American Literature

The short story Everyday Use by Alice Walker plays a significant role in understanding the way different African American reinvented their lives.  Even thought slavery had been over for over 100 years, the African Americans often still allowed the White Americans to keep them in the lower rungs of the societal and economic ladder.  This is where Walker comes in explaining the lives of both the African Americans that want nothing more than to live and those that dream of something more.  The differences between DeeWangero, and Maggie and the mother shows just where in the societal norms each believes they exist and what they are willing to do to remember and forget.

The first introduction to this is the introduction of the Mother.  She has no name which others call her except Mother.  She is shown to be one of the nameless hordes that came after slavery, but was taught many of the courtesies that should be shown to the white man and the need to only fulfill the needs, but not to strive any further.  She dreams of being the mother that would make her Dee proud, but knows in the end that she is an embarrassment to her daughter even though she gave Dee everything she wanted in life.  The reader knows that Dee is coming because mother has even swept the front yard of their house in a cow pasture.   Deep down one can see that she wants to be accepted by Dee (Walker 417).

The next introduction is Maggie as compared to Dee.  This is a comparison through the mothers eyes.  She talks of how their first house had burned down and Maggie was caught and scarred for life.  There is inference that Mother may have thought that Dee set the fire, but she really did not want to believe her special daughter would have done anything so low (Walker 418-9). The fact is that Dee was her special and smart child Maggie was her shy and dumb child who would go no where but to be a wife and mother herself, losing her own identity in her children.

The last introduction is to Dee, the main character of this story.  It is not so much a story about her, but about her actions in relation to those of her family.  Her story has already been told by Mother, but the new Dee, the Wangero has a new name, but her set of values and plans on doing like she always did of running over her mother and sister to her own interests and means has not changed in the slightest.

Walker uses DeeWangero as the archetype of the modern African American woman of the 1970s that was looking back at their roots, but only to the areas they wanted to look at.  The reader discovers that Dee has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. When asked about Dee, she explains that Dee is dead.  She refused to retain a name that was given to her by those that oppressed her (Walker 421).  Mother does not really understand this, because Wangero has never been oppressed and the name came from an aunt and grandmother.  However, knowing her daughter she tries to remember to call her Wangero the person that has no roots to America. 

The mood changes only slightly when the group comes into the little house to eat.  The new Wangero finally sees the beauty in the benches that her daddy had made when they were little.  She fawned over the rump prints (Walker 422) when she saw the butter churner and wanted it.  It is at this moment that Wangero allows herself to start remembering her Dee past. Wangero reminisces over the fact that Uncle Buddy whittled the churn top out of a tree they use to have (Walker 422).  The other part, the dasher, was whittled by Aunt Dees first husband (Walker 422).  In this light it becomes noticeable that Dee is emerging from the modern and overly critical Wangero. However, even this move by Wangero is not the climax to the concept of everyday use.  In Wangeros world the church top will be a centerpiece on a table and will figure something out to do with the dasher, but she must have them for her own style of everyday use (Walker 422-423).

Wangero is not done yet.  She goes into the bed room and returns with two quilts.  The thing that makes them special to Wangero is the fact they were made by her mother and Aunt Dee from clothing that Grandmother Dee wore.  Again, this is contradictory to the original Wangero whom the reader met at the beginning.  Yet now, it is the heritage that she wants to remember her family.  When asked what she is going to do with them, she tells them she will hang them on the wall as decorations.  When Mother refuses to give the quilts to Wangero, because they are promised to Maggie, Wangero states that Maggie will probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use (Walker 424).  The mother does not deny that the quilts will be used and believes that it is time they were used and loved in the way in which they were intended, as quilts for beds. 

It is mentioned in the sideline here that mother offered Dee a quilt when she left for college, but was embarrassed of it and refused.  This and the fact that the quilts were already promised to Maggie made Mother stand up to Wangero, something she could never have done to Dee, and set her in her place.  Once Mother has refused the quilts, the new Wangero returns and chides her mother for being backward, and leaves.  However, even in this ending, Maggie feels a new beginning of her own, one that is not afraid of or needing to give into Dee.  Her mother showed her it was possible, and she knew that DeeWangero would not bother her again. 

In this story, the character of Wangero is divided by her past and her new found belief in freedom for women.  However, when she returns home so does the person she worked so long to kill, Dee.   Dee resurfaced and when denied something for memory, she instantly reverted back to Wangero to keep from being hurt or for remembering too much.  She was a new person now and those of her past would now cease to be of a concern.  Mother and Maggie were gone to her and the new world waited.