“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker

“Everyday Use” is about the relationships between the mother, the narrator, and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. Maggie has burn scars, walks like a “lame animal”, and seems to accept the fact that God has always favored her sister over her. (245) Dee has “faultfinding power”, likes nice things, gets what she wants, and is part of the black rights movement. (246) The most interesting aspect of this essay, I found, was the contrast between the two sisters. Dee wants to be in touch with her heritage, as can be seen by her fondness for the quilts and the churn she wishes to hang on her walls like art, and as can be seen by her adoption of the African name, “Wangero”. However, as the narrator describes, Dee previously cast off her background. “I didn’t want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college.” (250) Further, the mother is open to calling Dee “Wangero”, but finds it ironic that her daughter would want to cast off the name that is actually true to her heritage, since her grandmother and aunt carried that same name as well. Maggie highly contrasts Dee: she understands that she cannot always get what she wants, and she is not involved in the fight against “the people who oppress” her (247). Maggie reflects the generation of her mother, where “colored asked fewer questions than they do now” (246). Part of Walker’s craft as a writer is to use the contrast between Maggie and Dee to point out the tensions between different generations of black people in America in the 1960s and 70s. Maggie and her mother seem in awe of Dee, while at the same time feeling as if she is “forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice.” (246)