Theme in Everyday Use by Alice Walker (Term Paper Sample)

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Heritage in Everyday Use by Alice Walker
Alice Walker is the author of the short story, Everyday use. It’s a short story showing a mother’s relationship with two daughters. She is a well-known social activist championing for human rights, feminist, poet and a writer of not only short stories but also novels. She was born in Eatonton, Georgia to a rural family of sharecroppers. Her father was Lee Walker and her mother’s name was Minnie Grant. Her education commenced when she enrolled to East Putnam Consolidated. She later joined Butler Baker High School and finished as a valedictorian. Afterwards, she joined Spelman college via scholarship through the state of Georgia. It’s during the college that she met mentor professors namely Staughton Lynd and Zinn Howard. The professors helped a great deal to shape her future as an author. Later, she would transfer to Sarah Lawrence college after getting another scholarship to complete her studies (Britannica).
After graduation from college, she joined the Departmental of Welfare in New York City and worked there. She would later join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Mississippi as part of the Legal Defense Fund. Besides civil rights work, Walker also worked as a writer in Jackson State University as well as Tugaloo college. She has produced variety of literary works over the course of her writing career. These include the novel the Third Life of Grange Copeland in 1970, The color people in 1982, collection of short stories such as Way Forward is with a Broken Heart among many other writings. Her writings explored important areas such as racism, violence in the society, patriarchy, culture, poverty among other important topics. She has additionally participated in political criticism on areas such as Israel-Palestine conflict, support for Chelsea manning over her arrest for releasing classified documents and so on. Walker was once married in 1967 but later divorced to Civil rights lawyer Melvyn Leventhal. They were blessed with a daughter in 1969. She has received many awards for her works including the Pulitzer, National Book Award, Lennonono Grant for Peace among others. Walker can thus be said to be a successful person in the literature world which has touched many lives (Britannica).
Walker’s story Everyday Use is the focus of our research as we try to explore how heritage was portrayed in the story. It was published in 1973 as part of collection of short stories. The story encompasses the question of heritage in the 1960s and 1970s. It explores the heritage of the Afro American people at the Centre through the characters Mama, Dee also Wangero as well as character Maggie.
The story is set at a rural area where Mama resided with her daughter, Maggie. Dee on the other hand is daughter that lived in city while schooling there. The story takes place when Dee comes home to visit during the day and arrives to find Mama and Maggie waiting for her. Mama and Maggie having lived in the rural happen to hold more onto the heritage than Dee who has been living in the city. Of course Dee acknowledges and is proud of the Afro American heritage but does not entirely appreciate it as Mama and Maggie do (Martin, 41).