Everyday Use Literary Analysis Essay Example

just to get on peoples nerves. Everything must be first class in her life.

“But even the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were always near-looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style” (Walker 290). In a way Mama puts Dee on a pedestal by comparing her with God.Dee’s high standards are the cause of her selfishness. She wants to live in the picture perfect world. She wrote Mama once that no matter where they “choose” to live, she would manage to come and her (Walker 289).

In Dee’s eyes the pasture that her Mama lives in is not comparable to her fast pace high style world. This caused her to not even bring her friends over to their house (Walker 290). Her friends even put her on a pedestal, just like Mama. “They were nervous girls who never laughed.

They were impressed with Dee they worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, and scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye” (Walker 290).This description of how Dee’s friends view her is told by Mama. This is another example of how Mama puts Dee on an unneeded pedestal. She describes her as some kind of God that her friends worship. In reality, it is Mama worshipping Dee. Dee’s selfishness is also portrayed by her cultured verbal skills.

Dee can talk her way through anything. Dee often manipulates others with her verbal skills. This is shown when she reads to her mother and sister “without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice”

(Walker 289).This statement further demonstrates the fact that Dee’s family feels inferior to her.

Mama describes the situation as if Dee has some kind of power over her family because she is scholarly and her family is not. Dee uses her education to make Mama and Maggie feel less important without, necessarily meaning to. Critic, Nancy Tuten believes that Mama does not like the fact that Dee bosses her and Maggie around. Mama’s distaste for Dee’s egocentrism is tempered by her desire to be rejected by her daughter (Tuten 126).

Dee pushes her mother a little too far when she believes that she should have the quilt over Maggie.Mama knows that Maggie would take better care of it because of Maggie’s knowledge of their family history and unspoken desire for the quilt. Dee’s lack of knowledge and thoughtlessness of her heritage push Mama to give Maggie the quilt. The whole family gathering in the story was to decide upon the quilts whereabouts. Dee does not deserve it because she does not know the true meaning of it. “She was offered the quilt when she left for college, but choose not to take it along because it was old fashioned and out of style” (Walker 293).

She did not want it then because of the style, because she was selfish and only wanted to be number one. Now she wants nothing more than to have the quilt, and she only wants it because Maggie wants it more. The climactic scene of this story occurs during the end when Dee insinuates that she is the one who should have the quilts. Dee believes that it is imperative for

her to have the quilts.

“But they’re priceless! ” she was saying now, furiously; for she had a temper (Walker 293). The only reason that she wants the quilts now is because they are priceless items.She does not want them because they are a family heirloom; she wants it because it would boost her status. “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags.

Less than that! ” (Walker 293). Here Dee is only thinking about Dee. Maggie would take care of the quilt and use it as it is supposed to be used. During this climactic scene, Nancy Tuten points out that no words are spoken throughout the whole scene.

“Mama hugs Maggie to her, drags her in the room where Dee sits holding the quilts, snatches the quilts from Dee, and dumps them into Maggie’s lap.Maggie just sat there with her mouth wide open” (Walker 294). The ironic thing about no words being spoken during this scene is that for once Dee is silenced. Also, Mama is finally standing up for herself and proving to Dee that she is not a failure and ultimately embracing Maggie. This causes Maggie to finally let out a smile, a real smile, not a scared one (Walker 294). She now has the strength to stand up to her older sister.

The mother daughter conflict them is portrayed throughout the whole story. The biggest conflict lies between Mama and Dee.It is shown by Dee’s high standards, selfish behavior, and lack of knowledge about her family’s heritage. Her high standards cause Mama and Maggie to feel inferior to her and put her on

a pedestal that eventually crashes before her eyes. The selfish behavior unravels as she pushes her family to be the picture perfect family, when in reality neither Mama not Maggie want to live in that way.

Her lack of knowledge about her family’s history mixed with her selfish behavior is ultimately the reason that Maggie gets the quilts over Dee. Mama winds up getting the final say in the story’s ending.Even as Dee furiously drives off, Maggie and Mama sit and watch the car dust settle and just sit there enjoying their time together until it was time to go in the house and go to bed (Walker 294). Mama finally finds her unheard voice she has been looking for. ? Works Cited Tutor, Nancy. Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use.

” The Explicator: 1993, 51:2, 125-128. ProQuest. I. D. Weeks Library, University of South Dakota.

<http://www. usd. edu/lib/reasearchdb/ proquest/results. html> Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use. ” The Curious Writer.

Pearson Education Incorporation: 2007, 287-294.