Preview

Thesis Statement For Everyday Use By Alice Walker

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
734 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Thesis Statement For Everyday Use By Alice Walker
Class/Section: English 0375SOD
Compare and Contrast pre-writing
Character analysis
“Everyday Use”

I. Introduction a. Attention Getter: Most people that are the first in their family to get an education always will try to make their family members feel inferior and want to take advantage of them in every way possible.

b. Preview of Points: This is exactly what happens in this story titled “Every day Use” by Alice Walker, in which Dee, Maggie, and her mother get into a dispute over some personal treasures that their mother had been passed down from past generations of their family. It all starts when they were little there was a house consuming fire in which only Dee and the mother made it out unharmed, in the other

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Over the course of your life, how ever long it has been so far, have you been heavily influenced by your heritage and culture? Or have you been able to develop your own ideas and views on the world? If you have or you haven’t been influenced by your culture that’s up to you, but I ultimately think that it should be completely up to the individual whether or not they completely follow every rule of their religion, ethnic background, or whatever.…

    • 193 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker reflects on the heritage of a family of African Americans. The majority of the African American population has forgotten where they came from. The Webster dictionary defines heritage as “ the traditions, achievements, beliefs, etc., that are part of the history of a group or nation.” Maggie, Dee or Wangero, and their mother, who is also the narrator, are the basic characters for this short story.…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Bo Jackson

    • 1069 Words
    • 5 Pages

    II. As a kid he promised his mother he would be the first in his family to go to college.…

    • 1069 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Read 371 Action Research

    • 937 Words
    • 4 Pages

    lower educated families because I hypothesize that higher educated families convey higher expectations to their children. According to Daniel T. Willingham, “Parents who know more about how children learn and grow talk to their children in more complex ways and more often solicit ideas from their children, and high-SES (social economic status) parents often have this knowledge and convey higher expectations.” This statement implies that even at an earlier age parents of higher SES begin to invest more into their children than lower SES families. After investing years of modeling these behaviors children are expected to act accordingly. However, families that invest lower levels of positive behavior modeling expect less of their children.…

    • 937 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The manifestation of having high-valued assets creates happiness is an illusion of temporary satisfaction. It is impossible to gauge someone’s happiness through lenses, but it has become apparently possible from a materialistic viewpoint. As advertiser try to convey wants are needs, Steve McKevitt wrote in his essay “Everything Now” how market campaigns connect happiness with materialism. Advertisement has shaped consumerism; people are dissatisfied at their current position and feel the need to pay for something to attain happiness. Dissatisfied of one’s belongings, people can be persuaded into paying for something that will bring them happiness, temporarily.…

    • 910 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the short story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, the author chooses to place emphasizes the aspects of individuality. The story centers around the lives of two sisters, Maggie and Dee. Even though both sisters have grown up together under the same conditions, they clearly have become two very distinct individuals with contrasting views regarding their past, present, and future.…

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alice Malsenior Walker is an African American author and activist who write of various personal experiences, including the black woman’s struggle. Walker describes herself as a “womanist: a woman who loves other women… Appreciates and prefers woman culture, woman’s emotional flexibility… and woman’s strength… Loves the spirit… Loves herself, regardless”. Walker writes through her feelings and the morals that she has grown with. One of her famous quotes, "It is important to remember yourself," quoted from her appearance at a Miami Book Fair in 1989, where she discussed her 1988’s essay collection, including The Temple of My Familiar, relates to her short story Everyday Use. By not remembering who you are you can grow to be disconnected from yourself. Alice Walker’s short story Everyday Use successfully shows readers how it is possible for one to lose sight of what is important. This essay describes how Walker designed the story to reveal to readers the values of serving heritage and culture. Through the perspective of the protagonist “Mama,’ Walker shows the differences between the two sisters,…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short story, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker portrays the relationship between a family and their issues concerning their heritage and values that are different to them. Clearly, the author Alice Walker incorporates her personal experiences into her writings. In the short story, the family lived a poor lifestyle and had to adapt to what they had. According to one source, “The Walkers lived in poverty, and as a young girl” (Cummings 1). Along with her lifestyle, Walker is able to include real details in her short story about being poor because she has been through it. Walker explains in her story as the character of Mama, “I never had an education myself. After second grade the school closed down” (21). Tuten explains that, “Commentaries…

    • 467 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The preservation of one’s cultural history is something that everyone must decide how to handle. In the short story Everyday Use by Alice Walker, two characters have different ways of preserving their history and culture. Dee and Maggie, sisters, have different personalities, motivations, and views on society. This may seem unusual considering they grew up in the same house, and they were raised by the same person; one might compare these girls to two different sides of the same coin. Their different views on life alter the way each of them act.…

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” Mama, the narrator of the story, is rather distant with her daughter Dee and dreams about reconciling with her on a television show. Specifically, she imagines Dee expressing gratitude for all that she has done for her, while embracing her (Mama) “with tears in her eyes (Walker 315).” It is obvious that Mama doesn’t understand her daughter’s life choice to adopt an African lifestyle and feels that Dee is rejecting her origins and family. Furthermore, the reader can see that Mama has a troublesome relationship with Dee by the amount of tension between them. This strained relationship becomes clear when Dee “went to the trunk at the foot of (Mama’s) bed and started rifling through it (Walker 320).” The narrator…

    • 578 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alice Walker and James Baldwin both use their literature characters to bring social problems to light. A few of the social concerns that can be seen in their work consists of race, class, gender and society; the outside forces. Although both of these authors use characters to describe social issues, their attempts vary in their work. The following will compare and contrast how Baldwin’s and Walker’s characters use this connection as a means to sort through their “despair”.…

    • 905 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Everyday Use Theme Essay

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The theme of a story often is displayed in the development of the protagonist or in the epiphany that the protagonist experiences. But in some stories, there may be more than one focal character, and the theme must therefore be inferred by examining the different experiences of more than one person. Demonstrate the validity of this statement by examining the three main characters in one of the following: Walker, “Everyday Use”…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever not seen eye to eye with your mother? In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use”, we are shown how many of the choices we make and the things we value create our identity. This story focuses on two characters, mama and her daughter Dee (Wangero), who struggle to see the same way about their heritage. Dee wants the things made by her grandmother, to not admire it as an artifact, but rather to remake it. She wants to take them, and change them to match her lifestyle as it is today. She loves them for the way they look. Mama, on the other hand, views the things from her mother as artifacts. She loves the items more than how they look. She admires the quilts because of their everyday use. Transformations take place between these characters. Dee’s transformation is more external than it is internal. She shows her transformation in the way she speaks, the clothes she wears, and her judgement. Mama’s transformation is more internal. She begins to see Dee’s real thoughts, and she stands up against her. When she takes the quilts away from Dee, she doesn’t only stand up for herself, but Maggie, as…

    • 809 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    An essay discussing Alice Walker's famous 1973 short story Everyday Use. The essay contrasts the characters of Mama and her eldest daughter Dee. Walker analyzes how Dee's preoccupation with her African heritage (such as exchanging her given name for an adopted African name) is ironically artificial when compared with Mama's more traditional, less pretentious lifestyle.…

    • 1510 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the short story, "Everyday Use," by Alice Walker teaches lessons on true inheritance; what it is and who can receive it. Two hand stitched quilts become the center of conflict in the story. They are also used to symbolize the true inheritance.…

    • 1616 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays

Related Topics