Analysis Essay on Everyday Use by Alice walker

Everyday use is an extensively studied and anthologized short story written by Alice walker. The story was first published in the year 1973 as a portion of Alice’s short story collection in Love and Trouble. The story is narrated in the first person by a Black American woman characterized to be ‘mama’ a woman living in the Deep South with one of her daughters. The woman has two daughters named Dee and Maggie. The story is written to follow the difference between Mrs. Johnson and Mama’s shy daughter. Maggie, who is the younger shy daughter, still sticks to follow the traditional black culture of the rural south. The older daughter Dee is well educated, and Walker describes her as a well-educated and successful woman who prefers to follow a diverse route of life to regaining her artistic distinctiveness.

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In Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” the author takes up a profoundly recurrent theme in her work. She uses symbolism in her work in representation of coordination and also engagements in the brawls within the African- American culture. The short story focuses on a meeting between the affiliates of Johnson family Dee’s mother and younger sister Maggie. Maggie and Dee are important, an encounter between two distinct understanding of or methodologies to African-American beliefs and opinions. Walker engages the use of symbolism to highlight the distinction between diverse interpretations which eventually endorse one of them. This shows that culture and heritage are portions of our day-to-day life. Symbolism is largely employed at the opening of the short story by Alice Walker. She characterizes Dee’s mother, Mrs. Johnson and the story narrator. In a more precise way, Mrs. Johnson’s language advances to a convinced association between herself and her corporal surroundings. “She waits for Dee in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy” she emphasizes on the physical characteristics of the yard and the word “so” establishes the pleasure in the characterization which in case projects to the supplementations that she and Maggie have to their home and to the average daily run-through of their lives. In fact, the yard is ordinarily mentioned to symbolize a comprehensive living room. Its existence is not only as an object of ownership but also as the platform of her life, as a kind of manifestation of herself. Her description of herself matches the acquaintance and well-being of herself and her background. Maggie, on the other hand, is defined as relatively unappealing and reluctant. The scars she bears on her body have similarly damaged her personality as a consequence she is introverted and also scared. However, Dee is fundamentally Maggie’s opposite. She symbolizes her good looks, desire, and determination in school. Despite her mother’s struggles to pay her schools fees, her education has tremendously been essential in shaping her personality but has actively tipped her off from her family. In other words, Dee has followed a trail which goes in contradiction of their customs and legacy of her own family.

Work Cited

Crayton, Lisa A. Reading and Interpreting the Works of Alice Walker. Enslow Publishing, LLC, 2016.