I found “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker to be a compelling short story about a mother getting a visit from her most well-achieved child. Although what I found most compelling of the story were the elements implemented into the story such as Point of View, the setting, the establish of the characters and much more. The most appealing of the elements that mainly intrigued me was the element of the Point of View. The one element that left me in bewildered was the Theme.This story takes place in first person Point of View, we use I just as the narrator, or the mother, in “Everyday Use” uses I to depict herself. “I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon”. The reason I find this element to be the most appealing is the aspects of this element. Point of View allows us the reader to see and take in the emotions and the thought process of the mother who is being visited by her daughter. “But even the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were always neat Âlooking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style”. This quotes goes to show the very idea of how much a mother pays attention to her kids and the her thoughts of her own daughter.  On the other hand, I found the Theme to be a little difficult to understand. Theme is the meaning of the story, or what is the story trying to convey to the reader. The story has a compelling ending and an emotional peak, the incidents with the quilt, but I don’t quite understand what Alice was trying to convey as the theme of the story ; Justice? I would have thought that the theme was never going back on your words but the story seems to be more oriented towards the traditions and the culture that it seems to be aimed at following ones’ values. “They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them “. The quotes shows how much of a tradition and maybe how cultural most of the things in the house were from the quilts to the benches.
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At the beginning of the reading I was very confused when it came to the characters. I didn’t know who “I” was. At first I believed it to be another child. Then the story about the TV show made me even more confused. I swear, I read back over 10 times to finally make a prediction for me to then reach the part that the mother introduced herself as “‘..a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands.”(Pg 1) I do agree that it was very appealing to see that this story was told buy the mother’s POV. My idea of what the theme could be is change vs tradition. Maggie is the example of tradition in this story because she stayed with her mother in their home that isn’t in its greatest conditions. She learned things like sewing from her aunt and grandmother and wears plain, traditional style clothing. Dee (Wangero) is the example of change where she hated the houses, she was educated, and “wanted nice things.”(Pg 2) She was everything opposite of what Maggie was raised to be. Once Dee (Wangero) showed up and wanted to change the traditions set in the family, the mother put her food down in the example of the quilt. Dee wanted all of the family memories like the churn top and the churn dasher. But the quilt was promised to Maggie for her wedding and that is part of tradition. There’s a saying I once heard that goes, “You can take the girl out of tradition but you can’t take tradition out of the girl.” (Might have been interpreted from another quote.)
I can relate to this because when I was reading, I was also confused about who’s point of view the story is being told from. I agree with the idea of the theme being change vs tradition. The reason why is that in the story, Maggie stayed with tradition because she stayed with her mother instead of going to get an education. Whereas Dee, broke tradition and went to go get an education. For example, in the story Dee would read to her mother. Back in those days, society thought that education wasn’t meant for women. That’s why Dee breaks tradition. On the other hand, Maggie stayed with her mother to learn. Since Maggie stayed with her mother, she is the favorite child since she got the quilts. Change vs tradition would be a good theme for this story.
After reading “Everyday Use” written by Alice Walker, I found Jonabell blog to be the one I am in the most agreeance with. I was very confused about what the theme of “Everyday Use” was suppose to be, the theme of a story is defined as the meaning, and I did not understand if Alice wanted the theme to be a mother deals with a successful child and a child who she believes can be as great, or how different it is trying to have children that you wish you could please without hurting either one. I am also in agreeance with the element of Point of View that Jonabell has shown in her blog. The point of view that Alice uses is from the Mother that continuously uses “I” through the dialogue used between her and each daughter, and within her thoughts as she describes the setting at which her daughter would be arriving too. The mother uses dialogue that shows her point of view as she is saying “I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas”. She is allowing the readers to understand why she could not just willingly pass the quilts over to the daughter that has now asked while coming to visit. She also shows her point of view as she questions the daughter on what she would be doing with the quilts “What would you do with them”? the Mother’s point of view was clearly stated throughout “Everyday Use” and Jonabell helped me understand the meaning better with her direct quotes and explanations.
After reading “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, at first i was very confused because i did not know understand what was going on so i went back and read it again. We can clearly identify that this story is from the mother point of view. As we can see “Mama” is very honest. What i understood about the theme is about the power of education meaning that mama did not had the chance to have an education like Dee. She sent him to a good school because she wanted Dee to have a better education than his family, but Dee now has another position about this world so now she has no respect but her world that now she believes in. She also showed symbolism and i think one of the symbolism can be the yard because it can represent “mamas” infiltrated life. In conclusion, “everyday use” is about how the past and present can be connected with generation from the past that can tell you how hard was for them to have an education.
I would have to agree that one of the most appealing elements of this story would indeed have to be the point of view which the story is being told. It brings the story together as we see the relationship between the mother and daughter being shown through their actions and dialogue. I will also have to agree that the theme was one of the hardest things to understand about this story. While you suggest justice as a possible theme, I would have to argue and say that I think the theme would be change. Change is presented throughout the story in many ways. Two noticeable times were when Dee changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, getting rid of the name given by her mother and second, when the mother stood her ground during the argument of the quilt where she grabbed the quilt from Dee and gave it to Maggie, who was supposed to get it, and not let Dee have it her way, which she is accustomed to having.
The style of character building used in “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, caught my attention the second I began reading. The way Maggie and Dee’s mother was described nearly painted a clear image of who she was. On the final paragraph of page one the narrators point of you of herself told us how “she was a, big boned woman with rough, man-working hands.” She continued on describing herself as a women capable of doing manly things better than a man. She was the one in charge of the household. With these characteristics, the idea that she was possibly a single mom began to arise, as nowhere in the story was a father figure mentioned. The narrator, “I” was both father and mother of Maggie and Dee.
I find “Everyday Use” especially striking because of the way that the mother describes her own persona and Maggie’s persona in contrast to Dee’s persona. I also agree with one of Jonabell’s ideas for the theme being justice but in my opinion i also think for most of the story the theme is a comparison between the life Dee has lead and the life she has left behind which her mother and sister are still living. In the story the mother is discussing a dream she had, she talks about herself being big-boned with man-like hands and having the skill set that a man would usually have. But after that she say that in this dream she not like that “I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake.”(Pg 1) This speaks to what Dee’s opinion is of her mother and the way that her family humbly lives adding to my opinion of the theme. In addition there is the part of the story that says “Dee wanted nice things”(Pg 2) and the paragraph continues on to talk about the quality of the things she wanted and how she would pursue these things no matter the obstacle. In the end, after their basic way of living was put under the scrutiny of her daughter Dee she stood up to her preserving tradition by not surrendering her most prized piece of family history to “the child who has ‘made it'” (Pg 1)
I agree with Jonabell, I think that the use of point of view, specifically from the mother, is very important to the story. We get to see how she views her two daughters, the headstrong and independent Dee, and the shy and submissive Maggie. We see these characters like this because the mother seems them like this; from the way she describes Dee we can tell that even if she views her as different, more special, than herself and Maggie, she still tries to understand and care for her daughter. When she struggles but is determined to learn Deeâs new name is a perfect example of that. Yet we see a shift in that behavior, Dee causes that shift, when she declares that Maggie does not have an appreciation for the quilt and its heritage. It dawns on âMamaâ that for once Dee is that one that is unappreciative of her heritage, and that Maggie, who seems to be put on the sidelines but was always there and understands her culture more intimately than Dee ever will.