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The Educational and Race Issue on Everyday Use

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The Educational and Race Issue on Everyday Use
Final Semester Take Home Test : Everyday Use Auliya Atika F.

Auliya Atika F.
Mr. Gindho Rizano M.Hum
Prose II
May 24, 2012
Final Task Examination

The Educational and Race Issue in Everyday Use
Everyday Use is a part of the short story collection In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Woman (1973) by Alice Walker (Wikipedia). Alice Walker is an African – American blooded who often made issues about African – American itself mostly in her works . Everyday Use is one of her outstanding work which got many appreciation from literary’s devotees. This story itself is telling about an unlucky family who consist of Mama and her two daughters, where is a quarrel between Mama and her oldest daughter and also how her youngest daughter who have a very self low-esteem perceive any conflicts at their home. For this chance, I want to discuss the related topic which prominent enough to this stories, there are two things I want to discuss, the first is the educational issues between the characters, especially about the contrary among Mama and Maggie with Dee. And the second is race issues which contain in some parts of this story.
The characters of Mama and Maggie in this story described is not get a good education facilities because of some unexperctable problem: “I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down” (page 3). Although she and her youngest sister just couldn’t reach the proper education, her oldest sister, Dee could enjoy school until college now and she even studied in a prestigious boarding
Final Semester Take Home Test : Everyday Use Auliya Atika F. school at other city. Dee at her sixteen age already have her own unique style, from head to toe, so bright and colorful, and ever her hairstyle which Mama can’t tolerance it anymore from the bottom of her heart: “A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes …. I feel my whole face warming from the heat


Cited: Walker, Alice. Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Woman: Everyday Use. 1973 Klarer, Mario. An Introduction to Literary Studies (Second Edition). (London: Routledge, 2004) 103-115. www.wikipedia.org/Everyday_Use
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