Preview

Symbolism In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
265 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Symbolism In Alice Walker's Everyday Use
“she used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice.” Mama says the words towards Dee and her past years in the house ever since she left. Dee has come back after many years, and she is coming back for her family’s heritage artifacts, that have been passed down for generations. Instead of coming back to her family, she only wants these items because she believes that this generation of her family is a disgrace. As Dee has come back she has actually started her own heritage and begins it like a tradition. Dee cannot see the family legacy of her name she was given at birth and changed to Wangero, which Dee believes is a more accurate symbol

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Dee, a family name passed down to her from generations, carried immense importance in the eyes of Mama. “You know as well as me you were named after your aunt Dicie” (Walker 746). Hearing the new name Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, Mama was very disappointed and thought of Wangero as a girl who did not only change her name but her priorities too. “I couldn’t bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me” (746). Having her own reasons, Wangero was independent enough to change her name.…

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A passage from the book showing her bravery is read: Mary struck out, stamping on the man’s instep, using her elbows as weapons, twisting hard and fast out of his grasp. Hid face loomed indistinctly in the gray mist, and she attacked again, landing a hard punch on his nose. This passage is detecting her bravery when she is beating up the man who harassing her. If there was anyone else on her spot, she would simply ran away.…

    • 79 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dee/Wangero would move away from home in the hopes of developing her own society, ethical values, racial consciousness and self-reliance as well as freedom from white American authority. She knew there was more to life than what she currently knew and would yearn to seek that knowledge. She wanted to learn about her culture, history, where she was originated from and how it can…

    • 1148 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    9. The significance of the Polaroid camera is to help preserve Dee’s culture and her up bringing in her superficial, modern world.…

    • 422 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    This form of redemption takes place as an epiphany: You realize that what can save you isn't out there, but has been nearby all along, beside you, even in you, but never noticed, never heard, or never given a second thought” (Whitsitt 43). One instance of Dee’s attitude and loss of heritage is when they are all about to eat and she notices the hand-stitched quilts, which belong to Maggie, and demands that they be given to her. The attitude she has about wanting the quilts shows that she is a selfish person, and she obviously has no respect for her sister or mother or she wouldn’t have caused such an altercation. The quilts can symbolize many different events, but the true meaning of the quilts can only be decided from the readers’ past experiences. “The story shifts abruptly to the past tense immediately after Dee declares that she has changed her name. Up until now, Mama has been caught in the tension between her annoyance with Dee and her instinctive desire to be "the way my daughter would want me to be." Yet when Dee goes so far as to disown her family identity, Mama reaches a watershed”(Tuten…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the book ‘Everyday Use’, jealousy is depicted in several ways. It is a fact that favoring one child among many brings about sibling rivalry. In effect jealousy springs out and can lead to several things. In ‘Everyday Use’, Maggie, a younger sister to Dee, is jealous of her elder sister. Dee is more attractive and more stylish. ‘Maggie looks at her sister with a mixture of envy and awe’(Walker 1006). This is because she suffers from wounds obtained as a result of an inferno earlier in life.…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dee asks Mama Johnson if she could take the butter churn with the butter still intact as the style has become fashionable to decorate with heritage pieces. She also demands two quilts, made by her grandmother from scraps of fabric that were once memorable articles of clothing. However, Mama Johnson has already promised these quilts to Maggie for her impending marriage. Mama Johnson now has to decide whether to yield to Dee’s demands or keeping her promise to Maggie. This is the pivotal point in the story when Mama Johnson rises against Dee and tells her no, and Dee “gasped like a bee had stung her” (Welty 556). Mama Johnson thinks, “I didn’t want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college” (Welty 556). Those quilts were insignificant when she went to college; however, she has now become worldlier and realizes their value. Dee’s dissatisfaction with her name is another illustration where she doesn’t accept her heritage. She had never been denied anything in her past, and when Mama Johnson denies Dee the quilts, Mama Johnson has shown how Maggie is just as vital to her and puts up a boundary with Dee. Her visit illustrates how Dee still suffers from being self-important, and that her family…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” written in 1973 and it was widely studied and frequently anthologized short story, “Everyday Use” came out as one of the story collection In Love and Trouble. In “Everyday Use” she bring up many issue such as comparing relationship between heritage and tradition past. The story also question whether or heritage is something one use or something one possess.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    First, there is Dee. She sees heritage as an inferior stepping-stone. Dee returns home after being away at school with a whole new appearance. Dee is wearing a long, extremely colorful dress. The narrator in Walker’s story states that the dress is so loud it hurts her eyes. The first thing that Dee tells her mother is that she has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Her mother is a strong, hard-working woman that has done what she could to raise her children. However, as strong as her mother is, this information hurts her feelings. Wangero tells her that Dee is dead, that she could not bear it any longer being named after people who oppress her. Wangero (Dee) takes numerous pictures of her mother and sister making sure the house she considers dilapidated is in the background. Wangero rudely demands the butter urn, dasher, and some quilts. Dee wants several items to build…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the story, Dee tries to deny her true heritage and family in favor of a more idealistic, fake heritage she’s made up for herself. When questioned by the mother as to why she changed her name from Dee to Wangero, she responds. “I couldn’t bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me”(318). This is one of the first instances in where we see how Dee is out…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dee is selfish daughter. It is ironic how she cherishes her heritage but turns her back on it according to her actions. She has become somewhat superficial and wants to take these household items, such as the butter churner and dasher, to put on display in her home. Those items were made by hand to be useful tools in everyday life. Her idea of honoring her heritage by using these items as displays of art instead of their intended use is more like a parody of her life. Her education and flashy style and poise earn her some resentment from her mother. Dee grew up with everyone always looking up to her because she was beautiful, educated, and sociable. Dee has a sense of resentment of her upbringing and how she grew up. She thought better of herself and wanted more than just the simple things in life. She knew she deserved more than just a wooden shack with holes cut out as windows and rawhides as the drapes. She had a sense of disdain for the poor life. She wanted the “old Dee to be dead” and the Wangero to be alive and prosperous. It is ironic how she wanted to preserve her heritage but let go of the very thing that helped to shape who she was; her name. Dee wanted to take the priceless handmade quilts home to put on a wall and hang up. She thought that would be the best way to remember her history and where she came from. However these quilts were not made for that reason, the true meaning of those qulits was using them everyday and making use of the things you had. The quilt had been made from all different sorts of fabric and by the hands of different members of the family from past generations. Dee was missing the point and could only think of her self- righteous reasons of why she was right and Mama and Magie were wrong.…

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A moving inspirational novel told in letters to portray how life was for African Americans, and especially women is The Color Purple. It is not about purple in no way at all; it is actually a difficult book to tackle, dealing with rape insest, explicit sex, sexism, and violence toward women and a lesbian relationship. Not only does it speak of women, but it tells of how there was a negative depiction of African American men during this time.…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We discover that she spends way too much time on the appearance of things instead of the meaning of them. She has changed her name to Wangero because she said that she "couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me."(96) Dee does not understand the true meaning of heritage, she thinks that heritage is something that can and should be put on display only if it is in fashion at the time. Dee speaks about the bench that her father had made and the butter dish that her grandmother had as if the were just objects that could be bought at any old store. "I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints, she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee's butter dish."(97) Everything that holds memories for Mama and Maggie of people that have gone she treats as though they shouldn't be used, they should be…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    everyday use paper

    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Dee is the object of jealousy, awe, and agitation among her family members, while as an individual she searches for personal meaning and a stronger sense of self. Dee’s judgmental nature has affected Mama and Maggie, and desire for Dee’s approval runs deep in both of them—it even appears in Mama’s daydreams about a televised reunion. However, Dee does not make much of an effort to win the approval of Mama and Maggie. Unflappable, not easily intimidated, and brimming with confidence, Dee comes across as arrogant and insensitive, and Mama sees even her admirable qualities as extreme and annoying. Mama sees Dee’s thirst for knowledge as a provocation, a haughty act through which she asserts her superiority over her mother and sister. Dee is also portrayed as condescending, professing her commitment to visit Mama and Maggie no matter what ramshackle shelter they decide to inhabit. Far from signaling a brand-new Dee or truly being an act of resistance, the new persona, Wangero, comes across as an attention-seeking ploy in keeping with Dee’s usual selfishness. Dee says she is reclaiming her heritage, but she has actually rejected it more violently than ever before.…

    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Everyday Use

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The short story “Everyday Use”, by Alice walker, begins with a family of three: Maggie, Dee, and “Mama”(there mother). The author never reveals her actual name. However Dee being old enough to attend college leaves off to college. When she comes back from college, she begins to express herself in different ways, a way that is more liberal. By the authors description she is dressed differently, she talks differently, she even changed her name to Wangero. However she starts gathering things that her mother and her sister, Maggie, owned to express her heritage, she has the wrong idea of heritage, her heritage lied in her own name passed from her grandmother to her aunt to her. the name that she carried, Dee, was passed along for three generations, which she didn’t realize. The author shows symbolism and point of view throughout the story through the family’s name,Dee, the quilt, the house, and the mother explains the story where the author uses point of view. The objects that make Dee the person she is, are disrespectful, selfish, and self-centered.…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays