Broken American Dreams in Walker and Erdrich's Short Stories

Introduction

The short stories Everyday Use by Alice Walker and The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich both concern the American Dream to some extent. Rather than its fulfillment, however, the stories describe how the dream has been broken. The characters in each story have a past in which the dream was whole, with the rich potential of fulfillment. The trauma and unhappiness of reality, however, break those dreams and leave in their wake only a hollow echo of the innocence that was once the beginning of a dream and the promise of joy.

Character Analysis in 'Everyday Use'

The three principal characters in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" are a Black mother and her two daughters, each representing a different aspect of how hope and dreams manifest in the present. Mama is the mother, Dee the beautiful but empty-hearted daughter, and Maggie the representative of the past (Powell).

Mama is practical and takes pride in the things she is able to do. Her "dream" lives in the present moment, without being overly concerned with the past or the future. Her previous house burned down, but she was able to create a new home for herself and her family. She also possesses a number of heirlooms that she intends to leave behind for her daughters, though these do not seem to carry enormous personal meaning for her. She is a simple, uneducated woman who nonetheless uses what abilities she has to provide for her family. To her, Dee has become a stranger with whom she nonetheless attempts to connect on a practical level, though this daughter at times angers her with her selfishness and shallowness. Mama represents the realities of the broken American Dream, but also the strength to cope with it and move forward with life on a very practical scale (Powell).

Maggie, on the other hand, represents the pain of the broken dream. She is permanently scarred from the fire that burned down their previous home. She is the opposite of the beautiful Dee — deeply touched by both the flames and the destruction they caused on both a practical and spiritual level. Maggie also represents an attachment to a past that can no longer be. She is the embodiment of the importance that tradition holds for the marginalized people of the United States. As such, she has no firm connection with the present or the future. Her scars are the result of the violence that superimposed the American Dream on all that was beautiful in the cultures of the past. Mama is able to handle this and use what remains to move on; Maggie is not (Whitsitt). She lives her life in the shadow of the dichotomy between the dream and its hollow fulfillment — a fulfillment meant only for the beautiful and the rich, as represented by Dee.

Culture, Heritage, and Dee's Hollow Dream

Dee is the beautiful daughter. Walker notes that she is "lighter" than Maggie and therefore more likely to succeed according to the requirements of a world in which white people hold social power. Rather than a genuine attempt to reconnect with her family, Dee's return home only serves to emphasize her disconnection from them. She is the character who comes closest to fulfilling the material side of the American Dream. She is rich, beautiful, educated, and socially successful. Her attempt to take the quilts intended for Maggie demonstrates her fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of culture and heritage. She wants to put them on display rather than use them for their original purpose — treating culture not as something practical or living, but as a trophy. This is profoundly disrespectful toward both her mother and her sister (Powell).

Although Dee believes she is respecting and preserving her culture, what she actually does is put on display an aspect of her heritage that she believes will enhance her social standing. By using it in this way, her heritage becomes something of the past, separated from the identity she considers herself to have built. Throughout the story, Dee makes clear that she regards her family and their lifestyle as inferior to her own educated existence. While she is in the home, she continuously signals her desire to leave and pursue the American Dream as she envisions it. In this light, Dee represents the most successful fulfillment of the material side of the American Dream (Whitsitt). On the other hand, she fails entirely to preserve what is most beautiful about her culture, no longer honoring it in any practical sense. In this failure, she represents the tragedy of lost meaning, culture, and heritage in the blind pursuit of material gain and social success.

Conclusion

Both renditions of the dichotomy between past hope and present reality show that the American Dream for both families no longer holds anything but superficial and hollow fulfillment. Dreams are destroyed by forces beyond the characters' ability to control, and hence their destiny is tragedy and sorrow.