Alice Walker\'s Short Story Everyday

Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use" provides readers with a first-person account told from the perspective of an African-American woman, 'Mama', as she relates to her two daughters and to their understanding of their background. Alice Walker wrote this story during a period of turmoil for African-Americans across the U.S. And it is likely that he intended it to serve as a tool to emphasize that many of the individuals who identified with their African roots failed to actually gain a complex understanding of their background. Walker practically wanted people to comprehend that it would be wrong for them to ignore years that the African community spent on the American continent in favor to embrace African cultural values. It is not necessarily that Walker was not interested in supporting the black power movement, as she also wanted its members to be well-acquainted with the importance of appreciating their background.

Cultural identity was a divisive concept during the 1960s and 1970s and this is reflected by Walker's short story. Her story concentrates on how some characters have trouble discovering their cultural identity and to how they go through great efforts in order to do so. These ideas actually reinforce the fact that the African-American community was in a critical condition during the period. While the black power movement experienced significant progress in the era, it was difficult for many of its members to understand exactly what they were fighting for. Moreover, these people had trouble devising a set of attitudes that could be considered normal with regard to their position. Moreover, the civil rights group that emerged during the period further confused individuals, with the black power movement playing an important role in denouncing this group's tendency to focus on an agenda that was too broad and that did not deal with the issue of cultural identity in particular (Harris 4).

"Everyday Use" recounts a story involving the speaker, 'Mama', as she stays home with her daughter Maggie and as they receive a visit from her other daughter, Dee. Dee puts across great sophistication and makes both women feel uncomfortable with regard to their knowledge in general. This character is determined to have her relative acknowledge the importance of their African heritage and emphasizes their failure to realize that they are unable to connect with their background. She uses a series of attitudes in an attempt to open their eyes but gradually demonstrates that she is actually the individual who is unable to understand her past and that she is obsessed with a series of things that have very little to do with her background.

Walker manages to highlight an inner conflict in America's black community in spite of the fact that African-Americans during the period were fighting for their rights and in order to promote their background. "Alice Walker not only explores a disturbed intrafamily relationship between three black women of the South, but represents a severe conflict within America's black society, where new radical views and misperceptions of the word heritage collide with traditional black rural life style" (Lewis 4).

As they struggled to refrain from being assimilated by the dominantly white American community, many African-Americans forgot what they were actually fighting for. Black Power leaders actually made it difficult for many African-Americans to experience proper progress because they were influenced to focus mainly on acting in disagreement with all things associated with white concepts (Harris 4). This makes it possible for readers to gain a better understanding of Walker's position concerning the black power movement during the 1960s and 1970s. Although it was essentially well-intended, it actually harmed the African-American community in some ways as it prevented individuals from identifying with important parts of their past. By simply concentrating on connecting with their African heritage many failed to understand that their parents and their ancestors who lived on the American continent in general created a culture of their own that entailed elements belonging both to the African continent and to the American one.

Most of the short story is about how Dee struggles to find her personal identity by turning to cultural values. While Dee is more concerned with displaying her cultural values and preserving them, Mama and Maggie actually live through their traditions directly. They do not need to pose in individuals obsessed with their background in order to actually understand it. Their ability to preserve thinking present in their ancestors compensates for their lack of knowledge and is more important than Dee's efforts to put across pretentious attitudes. It is not necessarily that these characters are unwilling to accept their African roots, as they actually feel that it would be more important for them to focus on ideas that can actually reflect positively on them.

The quilts play a particularly important role in the story, taking into account that they contain parts of dresses belonging to Dee's predecessors and that they even hold a piece of the uniform her great-grandfather wore during the Civil War. "The visitor rightly recognizes the quilts as part of her fragile heritage, but she fails to see the extent to which she herself has traduced that heritage." (Cowart)

All things considered, Walker puts across a story meant to influence readers to concentrate on getting a more complex understanding of their background in order to be able to truly appreciate their heritage. Dee's behavior is certainly praiseworthy, but it is actually sad that she fails to comprehend the complete nature of her background.

Annotated Bibliography:

Cowart, David, "Heritage and Deracination in Walker's "Everyday Use." (Alice Walker)," Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 33, No. 2

This journal article deals with the idea of heritage as seen from several perspectives. Although Cowart provides readers with the feeling that Dee is wrong by thinking that her mother and sister are unable to acknowledge the importance of her past, he also supports this character by highlighting conditions in the U.S. during the period and how African-Americans were vulnerable to gaining an incomplete understanding of their past.