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In Every Family There Seems To Be A Chi

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In Every Family There Seems To Be A Chi
In every family there seems to be a child that is bestowed with all of the positive aspects of her parents. Unfortunately, for every perfect child there is, it seems that there is one child that is less talented and less beautiful. In the short story, "Everyday Use", these two character descriptions fit perfectly in relation to the characters of Dee and Maggie. Dee is the gifted and beautiful child, whereas Maggie seems to have been left behind by the gene pool and luck. In her short story, "Everyday Use", Alice Walker utilizes language, the tragedy of the fire burning down Maggie's family's house, and her portrayal of Dee to pain an extremely sympathetic portrait of Maggie.

Walker's use of language when describing Maggie creates a picture of a physically scarred and unintelligent woman. Maggie's physical scarring is pointed out to the reader early in the story to lay a foundation for sympathy. Walker accomplishes this when she states that Maggie has, "burn scars down her arms and legs" (383). The matter of fact choice of vocabulary by Walker creates an image of...

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...ity of arrogance. It is also done by creating the Maggie character without any of the natural gifts bestowed to Dee, but also saddling her with tragedy and allowing the impacts of the tragedy to be evident to the reader. Maggie is depicted throughout the story as a truly tragic character that has been shorted at every possible stop in life. Dee is portrayed as someone who has been given everything, yet has turned into a undesirable human being. It is this unfairness that is truly the root of her status as an extremely sympathetic character.
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