. Therefore, they started understanding the damage that slavery had caused to their identity and heritage. Such enlightened Africans fought for their civil rights and the restoration of their heritage. Ironically, these individuals were unaware of the very heritage they were claiming. Dee represents this side of the conflict. While she has changed her name to Wangero, which is African, she does not understand her heritage. She is oblivious of the fact that her name, Dee, is generational because it was adopted from her great-grandmother. She also does not know the history of the quilts she wants to own. In other words, she does not understand the cultural identity that she claims to defend.

Walker was born in 1944 in Eatonton to black sharecroppers. Her family was extremely poor and being raised as the last born in a family of eight children meant that her life was difficult. Her life was limited by poverty and the fact that her brother shot her in the right eye with a BB gun when playing a game of cowboys and Indians (Lazo 25). She was teased and rejected due to this disfigurement until it was rectified later in life during her college years. She left Eatonton after securing a government scholarship to study at Spelman College in Atlanta in 1961 (Lazo 34). During this time, she got involved in the civil rights movement.

The plotline of Everyday Use mirrors Walker’s life experiences. She lived in conflict with herself – first by being brought up in poverty and ridiculed for her disfigured eye, and second by getting a higher education and becoming a champion of civil rights. Walker is talking about her conflicting sides – one that is conservative and shy and another being bold, educated, and aware of her rights. Cowart argues that the “story can be read, in fact, as a cautionary tale the author tells herself: a parable, so to speak, about the perils of writing one’s impoverished past from the vantage of one’s privileged present” (176).

In the broad context, Walker designs the story to underscore the conflict that African Americans faced concerning their cultural identity and heritage after the abolition of slavery. On the one hand, they were emancipated and educated to acknowledge the erosion of their cultural identity through slavery. On the other hand, they were suffering from the subjugation of slavery, and thus they were caught up between these two worlds.

Walker uses irony as a literary device to depict the conflict about cultural identity and heritage that African Americans were experiencing in the 20th century. Dee wants to reclaim her cultural identity because she cannot be associated with white people. She says, “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me” (Walker 337). Therefore, she wants an African identity, which explains why she is now called Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Ironically, she does not understand the heritage of the very identity she claims to pursue. This aspect stands out clearly when she talks about the quilts. She wants to hang them on the wall as cultural artifacts, but in African heritage, they are intended for everyday use.

On the other hand, Maggie, albeit uneducated, understands the meaning of the quilts. She wants to use them and replace them if worn out as part of the family’s history. Therefore, while Dee seeks to reclaim her cultural identity, she is conflicted because she has no real understanding of her ancestors. Towards the end of the story, she criticizes her mother and Maggie for being stuck in their old way of thinking. She is disconnected from the very past she claims to revere by changing her name (Cowart 172). This aspect shows the disconnect that African Americans had concerning their heritage while fighting for civil rights and the recognition of their heritage, while at the same time keeping up with modernity and being assimilated into the western culture.

Mama, Dee, Hakim, and Maggie speak on behalf of the theme of conflicting cultural identity and heritage among African Americans. Hakim identifies with Black Islam, but he “does not appear to be a good representative of these or any other ideals” (Sarnowski 272). Mama speaks for African Americans, who are torn between their cultural identity and western ideas. Maggie represents the side of Africans that was devastated by slavery and remained voiceless for long but held on to their heritage. On the other hand, Dee stands for the emancipated and empowered Africans, who wanted to reclaim their cultural identities, but they found some of the aspects and traditions repulsive and outdated. Maggie and Dee are the conflicting voices within Mama.

The first symbol used in this story is the quilts. They represent the strong bonds created between women of different generations to underscore their enduring legacy. Mama had promised to give Maggie some quilts during her marriage. The quilts are symbols of Mama’s cultural heritage and traditions. Mama says, “These old things were just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died” (Walker 341). Therefore, the quilts carry the family’s history, and that heritage should be passed from one generation to the other. However, Dee does not appreciate this deep meaning of the quilts, and thus she rejects the cultural identity that she is pursuing. This aspect underscores the theme of cultural conflict as presented in this story.

The second symbol is the house, which was burned to the ground, and scarred Maggie in the process. The house represents the cultural identity of African Americans before slavery. Their heritage was strong and revered. However, slavery and poverty came along and burned down the culture (Maggie), and when it was abolished, the freed Africans remained with a conflicted view of their identities (Dee was born).

Cowart posits, “This burned house, however, represents more than failed attempt to eradicate poverty. It subsumes a whole African American history of violence, from slavery…to the pervasive inner-city violence of subsequent decades” (174). Mama tries to reconcile the two warring sides (Dee and Maggie), and she succeeds to some extent. The story ends with the two of them “sitting in silence, just enjoying until bedtime” (Tuten 126). Similarly, African Americans learned to live with their scars from slavery, violence, and poverty and at the same time adopted the western culture.

In Everyday Use, Walker narrates a story of conflicting cultural ideals that she faced at a personal level and which most African Americans encountered after the end of slavery. Dee claims to revere a cultural heritage that she does not understand. On the other hand, Maggie does not recognize that she is emancipated, and thus she is no longer bound by her inferiority, poverty, and lack of education. Mama has to live with these two conflicting sides. Walker succeeds to tell her personal story of struggle and at the same time chronicles the cultural identity dilemma that African Americans had to live with after slavery.

Cowart, David. “Heritage and Deracination in Walker’s “Everyday Use”.” Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 33, 1996, pp. 171-184.

Lazo, Caroline. Alice Walker: Freedom Writer. Lerner Publications Company, 2000.

Sarnowski, Joe. “Destroying to Save: Idealism and Pragmatism in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”.” Papers on Language & Literature , vol. 48, 269-286.

Tuten, Nancy. “Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”.” The Explicator, vol. 52, no. 2, 1993, pp. 125-128.

Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Short Story Masterpieces by American Writers, edited by Clarence Strowbridge, Dover Publications, 2014, pp. 331-344.

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IvyPanda . 2021. "Cultural Identity and Heritage in the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker." June 9, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/everyday-use-by-alice-walker-research-paper/.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Everyday Use — Short Story “Everyday Use”: Character Analysis

Short Story "Everyday Use": Character Analysis

• Categories: Alice Walker Character Everyday Use

About this sample

Words: 1247 |

Pages: 2.5 |

Published: Jun 29, 2018

Words: 1247 | Pages: 2.5 | 7 min read

This essay explores the character of Dee in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" and her perception as an unsympathetic character. Dee is depicted as authoritative, manipulative, and self-absorbed, making it challenging for the reader to feel compassion for her. The essay draws a comparison between Dee and Catherine from the play "The Heiress" by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, noting that both characters share similar traits in their final scenes, but Catherine's journey is presented to the audience, allowing for empathy.

The essay argues that while Dee may appear villainous, a deeper understanding of her past and context could potentially evoke more sympathy from the reader. It suggests that Dee's upbringing in a family with strong roots and her desire for something different might have influenced her character's development. By examining the story from Dee's perspective over several years, the reader may have a different perspective on her.

Furthermore, the essay discusses the contrasting qualities of Dee and her sister Maggie, highlighting Dee's self-assured nature and Maggie's insecurities. It points out that despite their differences, both characters seek approval, with Dee trying to impress her mother with her education and self-importance, while Maggie seeks approval from her sister.

Comparison of Dee and Maggie In Alice Walker’s Everyday Use

Works cited:.

• Bakardjieva, M. (2019). Selfies, Image and the Re-making of the Body. In Digital Photography and Everyday Life: Empirical Studies on Material Visual Practices (pp. 141-156). Routledge.
• Chen, Y., & Yan, Z. (2016). Does liking lead to following? The impact of social media affinity on social media following. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 33(5), 391-399.
• Gnambs, T., Appel, M., & Batinic, B. (2018). Selfies and personality: Who posts self-portrait photographs?. Personality and Individual Differences, 126, 129-132.
• Henderson, L., & Gilding, M. (2014). ‘I’m more than my picture’: A qualitative study of college students’ selfie practices. Visual Communication Quarterly, 21(4), 176-192.
• Krasnova, H., Spiekermann, S., Koroleva, K., & Hildebrand, T. (2014). Online social networks: Why we disclose. Journal of Information Technology, 29(2), 109-125.
• Lin, S., & Lu, H. P. (2011). Why people use social networking sites: An empirical study integrating network externalities and motivation theory. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(3), 1152-1161.
• McElroy, J. C., Hendrickson, A. R., Townsend, A. M., & DeMarie, S. M. (2007). Dispositional factors in Internet use: Personality versus cognitive style. MIS Quarterly, 31(4), 809-820.
• Singh, S., & Tripathi, K. N. (2018). Facebook addiction and its impact on academic performance of university students. Journal of Educational Technology, 14(2), 47-56.
• Stavrakakis, Y., & Vakratsas, D. (2013). The power of social identity. Journal of Marketing Research, 50(3), 321-334.
• Wang, X., Xie, X., Wang, Y., & Wang, P. (2017). Social media use and self-esteem: A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 1-38.

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