Alice walker born in 1944 in Georgia, is best known for her novels and short stories in which she...

Alice Walker and “Everyday Use”

Alice walker born in 1944 in Georgia, is best known for her novels and short stories in which she gives voice to a double oppressed group: African American Women . Her Novel The Colour Purple won a Pulitzer Prize.

“Everyday Use”

“Everyday Use” is part of a collection of short stories called In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women (1973).

Walker focused on women’s lives and the interconnection of the past and present (i.e the quilts)

“Everyday Use” ends with the protagonist’s confidence in defending her family’s legacy and depicts the tension during the 1960s and 1970s when black American life and identity were changing radically (after gaining civil rights in the 50s and 60s).

“Everyday Use”

After gaining civil rights in the 1950s & 1960s a new generation of African Americans emerged. (How Dee tries to be)

“Everyday Use” demonstrates the tension created by the old and new world coming together. (Mama & Maggie vs. Dee)

Historical Context: “Everyday Use”

“Everyday Use” is set in the 1960s and 1970s a time when African Americans struggled to gain identity in America.

“Blacks” replaced the term “Negro” (offensive).

“Everyday Use” illustrates a period when Black ideologies came together-some were peaceful but some were militant

The Black Panthers and Black Muslims were groups that resisted a white dominated society

Militant groups

Everyday Use

Walker may have created Dee to emulate cultural nationalists-artists and writers who promoted freedom and equality.

Hakim (Asalamalakin) is more similar to the militant generation

Hakim dismisses the hard, labour intensive life of the Muslims up the street

Walker is critiquing individuals who misunderstood the ideals of black consciousness groups of that time period.

Irony in “Everyday Use”

The importance of the story’s title “Everyday Use” and the sisters’ different intended use for the quilts are examples of Irony.

Mama and Maggie value the quilts the most-not as objects to be hung on the wall and respected as folk art. They value them for the household items that they are

Mama doesn’t care if there is wear and tear on the quilts (valuable documents of their family history) because she knows she has chosen the right daughter.

Although Maggie is intellectually inferior she has an ability that Dee does not-she knows how to quilt (a practical skill)

Irony

Although Dee claims that preserving the quilts is the concern she has no real understanding or respect for her ancestors- she views her mother as something to leave behind

Dee criticizes Mama and Maggie for old ways of living and thinking and creating a life completely separate from the past is her goal.

Dee is disconnected from her heritage and has no appreciation for it.

Irony

For Mama the best way to preserve the spirit of the quilts is risking their destruction with Maggie.

Taking the quilts from Maggie and their “everyday use” is disrespectful to their heritage and their intended use.

Mama

Mama is a big woman with rough hands (from years of physical labour on the farm)

Poor, uneducated, lives a rural life

Strong understanding of heritage

Honest in her assessment of her daughters Dee and Maggie

Feels unappreciated by Dee (the dream described in the beginning)

Does not like Dee’s superiority

Has a masculine role (no father, she took on both roles)

Maggie

Nervous and meek but is pure

Left with physical scars after a house fire

Mama protects her She is shy and

lacks education-lives in almost seclusion

Maggie does have an understanding of cultural heritage

(slams door and drops plates when she hears Dee trying to take the quilts)

Dee/Wangero

Comes across as arrogant and insensitive

Judgemental and condescending (she will come visit them in whatever “shack” they choose)

Wangero-a ploy for attention

Says she is “reclaiming” her heritage but really she is rejecting is by idealizing Africa (somewhere she hasn’t been) and rejecting her Black American past