Short Story - "everyday Use"

“Everyday Use”

The short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker is about the meaning of heritage and the divisive power of education. The short story "Everyday Use" is a story about two sisters and a mother. This is a poor black family in the 1970’s. The mother has worked hard all her life to provide for her daughters Maggie and Dee. The mother and Maggie live in a house that is made from old wood with windows that are holes cut into the walls. The yard which is hard clay swept neatly serves as an extended living room for the family. This short story shows the true meaning of heritage when Dee wants to take belongs just to show of where she came from whereas her sister will put them to an everyday use as her and her mother do now. As any mother would, she did what she though was best if the daughters agreed or not.

One critic found is Nancy Tuten. Nancy focuses more on the short story itself, specifically the part of the story where mother takes the quilts from Dee and gives them to Maggie. By doing this she states that this is showing that mother understands that Maggie does have self-worth. She describes this as “giving Maggie her voice” (125). To me this is her saying that mother is noticing Maggie is her own person different from Dee. This specific act helps Maggie open up more and stand up for herself from her sister Dee. Nancy Tuten also makes another very good point. She goes on to say that mother expresses herself in a way as well, not through words but more through her actions throughout this short story. As any character can in each and every story, mother just shows it off very well in this specific story. A second critic is Helga Hoel. Helga Hoel focuses more on the author Alice Walker than the short story itself. Helga goes on to explain that Alice Walker wrote this story off of her knowledge of her life growing up and her own heritage. Helga states that Alice Walker used names form her own heritage. But these names weren’t always spelt the way they were supposed to be in that exact heritage. After reading for