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. In her 1973 short story Everyday Use, Alice Walker draws on her own experiences growing up in the American South to tell the story of an encounter between “Mama” Johnson and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee.
The tale, narrated by Mama, paints a poignant picture of life for poor blacks in the rural South. Walker uses various themes and symbols woven throughout the narrative to illustrate the differences between Mama’s two daughters and how each of them relate to their AfricanAmerican heritage. Everyday Use examines the role that family history and cultural upbringing have in forging an individual’s identity, as well as highlighting the distinct ways in which different people relate to the past.
The reader is first introduced to Mrs. Johnson, or “Mama” as she is referred to throughout the story. She is a self-sufficient and capable mother who lives in a small house with Maggie, one of her two daughters. Although the two live in poverty, they seem to enjoy their simple life and do not want for much or resent their status. Mama is self-admittedly a bit rough, with tough hands, a stout and stocky profile, and prefers overalls to dresses. She is uneducated and claims that she “can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. ”
Maggie, her youngest aughter, is meek, humble, and a bit slow-witted as well. She cleaves to her mother closely, and Mama states that Maggie looks up to her sister Dee “with a mixture of envy and awe” (p. 315). Dee, the eldest daughter, is away at school. She appears to be the polar opposite of both her mother and her younger sister. Dee is worldly, educated, cosmopolitan, confident, and assertive. This is contrasted greatly with the character of Maggie, whom Mama describes as being like “a lame animal,” shuffling around timidly and always looking at the ground (p. 316).
Maggie is unlearned, simple, and innocent of the world, unlike her older sibling who seems to share little interest in clinging to her roots or continuing their family’s lifestyle. From the narrative, one gets the impression that Dee not only wishes to leave her family’s way of life behind but is ashamed of it as well. Mama recalls a house fire that destroyed their first home ten to twelve years prior: Maggie had been badly burned in the fire, still carrying scars on her arms and legs. Dee simply watched as the fire burned, staring at the inferno with steady concentration as the house was destroyed.
Mama states that Dee hated the old house and that she was likely glad to see it gone, while Maggie will forever bear the scars from the flames. Maggie’s burns are symbolic: she carries the memories of the old house seared right into her skin, whereas Dee was only relieved to be rid of it. When Dee arrives at the house, she is wearing jewelry and a brightly-colored dress despite the heat, consistent with Mama’s declaration that Dee always desired finer things than her mother and sister did.
As soon as she steps out of the car, the difference between the eldest daughter and her family is shown. She greets Mama with an apparently African salutation, and is joined by her boyfriend, who is a Muslim sporting long hair and a beard. Dee grabs a Polaroid camera from the car, snapping pictures of Mama, Maggie, and the house. Her boyfriend attempts some sort of unique handshake with Maggie, who does not seem to understand; Mama wonders if “maybe he don’t know how people shake hands. ”
Upon their arrival at the tiny homestead, Dee and her Muslim boyfriend, whom Mama nicknames “Asalamalakim,” seem more like foreigners and tourists than people who belong there. Dee even treats the house like an attraction, snapping pictures and making sure the small home is in each shot. She then declares that her name is now “Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo,” and not “Dee,” stating that she does not want to be named after her oppressors. Mama points out that Dee was named after her aunt Dicie, who was herself named after Grandma Dee, and so on up the family tree.
The exchange over the African name highlights the disconnect between Dee and her heritage. While Dee believes that she is somehow connecting with African culture by adopting a new name, Mama immediately sees the clear contradiction: Dee has forsaken her family roots, throwing away a name that has been in the family for generations and adopting a foreign name that she most likely found in a book. While Dee sees her new name as authentic, Mama seems confused as to why she would change it, although she agrees to refer to her daughter as “Wangero. As the group sits down to eat, Dee is delighted with the meal and seems smitten with the old wooden benches that her father made. She notices her grandma’s old butter dish, and exclaims that she remembers something she wanted to take home: the top of Mama’s butter churn, made by Aunt Dee’s first husband. Dee fawns over the churn, its wooden handle worn with grooves from decades of use, and states that she wants to use the churn top and dasher as decorations for her place.
Afterwards, she retrieves two quilts from a chest in Mama’s room, and excitedly states that she wants to take them home as well. Mama seems puzzled by the whole affair, wondering why Dee would want these old handmade quilts, and suggests the newer machine-made quilts instead, insisting that they will last longer. Dee explicitly wants the handmade blankets, as they are made from old clothes family members wore, including a part of Great Grandpa Ezra’s Civil War uniform. She declares that she will not use them, but will hang them up on the wall.
This scene, too, highlights an important difference in the way Mama and Dee relate to their past: to Mama, these decades-old items are merely things to be used, but to Dee, they are of great historical significance and should be displayed. This gulf between Mama and Dee is shown further when Mama states that the quilts were to be given to Maggie in the future. Dee recoils in horror, asserting, “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts! … She’d probably be backwards enough to put them to everyday use” (p. 320).
Mama calmly responds that of course Maggie would, and that the quilts should be used as they were intended to be. Dee’s rebuttal is that the blankets would need to be replaced after a few years, to which Mama replies that Maggie knows how to quilt and could easily make new ones. The struggle over the quilts illustrates how far removed Dee is from her family’s way of life. While she ascribes great value to the butter churn and handmade blankets, these are little more than mundane and commonplace everyday-use items to Mama.
Dee acts as if they are precious items that belong in a museum. During the exchange between Dee and Mama, Maggie interjects and says that Dee can have the quilts, meekly stating, “I can ‘member Grandma Dee without the quilts” (p. 321). Maggie understands like her mother that the quilts are mere objects and do not themselves contain the memories and value that Dee ascribes to them. Seeing this, Mama takes the quilts from Dee and gives them to Maggie, knowing that the younger daughter is more closely connected to the family’s roots and the one who will carry on their traditions.
Dee, upset, angrily and ironically declares that Mama does not understand her heritage. Before departing, she tells Maggie that she should try to make something of herself, dismissing Mama’s lifestyle as old-fashioned: “It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you’d never know it” (p. 321). Maggie just smiles at this. In Everyday Use, Alice Walker plays heavily on the contrast between Mama, Dee, and Maggie. While Dee is uninterested and even resentful of her family’s way of life, Maggie, though dull, seems to have a closer grasp of the importance of heritage.
Dee exchanges her family name for an African one, completely eschews her family’s lifestyle and traditions, and wants to use common everyday-use items as decorations. Thinking she is somehow connecting with her heritage, Dee is in fact worlds apart from it, wrapped up in a self-identity that forsakes her real roots. Maggie, on the other hand, takes after Mama: chewing dip, quilting, and passing the time in their tiny house. The gulf between the two sisters illustrates the different ways in which cultural and family environment act on one’s personality, and the distinct and complex relationships people form with the past.