Walker Everyday Use Alice Walker

Walker Everyday Use

Alice Walker explores the emergence of Black pride and empowerment in "Everyday Use." Through the contrast between the two sisters Dee and Maggie, the author illustrates the social transformation from oppression to civil rights. The narrator of the story, a hard-working mother, watches as her two daughters grow up in to strikingly different women. Their differences are emblematic of the political changes taking place throughout the African-American community in the early 1960s. Dee, who comes home from school one day with a new Africanised name, criticizes her mother and sister for being "backwards" and for denying their "heritage." Her youthful zeal is both ironic and immature, as it is really mama and Maggie who remain closely connected to their family traditions.

Tradition and family is symbolized in "Everyday Use" by the quilt. Quilts are tapestries pieced together of patchwork from discarded garments or pieces of what would otherwise be scraps. To mama and Maggie, the quilts are practical items. Their sentimental value is poignant but in an everyday, concrete way. Mama and Maggie's values are simple, their goals mundane yet uplifting at the same time. Dee, on the other hand, is full of spunk and ambition. She views the quilts as if they were anthropological artifacts, remnants not of her grandmother but from some lost civilization. Dee, renamed Wangero, wanted to hang the quilts on the wall like art. Her desire parallels her creative streak and her wacky way of dressing.