Every Use by Alice Walker (Book Review Sample)

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Every Use by Alice Walker
Introduction
Everyday Use is probably one of the most frequently anthologized short stories in English literature. This story stresses on mother-daughter bond and defines the identity of an African American woman in regards to this bond and other forms of attachment with other family members. This short story incorporates aspects of gentle humor in illustrating Dee’s excess of zeal in trying to reclaim her heritage as well as her attempts to overlook the truth of African American experience according to what she had read about it in various books (Velazquez, 2015). Dee has even gone a step further to join a movement called Cultural Nationalism, which is being led by a spokesman referred to as LeRoi Jones, or Amiri Baraka. However, her knowledge of the basics of this movement seems to be flawed as she is making use of small portions of African lore than showing a coherent understanding of the concept. The contrast between Dee and her mother is clear-the hardworking mother tells of how she has passed her true inheritance to a daughter that is not book-educated but one that belongs to the tradition.
Research Methodology
For this thesis, the writer used the book and an online article to analyze the text.
Findings and Discussion
The speaker in this story is a mother to two very different girls: Dee and Maggie. Throughout her life, Maggie has lived a traditional and an old-fashioned life. On the other hand, Dee had the opportunity to go off to school, which has allowed her to become quite sophisticated. When she comes back home, Dee has changed her name to Wangero, and is accompanied by a new boyfriend (Walker 318). She argues that she wants to take with her their family heirlooms as a means of claiming her real identity as an African American. Dee states that she would like to have the quilts that she plans to exhibit on the walls of her house due to their fine handiwork. On the contrary, Maggie has been promised the same quilts for her marriage, and she loved them as they reminded her of their grandmother. Dee feels that she is entitles to the quilts and is very disappointed when their mother, the speaker, chooses to give them to Maggie, who does not want them for show but "for everyday use." After Dee leaves with other family trophies, Maggie and the mother stay together, and enjoy a heritage that is based on memory and experience rather than on having things out on display.
The thematic richness of this short story is made possible through author’s use of a perceptive and flexible voice of a first-person narrator. It is only through the mother’s point of view that one gains an understanding of both Maggie and Dee. From a great distance, both daughters may appear stereotypical as one is a sweet yet ineffectual homebody while the other is a smart yet ruthless college girl (Walker 316). The close scrutiny that the mother pays to her daughters redeems both Maggie and Dee, as characters in this narrative, from banality. For instance, she explains Maggie’s shyness from a terrible fire that she survived as a child which has forced her to walk with her chin to her chest, her eyes on the ground and her feet in shuffle. Through the mother’s scrutiny, one learns that Dee had very high demands from the moment she was a young child, and that the demands she made of others drew her away. This is why she only had a few friends and a boyfriend that rushed off to marry a girl form the city after Dee started her fault-finding venture on him (Walker 317). From her mother’s commentary, it is clear that Dee’s drive for a better life not only cost her dearly but also brought about invisible scars in her life.
The use of symbols has played a fundamental role in enriching the story. Specifically, the contest for the quilts serves as the primary symbols to t...