Alice Walker's "Everyday Use": A Story of Heritage and Education
Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” is a narrated story about a mother who has a conflicting relationship with her two daughters. The story is set in the sixties and seventies. Superficially, the story shows how the mother rejects her elder daughters' misplaced and superficial values and instead favors those of her less successful younger daughter who has had to struggle in life. If one goes deeper, “Everyday Use” is based on the concept of heritage. The theme is developed through a first-person narration approach where the author narrates the story from Mama’s, an uneducated black woman living in the past and struggling to understand the contemporary world, point of view.
Conflicting Understandings of Heritage
Dee and her mother have a completely different understanding of their heritage. In her part, Dee is indifferent to the history of oppression in her family and chooses to change her name in an attempt to redefine herself as per the African heritage, which she knows little about. On the other hand, Mama believes that the family objects are infused to the people who made and used them and feels that Dee does not understand their importance nor their history. Alice Walker’s story also encompasses the theme of the divisive nature of education. On one hand, there is Mama and Maggie who were denied the academic opportunities that Dee enjoyed. However, as much as Dee had the privilege of acquiring high-level education, its negative implications are visible in how she is separated from her family and her true sense of self. The lack of it also meant adverse consequences for Maggie and her mother, who are portrayed as harmed and stifled.
Work cited
Walker, Alice. "Everyday Use." Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. Kennedy, X.J. and Gioia, Dana. Boston: Longman, 2010. 369-376. Print.
